Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe

2.5

Another prog heavy hitter! The themes of this album are retellings of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry and horror stories. Before today, the only exposure to APP I had was their album Eye in the Sky. This is their debut album. Super strong for a 1st album. Really great!

Favorite songs: (The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher: Pavane

Least favorite songs: The Fall of the House of Usher: Prelude

4/5

I've listened to some Alan Parsons Project stuff but had no idea their debut album was all Poe stories?! This is amazing. Such a perfect combination of my interests.

*WOW* what a good a pull! APP's overall career hit rate wasn't the best (a lot of their 1980s work was just kinda mediocre soft pop, Woolfson's beautiful voice notwithstanding), but there's definitely some gems in them hills.

Far as this one goes, I've never really been able to not get bored during the House Of Usher sequence, but the entire run of songs preceding it is some A+ art rock

July 30, 2025
HL: "The Raven", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado"

Kinda frustrating that you have to click through the "1987 remix" to get to the original album (on Apple Music anyway), though the spoken word bits in that are neat.

The first time I heard the "Usher" suite, I thought it was a let down compared to the agreeable, slightly cheesy A-side. Listening to it now, it's about as apt for Poe concept album as one could hope for, though the switch back to 70's rock with "To One in Paradise" is still jarring.

what a goofy album. in a cool way.

The fall of house usher was a bit
Much, appreciated the rest of the album. I’d say it’s worthy of an inclusion on the list.

I have never read Poe, but this album might change that. An esoteric collection of bizarre songs, but one which I really enjoyed

The debut album of The Alan Parsons Project that, for some reason, climbed pretty high on the Billboard pop charts, puts to music Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories but, in my opinion, fails to evoke that horror because of the beautiful symphonic and synth feel of the album. Poe needs black metal or dark folk. “The Fall of the House of Usher”, a 16-minute long track broken into five pieces, deals with Poe’s dark themes with more substance, style, and atmosphere.

These songs don't seem to capture the mood of the Edgar Allan Poe stories they are supposedly inspired by.