I have no idea on which Sir Elton John' song you think exactly, but his Tiny Dancer the song (from Madman Across the Water LP, 1971) reminds me of Supetramp' style.
Discussions like this are always a bit redundant but ( ) Why can't I remember a single Supertramp story in the likes of Uncut or Mojo? No "Crime pays: The story behind one of the most arresting albums ever. They broke the bank but it came at a price" ( ) ? It's also notable that no Supertramp album is hard or expensive to find. In fact, if you planned to pick up every A&M copy of "Crime" you find on any given record fair, you needed a few people - or a van - to carry your haul home. Then there's the fact that no record dealer I've ever talked to mentioned Supertramp albums as **** hot sellers. In fact they don't even pick them up for their stores in those early morning digging battles. Because they already have a few copies. But as I said... all of this are personal observations. Which can not be proven.
We're clearly not listening to the same album. COTC has a moody atmosphere. BIA doesn't. The title track, Gone Hollywood, The Logical Song, aren't songs with the least bit of moody atmosphere. Now, the last track? Yes. You can argue The Long Way Home has some, yes. Not the rest. Not even close.
Supertramp...have loved them since when Even In The Quietest Moments was new. Then went backwards and discovered and loved their others. To your point, though Crisis...What Crisis had some Crime Of The Century sound elements (Due to having to rush it) in general every album was very different to the point that nothing on Quietest Moments gave us any clues to what their next album, Breakfast, would be like. As different as that album was from their previous one’s, I absolutely loved it from the very first listen. What was fun was no one I knew even knew who they were before Breakfast came out. They got some air play on FM radio (especially Bloody Well Right, which was a blast to hear with headphones) but the general public that listened to top 40 didn’t know who they were! So, I was kind of proud as a 16 year old that I was already a big fan. I can’t think of another band that was so consistently good while changing their sound so much. Granted, their run of classic albums (I would say Crime through Breakfast...Famous Last Words has some gems but it is a poor rehash of Breakfast imo, and the band knew it was over while recording it) wasn’t really that long but still, most bands are lucky to have a couple great albums. These guys had four spectacular albums and Last Words wasn’t exactly terrible, just a bit lazy. Anyway, I bet your experience of only being aware of Breakfast and then not exploring their others is fairly common. Glad you discovered more of their albums! Hard for me to pick a favorite but a perfectly good argument could be made that as a pure artistic listen, Crime is their best. While recording it Alpert or Moss (I forget which), owners of A&M, visited the studio where it was being recorded. They had not had any success yet and very pretty sure the sessions were going to be shut down based on what had been recorded so far. Nope. The band was told to take the time they needed to keep going. It’s a shame that labels don’t allow artists to grow in this time. We would have lost so many great artists from that era had things been done that way then. A Hoffman bonus...all their albums from Crime forward were mean’t to be an audiophile experience. You have to make an effort to find the right pressings but you will be well rewarded when you do. Cannonball, from the followup to the Last Words album, is just stunning to listen to! I am not a fan of most of their material after Rodger left, but they had their moments. Cannonball is one of the best recorded songs I have ever heard. I love the 12” version too!
Yeah, that was my reaction when I read that BIA has moody atmosphere all over the album. With that keen hearing of yours, I'm waiting for you to deem a Teletubbies album as being edgy.
Interesting. If someone asked which I like the most, I would probably say BIA but looking at your post I realized I actually play COTC most. But really, the four we all keep mentioning are essential and great in their own right.
^Perfectly? I'm not sure there is a consensus about it. First off, IMO "Perfect Stranger" made some justice to its title, insofar as remaining as a BIA's song. It would have been a "perfect familiar" company to the COTC's songs. And, as you mentioned "TTLWH", it literally smokes "School" when it comes to a ''moody'' track - if I want a whole wistful atmosphere give me ''TTLWH'' all the way. By the way, the Harmonica damn great approaches on both of these tracks evoke pretty different atmospheres, each in their own intense way. The one on ''School'' though perfectly (and wisely) highlights the album's cover art black background colour, such a cinematic approach always brings me back to mind the Harmonica on the fantastic '72 soundtrack "Once Upon a Time in the West" .
