The album was intended to be based on the I, Robot stories written by Asimov, and Eric Woolfson spoke with Asimov himself, who was enthusiastic about the idea. As the rights already had been granted to a TV/movie company, the album's title was altered slightly by removing the comma in "I," and the theme and lyrics were made to be more generically about robots rather than to be specific to the Asimov universe.[6] The cover inlay reads: "I Robot... The story of the rise of the machine and the decline of man, which paradoxically coincided with his discovery of the wheel... and a warning that his brief dominance of this planet will probably end, because man tried to create robot in his own image." The title of the final track, "Genesis Ch.1 v.32", follows this theme by implying a continuation to the story of Creation, since the first chapter of Genesis only has 31 verses.[7]
According to the band's website, Paul McCartney unintentionally helped to inspire the song "Some Other Time". When Parsons had asked if McCartney could read a line of poetry for the band's first album in exchange for a favor Parsons had previously done him, McCartney replied by saying; "Some other time Alan, some other time". This gave the band an idea for a song title.[8]
By pure coincidence, the album was released shortly after Star Wars came out in the United States. The group acknowledges that part of the album's success came from it being the only album with a robot on the cover during a time when robots were suddenly "all the rage".[8]
Artwork
The artwork was created by the English art design group Hipgnosis. The album cover photo features Storm Thorgerson's assistants in the escalator tubes of the circular Terminal 1 building of the Charles de Gaulle Airport outside of Paris.[9] The picture was taken without the permission of the airport management.[10] Over this is superimposed a painting of a robot with a stylised atom for a brain. The robot also appears on the label of the record. The original vinyl release has a gatefold-style cover; the inside spread has the lyrics and a monochrome photograph of Parsons. The pose and angle of the photograph echoes that of the robot on the front cover.
Release
I Robot was not supported by any live performances and instead received a two-phase promotional campaign to promote the album.[11] For the first phase, Parson and Woolfson visited several cities across the United States where they conducted interviews and playbacks of the album with media personnel. The second phase included create-a-robot contests on radio stations and record stores, displays, and what Record World described as a "fact-finding and sight-seeing tour" in Washington, D.C..[12][11] The promotional trip to Washington, D.C included an individual dressed in a mechanical suit outside of the White House along with members of record shops, promotional companies, and a local marketing manager for Arista Records.[13] One of the radio show contests was held by WMMS, which offered a video music machine capable of synchronizing light patterns to music playing from a stereo system as the grand prize.[14]
In the UK, I Robot was promoted via a special event at the Royal Festival Hall where 150 were given the opportunity to listen to the album with headphones, which according to Music Week, broke the world record for "the greatest number of headphones linked simultaneously to one sound source."[15]
Three singles were released from the album: "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You", "Don't Let It Show" and "Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)". The LP track "Breakdown" went into heavy rotation on AOR stations and continues to be played on classic rock radio.
Billboard believed that the use of the vocoder contributed to a sound resembling the work of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and thought that the album would perform well on FM radio.[17]Music Week said that the album featured a "lush production right through from the cover art to the recorded sound" and thought that its conceptual themes were "grandiose enough to make for impressive listening."[18]The New York Times praised the "really ingenious use of the possibilities of the modern recording studio," but concluded that "the overall esthetic is still a flatulent one, self-importantly preening itself as art."[19]
Reissues
I Robot has been reissued multiple times in various formats since its initial release on vinyl, including numerous audiophile releases. Besides the 8-track, vinyl and compact-cassette releases, Arista also released the original aluminum CD along with the rest of the Project albums, up to that time. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) released the album on standard vinyl (MFSL 1-084), UHQR vinyl (MFQR 1-084), Ultradisk One-Step vinyl (UD1S 1-041), and on aluminium CD (MFCD-1-804). Classic Records has released the album in analogue form on 180-gram vinyl, as well as digitally on HDAD (24bit/192kHz DVD-Audio and 24bit/96kHz DVD-Video). JVC released the album as a K2 edition, with Ammonia Avenue and Eye in the Sky. In 2007, as part of a larger campaign, Sony released a remastered version along with bonus tracks on CD. It was later released in Japan as an SHM-CD, with the same mastering.
The album was re-released under Legacy Recordings as a "legacy edition" in 2013 on CD, with an extra disc with unreleased bonus tracks, mastered by Dave Donelly. There was also a vinyl edition with the same mastering launched one month later.
The latest re-release in October 2025 consists of 2 45 RPM heavy vinyl albums, the original album (remastered in 2025) on one CD, 3 CDs of bonus and unreleased tracks, plus a Blu-Ray disc with DTS, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos remixes of the original album, plus the 2025 remaster in high resolution audio.
"I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" is featured on the Los Santos Rock Radio station in Grand Theft Auto V, and it is used to soundtrack the final action scene during one of the game's possible endings.
↑ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1sted.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
↑ "Benatar's music creates yearning for life on edge". Deseret News. 25 May 2006. Archived from the original on 31 July 2012. Retrieved 29 April 2009. Songs such as the title track, "If You Think You Know How to Love Me," "We Live for Love," "Heartbreaker," "So Sincere," a remake of Alan Parsons' "Don't Let It Show" ...
↑ "Pat Benatar". Billboard. 1979. Retrieved 29 April 2009. "Don't Let It Show" is an Alan Parsons song and this tune perhaps ...
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