SUPERTRAMP
"Crisis? What Crisis?"
1975 A&M
And on the third month of my critique of vinyl, you say I finally have chosen a group you have heard of...but not one of the albums that got all the air play as their others. You maybe beginning to wonder, when will “he” get around to selecting something you know...ah, but that is the whole point. Why would you want to read something about something you already know? My whole purpose is to enlighten you with the variety of music and groups/artists I have had the pleasure to discover through my many years of collecting the holy vinyl.
This month’s selection is---yes, you’ve guessed it---also in my top 100 vinyls. Now you may ask yourself if I will exceed my 100 limit? Probably, but then how else can I express the impact the music has on me? I will select an album here and there that will be trash, but that will be later and after I have you drooling every 15th of the month for the new selection.
Supertramp, a group that survived on the collaboration of its two main characters, Roger Hodgson and Richard Davies. After Hodgson left, the group did manage a few releases but never to the magnitude of their 70’s stuff.
This particular album starts out with a whistle and then ends with one of the most soul enlightening, spiritually lifting, and tear coercing songs. The first cut Easy Does It does begin with a whistling and if you don’t pay attention just kind of glides into Sister Moonshine. The pace picks up with Ain’t Nobody But Me, I suggest turning up the volume of this tune to really get the full impact.
Don’t turn the volume down yet, because it’s A Soapbox Opera, not as full body as the preceding cut, but has the orchestration that takes you through highs and lows...so much so that if properly volumed you might want to get up and conduct the strings.
Don’t sit down because Side One ends with Another Man’s Woman, a fast pacer that if you are in the proper state of mind (and know the words) you may want to move around and sing along.
The great thing about Supertramp (and for most bands that I enjoy) they really know how to fill all areas of the song. Instrument selection, when and where the notes fall...the entire ability of arrangement and composition. Something that not all artists/groups have mastered or even tried tinkering with. Unfortunately this talent was something I feel was a result of the collaboration of the two main talents and when one left they lost this. Not to say that Richard Davies is not an artist and that Supertramp’s material post-Hodgson is not listenable. It is just that it is falls short of what they were able to accomplish together. Even Roger Hodgson’s attempts as a solo artist never reaches the plateau achieved in Supertramp, with Richard Davies.
The mastery continues with Side Two, starting with Lady. A song that starts out simple and adds on, then adds on, then adds on, and then takes off. It abruptly ends and jumps into Poor Boy...a tune that makes you want to sway back and forth, with a smile of course.
Why they did it, I don’t know, but they then bring you way down with Just A Normal Day. Probably to make you think (if you haven’t been listening to the words to the other songs closely, then you probably needed this song to bring you into a mood for the following songs). The crying violin, then the whole string section weeping.
The Meaning takes you on one of those circular mental voyages. “If you know what meaning is the meaning is the meaning”...(get it, got it, good?). The repetitive beating into you of the circular definitions, the repetition of the irony of all we search for, only to find that we don’t need to go on this expeditions of self-discovery that take us to the far ends...hey, kind of like “it’s right in front of you”...hey, it’s right in you.
Then that song I mentioned way back in the beginning of this literary expulsion. Two Of Us. All I can say is “wow”. A song that at times takes me to the brink of tears. Why? I don’t know. Then at times it uplifts me and makes me feel wonderfully fulfilled (even back when I really didn’t have anyone to make it “two”). Even in that uplift there are at times a moistening...hey, so I’m a sensitive guy.
I hope that eventually you will find the time to listen to some of
this great music that I’ve written about or will be writing about...it
could be an adventure.
Email: house_of_boongus@hotmail.com