Elected

Elected may refer to:

Music

See also

Elected (Ayreon album)

Elected is the first EP by progressive metal project Ayreon, owned by Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen. It was released on April 25, 2008 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and on April 28 in the rest of Europe. It features the guest performance of German singer Tobias Sammet, from Avantasia and Edguy.

The EP contains an Alice Cooper cover, an acoustic guitar and voice version of "E=MC²" and the track "Ride the Comet", both from the album 01011001. There is also a piano version of The Human Equation's "Day Six: Childhood". Some reviewers and also the CD-Text information on the CD itself call the EP The Universal Ayreonaut.

The album entered at 69# at the France Singles Top 100 and stayed in that position for three weeks.

Background

On January 25, 2008, both Ayreon’s and Avantasia’s latest albums were released (01011001 and The Scarecrow, respectively). 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 of Avantasia, because Tobias managed to have Alice Cooper, who is Arjen's favorite singer, to perform on his last Avantasia album, leading to some incendiary emails sent to Sammet on Lucassen's part. Coincidentally, Tobias was also mad at Arjen because he had Bruce Dickinson (Tobias' favorite singer) performing on his Ayreon album Universal 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, they decided to record a song together. Initially, the EP was to be titled Ayreon vs. Avantasia.

Elected (song)

"Elected" is a 1972 song by rock band Alice Cooper, the first Hot 100 hit on their 6th studio album Billion Dollar Babies. The single reached #26 during election week on the US charts, #4 on the UK charts and #3 in Austria. It inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song.

The song was a radical re-write of their 1969 song "Reflected" from the album Pretties for You.

Chart positions

Track listing

Appearances on Albums

Personnel

Cover versions