Supertramp - Breakfast in America

[JGuy Grungeman]

I hear a lot of Supertramp on the radio, notably four songs from Breakfast in America: Goodbye Stranger, Breakfast in America, The Logical Song (my favorite), and Take thew Long Way Home. I always passed Supertramp as another radio band. Well, this isn't the first time listening to the album itself changed my opinion of them, and it won't be the last. Supertramp's got a unique style that's so quirky, weird, and eccentric that they really don't have any right to be as good as they are. Breakfast in America is a fantastic piece of pop rock, and now one of my personal favorite albums.

Supertramp's Breakfast in America is powered by quirky keyboards and occasionally fantastic saxophone solos by their backing vocalist/saxophonist John Helliwell. Supertramp has a strange way of talking about life itself within their lyrical content, often cryptic. The title track and “The Logical Song” are very cryptic. And they often change their tone of the song to fit the lyrics. Whereas the title track sounds like spouting random sentences with a hidden message while Supertramp plays a goofy and upbeat tune, “The Logical Song” focuses more on rhyming the same syllable to create another kind of cryptology while the tone is more focused on keeping a shift between deep meaning and pure enjoyment in the song's vibe. And Goodbye Stranger is a simple story of traveling, and the music keeps a slightly more serene flow while the singer asks himself if he will ever see his friends again. As you can see, Supertramp are experts at keeping a flow together, instead of just playing a song with the same flow and singing about anything they want.

Supertramp's sixth album is also very heavily focused on maintaining rhythms that fit well together in the song. Each little rhythm they put in the album is so very catchy. This is easily one of the catchiest albums I know.

Overall, I'd say Breakfast in America is a sure hit. I recommend it for it's fun, progressive take on pop rock music. Supertramp are weird, but that';s for the better. And I hear Crime of the Century is better.

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