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| Elected | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| EP by | ||||
| Released | 25 April 2008 | |||
| Recorded | Late January - February 2008 (title track) | |||
| Genre | Progressive metal | |||
| Length | 13:45 | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label | Inside Out Music/SPV | |||
| Ayreon chronology | ||||
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Elected is the firstEP byprogressive metal projectAyreon, owned byDutch musicianArjen Anthony Lucassen. It was released on 25 April 2008 inGermany,Austria andSwitzerland, and on 28 April in the rest ofEurope. It features the guest performance of German singerTobias Sammet, fromAvantasia andEdguy.
The EP contains anAlice Cooper cover, an acoustic guitar and voice version of"E=MC²" and the track "Ride the Comet", both from the album01011001. There is also a piano version ofThe Human Equation's "Day Six: Childhood". Some reviewers and also theCD-Text information on the CD itself call the EPThe Universal Ayreonaut.
The album entered at #69 at theFrance Singles Top 100 and stayed in that position for three weeks.[1]
In January 2008, bothAyreon’s andAvantasia’s latest albums were released (01011001 andThe Scarecrow, respectively).[2] The press soon started to create speculations on the possibility of them being rivals and which album would be more successful. When asked about this,Arjen Anthony Lucassen (mastermind behind Ayreon) stated that he was mad at Tobias Sammet, head ofAvantasia, because Tobias managed to haveAlice Cooper, who is Arjen's favorite singer, to perform on his lastAvantasia album, leading to some incendiary emails sent to Sammet on Lucassen's part. Coincidentally, Tobias was also mad at Arjen because he hadBruce Dickinson (Tobias' favorite singer) performing on his Ayreon albumUniversal Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator and the media's constant queries about his thoughts on Ayreon after the creation of his Avantasia project. To "put some fuel on the fire created by the press", as Arjen stated on his website,[3] they decided to record a song together. Initially, the EP was to be titledAyreon vs. Avantasia.
