Talk:Vulture Culture

Release Date
There is a document on Discogs that shows an Arista document, apparently published by Eurodisc Limited, listing the release date for Vulture Culture as 15 January 1985. However, nowhere does this say that this was the FIRST release of the album. Often times, different countries will have different release dates, and often times there are limited releases before the main, wide release. Album releases tend to always show the release year in their copyright, even if the release is set for January. Discogs shows a release of Vulture Culture that came out on 5 February, 1985, and MANY, MANY releases that came out in December of 1984. Obviously some versions of the album were not released until 1985, but until someone can prove otherwise, the official original release date is verified many times over as being in 1984.

Here is the URL for the Master page for VC, with a note referencing the images for a January 1985 release, but which is in direct contradiction to the many listings below that show the original release year as 1984: https://www.discogs.com/The-Alan-Parsons-Project-Vulture-Culture/master/25305. Can we settle this issue without any edit wars? We have to take the evidence of the original release year, and not a piece of paper showing one edition of the album to be released later. Allmusic and ProgArchives both agree on the 1984 date (and at least Allmusic predates Wikipedia as a source of information), and while RateYourMusic shows 1985, it shows the February release, which we already know was not the first.

Also, yes, there is a reference on Parsons' website that claims 1985 as the release date, but it also claims 1986 as the date for Stereotomy, which we know to be also incorrect. MIchael Holm's discography page is also full of errors. Probably Parsons' own site shows information from a certain country's release, and not necessarily the first. Again, the best evidence we have shows late 1984 as the release date of this album, with some editions not being released until 15 January, 5 February, or 15 February of 1985. The edition shown in the document should be proven to be the original, first release date in order to be considered as such here. MXVN (talk) 01:45, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Donkey Kong reference
Donkey Kong Country sold 8 million copies and does have a level called "Vulture Culture" that was a reference to this album. I suspect that the game has sold more copies than the album. Could be wrong. But it's definitely relevant. --Nerd42 (talk) 14:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

hmmm..... copying?
I recently heard this album and was struck that "Sooner or Later" (track 4) starts and sounds like an alternative imitation of Every Breath You Take, the Police song which was recorded in late 1982/early 1983 - at least a full year before the Alan Parsons song. It has the same chord sequence Yet I am surprised to see no mention of the fact. But I don't know if I should add it because I haven't found any online mention of the obvious fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:EA01:1090:5446:5A8B:64A2:E62C (talk) 11:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

"Double album" claim
I've removed a claim from the article that this album was originally intended as the second half of a double album with "Ammonia Avenue." It was uncited, but it's easy to find this claim repeated around the internet, on blogs, in user reviews, etc, but I cannot find any actual good source for the claim- neither Parsons nor Woolfson nor anybody else involved with the band seems to have advanced it. On the face of it, it would seem to be impossible- if Vulture Culture was recorded May-July 1984, as this article states, that span of time is entirely after not just the recording but the release of Ammonia Avenue (February 1984). It looks like this claim was originally founded in blogger/reviewer speculation, maybe based on perceived similarities between the albums, maybe based on the idea that they came out unusually close together (there's also been some confusion as to their release dates; a user here on Wikipedia incorrectly moved their release dates back a few months apiece, and I've seen references to the albums supposedly coming out in the same year). Said claim then seems to have gotten greater exposure and traction via being featured here on Wikipedia, and spread from there. Anyway- if there actually is a good source for this claim that I can't find (eg a magazine interview that hasn't been posted online), it should of course be re-added and properly cited. Yspaddadenpenkawr (talk) 14:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)