An acclaimed sound engineer involved with some of the most influential bands (The Beatles) and records (Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon") the rock world has ever known, Alan Parsons teamed up with Eric Woolfson in the late 1970s and began releasing a string of concept albums. Featuring a revolving door of friends and guest artists, the group turned out a number of pop hits in the late '70s and early '80s for Arista Records.

The label, now in the process of releasing a series of discs commemorating its history and best-selling artists (the "Arista Heritage" line) collected a number of the "Alan Parsons Project's" most familiar numbers and put them together to form "Master Hits."

Since I got interested in pop music only after the Project's commercial peak had passed, I'm not sure what their actual biggest hits were. In listening to the selections on this disc, and rediscovering the APP records I have, I thought at first that Arista could have gone back and picked out a few different songs. "Limelight" is a great song, but if I had to choose one song from the "Stereotomy" disc, it would have been "Beaujolais." But, with continued listens, I came to the conclusion that, for better or worse, this disc does give an accurate representation of what the "Alan Parsons Project" was all about, with a good selection of synthesizer driven tracks (I Robot), orchestrated numbers (Ammonia Avenue) and pure pop gems (Sooner or Later). If not wholly complete (at 50 minutes, there was plenty of space to pack a couple more tracks in), it does touch on the essentials.

On more than one track, I was reminded of how the "Alan Parsons Project" is one of those bands everybody has heard something by, even if they have no clue where they know it from. In the case of "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You," because I KNOW I've heard its disco-tinged dilemma (is the protagonist a man talking to a machine or the other way around?) on TV or in some movie, without being able to place it. The prime example, of course, is the short instrumental, "Sirius," which is intimately familiar to any fan of professional basketball, even if 90 percent don't know the six-time World Champion Chicago Bulls' introduction theme was created by the "Alan Parsons Project."

Arista's intent, obviously, was to capitalize on the past popularity of their artists to pull in a few more dollars. If those Heritage series discs can remind people about music they may have forgotten about, or provide introductions for new fans to follow up on, I'm willing to forgive the label. "The Alan Parsons Project - Master Hits" is a good start in that forgiveness process.