OccultHawk

Thank you.

Pet_Sounds

Thanks, TH. I doubt I'll have time for Crisis (another tourney this weekend), so you can give that to US if he wants it.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Unknown Soldier

I'd like to help out but I'm not going to be around that much this weekend, which is the reason I offloaded my album to Chula Vista.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Plankton

by Supertramp (1979 AMI Records).

Gone Hollywood
We open with a fade-in. Beautiful sax, a bit of some melancholy to this as this tells the story of someone who moves to Hollywood in the hopes of making it big. Davies (or Hodgson, not sure which right now) does a fantastic job on this story. Some outstanding use of minor chord changes here that sit well. Some playful meanderings in outro fade.

Logical Song
A song that always had a personal impact on me for the fact that I had been "sent away" quite a few times in my youth. Very haunting and deliberate at times. Some of the most memorable sax playing here as Helliwell plays in and out, providing some horn stabs and a give and take with the vocals. Outstanding songwriting on this piece.

Goodbye Stranger
I've always loved the backwoods quality of the vocals on this tune. Playful keys paired with some delicate guitar voicings as the chorus marches forth with the cadence of the tune. The phased guitar scratches keep the beat as the bridge brings it around full circle. This is a powerful earworm. One can't help but boogie along as the tune picks up steam and eventually builds to a fantastic crescendo. The phrasing on the outro guitar is fantastic.

Breakfast In America
A playful ragtime beat that tells the story of someone who dreams of coming to America. Kind of a sinister quality to the entire song with a beautiful clarinet that accents the intrinsic quality of the lyrics.

Oh Darling
One of the tunes I've never heard. Some lovely keys/synth. Kind of feels like the tones may have been Stevie Wonder inspired. The vocal harmonies are nice, and then there's the sax hidden in there in the mix. The tune really rides on the strength of that root chord. Some Franky Valley style falsetto that seems a bit forced and a bit comical. No wonder I've never heard this.

Take The Long Way Home
My parents divorced when I was 3, and my Father used to pick my brother and me up every weekend. The trip was about an hour each way, and when this song came out on the local radio, I'd hear it just about every trip. Sitting staring out the window of my Father's van, this song always had me longing for something more, something unattainable, yet feeling like I was living in the moment. A beautifully haunting song. Now that I'm older, the lyrics really hit home as I feel Hodgson is telling me to enjoy life, and savor every moment. I try to do that everyday.

Lord Is It Mine
Haven't heard this one either. More melancholy here as it opens with a lone piano and voice. Beautiful chorus as Davies belts out his refrain. The lyrics tell me he's giving some sort of hope to the listener. Lovely clarinet solo in this piece as it builds to a bit of a crescendo here, then drops away to it's melancholy root. Very nice.

Just Another Nervous Wreck
Another first. More of the playful keys driving this tune as it opens with the singer/songwriter approach. A bit of an anthem here as the vocals charge ahead. Some beautiful guitar soloing give this a bit of a rock feel to it. For some reason this feels inspired by some Neil Diamond. I'm not sure why.

Casual Conversations
More new here. Laid back and mellow approach here. Reminds me of a bit of lounge music, especially with that phased out hammond plugging along while the sax fills in the gaps. Kind of groovy.

Child Of Vision
For some reason, I feel I've heard this. Ah yes. This has some elements of prog to it. Some great syncopated keys that take the lead as Hodgson comes in. All three vocalists peer through the chorus, which takes on a dreamlike quality, then back to the main beat. The piano solo is a nice touch as it bounces playfully in and out of the cadence. Some beautiful outro sax. I'm a sucker for any sax playing, good or bad. Great way to end an album.

-Summation-
I've always wondered what the rest of this album sounded like apart from all the hit's that get regular radio play and I'm happy I finally found the motivation to give it a listen. No rating or anything like that from me, so I'll just say I enjoyed myself. Supertramp were definitely a force to be reckoned with in the industry.

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Trollheart

Nice review Plankton. Also like the way you made your avatar announce it (good to have him back too!) --- I always like it when people have a personal connection to an album; makes it more likely they'll do a, if you will, non-standard review, and yours did not disappoint.

One of my favourite 'Tramp albums and I'd just like also to point out the clever album sleeve, where the dishes are all piled up in a mockup of the New York skyline, to say nothing of the waitress striking the pose of the Statue of Liberty. The album that really broke Supertramp internationally, and like most such albums, also led to something of a decline in their fortunes commercially.

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OccultHawk

How did it lead to a decline?

Plankton

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Chula Vista

Crime of the Century - 1974

This may disappoint but I've decided to review this album as a whole rather than breaking it down song by song. I did try taking a few stabs at going tune by tune but frankly it just wasn't working. I kept finding myself being redundant since many of the overall redeeming qualities of each song are indicative of the entire piece of work.

I have to start by saying this is one of my all time favorite rock albums. A deserted island disc for me. I think it's a total masterpiece in every single way; songwriting, production, concepts, performances, tones, mixing, and on and on. It's one of the very few albums I would categorize as perfect. It's also one of the few that I can't just listen to a song or two at a time. If I put it on I listen to the whole thing, every time.

After the poor sales of their first two albums, Supertramp had broken up. Founding members, and singers/songwriters Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson regrouped with three brand new members. The bands A&R man (and subsequent long time manager) convinced their record label to give them another shot. The label financed putting the "new" group up in a centuries old farmhouse out in the English countryside so that they could get to know each other personally and musically in an intimate setting. For the next few weeks it was nothing but eating, sleeping, and music.

Davies and Hodgson had gone armed with dozens of demo ideas and slowly the 8 songs that made the album began to take shape. It was time to head into the studio. It was at this point that the new group struck gold by way of hooking up with famed recording engineer Ken Scott. Scott had been lead engineer working for George Martin and had manned the board for the majority of the Beatles work from 1967 till the band broke up. In the years since he'd moved on to producing, taking everything he'd learned previously and putting his own stamp on it.

Scott and the band immediately hit it off and he not only helped them fine tune the songs, but also encouraged them to experiment with different tones, effects, recording techniques, and adding orchestration. I consider him a sixth band member based on his contributions on COTC. A perfect example: for the train sounds in Rudy the guys took a field recorder to a London station. After getting what they needed they were wrapping things up when a busker started playing a violin nearby. Scott immediately decided to record him and to use it on the song and it completely works and fits the mood of the track.

If you've never heard COTC do yourself a favor. Get the remastered CD and then put aside 45 minutes where you won't be interrupted in any way. Be sure to use a good quality stereo or set of headphones. Now listen to the album from start to finish. The lyrics cover fear, loneliness, cynicism, self doubt, mental illness, and underneath it all, a hint of hope. The songs are all gems that would stand on their own if only strummed on a single acoustic guitar. And the overall production value of the finished product is remarkable. Sometimes it's a single reverb drenched harmonica, or an untreated piano, other times there's so much going on, so many different instruments and tones, so many effects and changes in the mood and ambiance of the pieces, yet is all 100% works perfectly.

If I had to vote on the most perfect rock album ever I'd probably give the nod to DSOTM, but COTC would make the decision a really hard one.

(reserve the right to supplement this review later)

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Pet_Sounds

Really, really great reviews, Chula and Plank.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Trollheart

Because after it they had zero hits, with only one more album featuring HRH, and after that, well, they essentially just disappeared really. Their heyday was in the mid-to-late seventies, that's pretty much all anyone remembers of them who is not a fan.

Essentially, Breakfast in America was their commercial peak, and there's only one way to go from there...

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