I'll have to check when I get home, but from memory I actually have two variants of the UK pressing - the older one has the 'dark brown' A&M logo on the label and the later UK press I have has the 'light brown' A&M label. I can remember the matrices but the one with the dark brown label has the lowest numbers.
I agree that "Crime Of The Century" and "Breakfast In America" are good albums, but I never understood why albums like "Crisis? What Crisis?", "Even In the Quietest Moments" and also "Famous Last Words" are hardly being talked about. They are also not being reissued - in spite of them having great songs. Also Hodgson's "Open The Door" album is fantastic. And I really enjoy "Brother Where You Bound" without Hodgson.
I’m really interested in all of this. I’ve been trying to research what constitutes a ‘true’ U.K. first pressing of COTC for a very long time. As far as I know, there are only two main variants of U.K. A&M labels during this early to mid 1970s timeframe: Imgur The ‘tan’ label (bottom) which was used for the first two Supertramp albums and the ‘Land Ho!’ 7” single, then the ‘silver’ label (top) which was used for Crime, Crisis and Quietest Moments (all later albums having picture labels specific to that release). I have never seen a UK Crime with the tan label- though it is just about possible... I am not aware that there are any real variations to the silver label - if the original silver label somehow ‘sparkles’ (and I could identify its exact design) then that might solve it once and for all... I’ve seen slightly lighter and darker ‘tan’ labels; but they are all substantially the same. Any further evidence/discussion would be most welcome! Thanks.
That's a better description than mine, cheers. Around the same time I had Rick Wakemans Six Wives of Henry the VIII, that had the same "sparkle" label, the only two A&Ms of that type I have seen.
I used to listen to their well-known concert in Paris as my ''go to'' live compilation for my favourites off those couple of records. Fool's Overture and Soapbox Opera, for example, will always sound to my ears MUCH better on that show than their studio versions.
Yeah, I forgot to mention "Paris" - one of the best live albums of all time. A real pity that Hodgson and Davies never managed to solve their conflicts. I think the balance created with them being together in a band was perfect.
I found a forum quote from Ken Scott way back in 2007: "With "Crime of the Century" the Supertramp album, at the time A&M was distributed by CBS, that's SONY, over in Europe. And we were able to get A&M to talk to CBS and get them to have the first run pressed by the classical division. And so it was the best vinyl you could get at the time and those first pressings were absolutely astounding--they were incredible and then it was all down hill from there."
I popped into my hifi dealer today to drop off and pick up some gear I had borrowed. I mentioned that I couldn't believe I had missed out on this album, I heard it for the first time last night and now am on the lookout for a vinyl copy. My dealer said 'oh... hang on....' and started flipping through some sealed records sitting on the floor next to us. He whipped out a sealed copy of the album and said 'here you go! Take it'. I said 'how much?' He said 'ehhh don't worry about that, we'll figure it out later'. So, that was the easiest search for a record I've ever had! It is the 2014 B2B 40th Anniversary pressing by GZ. I played it when I got home, a quiet flat pressing thankfully. Sounds good. I'll be keeping an eye out for some of the more coveted pressings but for the time being, this will do me nicely.
There are two types of the second label variation - both are similar but on earlier labels the large 'A&M' logo is brown, and then later this changed to a 'gold' colour. the (first variation) 'tan' A&M label was pretty much gone by late 1974 I think...
Personally, I would like to compare those two Supertramp’s Art Rock masterpieces with Steely Dan's Jazz-Rock masterpieces Aja and Gaucho; although both Steely Dan's records are equally top of the notch, Gaucho is an album full of nostalgia. Thus, I don’t say that Crime of the Century is a less good record than Breakfast in America, but the latter is somewhat more melancholic and dreamy album in its entirety.
Regarding Steely Dan I also don't understand why the focus is only on these two albums... While I understand why people like them, I don't get why the rest is being ignored... It's not worse to me. I LOVE "The Royal Scam", "Pretzel Logic".... to me better than "Gaucho". In a simlar way I prefer "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Even In The Quietest Moments" to "Breakfast In America".
