Supertramp: OPO

the album's manhattan-skyline picture
for some reason
reminded me of manchester airport
when i was little.
i've had a thing for that song ever since.

Why it's as if Roger Hodgson predicted the ascent of John Ashcroft two decades in advance!

Another candidate for OPO: "Don't Leave Me Now" off of Famous Last Words

Tom said something once about how opinions formed at a certain age are ultimately immutable.

Ok, now I've gone off to IMDb and I *believe* the movie I'm talking about is Blind Faith, but I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, long story short, Supertramp's "Take the Long Way Home" is a classic. If it can evoke positive memories of a movie the Lifetime people would actually run more than once, that song's got to have some magic behind them.

and i like the second song off Crime of the Century, "Bloody Well Right" (, but have to skip the whiney "School")

There are probably songs of theirs I could still stand today, right up to _Breakfast in America_ ("Take The Long Way Home" still works, clarinet solo and all).

I heard a supertramp song on the radio yesterday, and I think they were way ahead of their time. the synth sounded so much like house music and then unlike house music some cool guitar kicked in

OPO? Then "Crime Of The Century" with "Take The Long Way Home" in second place. As much as I love big strummy 12 strings that "see the man with the lonely eyes" line in "Give A Little Bit" ruins the song for me.

I still maintain that Mercury Rev (and not the Lips) is the new/nuSupertramp.

Breakfast in America, the song.

It's only recently that I realised I like any Supertramp at all.

Supertramp were brilliant in the mid 70s. On "Breakfast In America" they had detoriated into a competent AOR band. Sure they were much better than Journey and on level with Foreigner, but more sophisticated and proggy stuff should be expected for the people behind the classic "Crime Of The Century" album.

I second "Hide In Your Shell."

JUSTICE wanted to put ANOTHER MAN'S WOMAN on the mix they did for FABRIC but they (or the legal/label bods) wouldn't let them. great tune! the mix cd was rejected anyway as it went but it would have fitted perfetctly.

We need a Supertramp vs Steely Dan thread. Actually, wait, no we don't. Please no-one do that.

can never understand people's love of Breakfast in America - a completely cold and calculating commercial album

How can anyone stand Hodgson's voice from Breakfast in America on?

For their best, I'd pick Give A Little Bit, Even in the Quietest Moments or Dreamer (Hodgson songs) or Downstream or Ain't Nobody But Me (Davies songs). btw, Hodgson didn't sing Goodbye Stranger, and the electric piano wasn't a feature on a "majority" of their songs (not even on The Logical Song or Take The Long Way Home!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vVjHVpO7_Q

Hide In Your Shell is a freakin masterpiece innit. ilm doesn't like these guys much huh..

Man this thread makes me sad, ilm does not like Supertramp much at all!

We need a Supertramp vs Steely Dan thread. Actually, wait, no we don't. Please no-one do that.

haha yeah that would be a disaster. anyway Hide in Your Shell is def a masterpiece, probably my favorite Hodgson number

You know, I'm pretty sure that 1979 was my favorite year in music ever, and I wasn't in college so *that* theory doesn't hold. The top 100 (and top 10) is just insanely strong. Supertramp at #27. I don't know if I can stress enough how great mainstream radio was that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1979

I was 11 at the time, and even then I knew that it was an unusually amazing year in music.

school, what a killer song!

crime of the century was one of the first albums i got. and i remember that i thought i had wasted my money after the first listen. it was the album that made me understand that you cannot judge music before having listened to it several times.

Supertramp tape I made for myself in the mid-80s:

easy does it
school
my kind of lady
child of vision
from now on
crazy
just another nervous wreck
lady
crime of the century
---
give a little bit
asylum
sister moonshine
the meaning
another man's woman
breakfast in america
gone hollywood
fool's overture

I went a little heavy on Crisis What Crisis because I was getting burned out on Crime, Even and Breakfast.

Oddly enough, for my OPO I'm going with Even in the Quietest Moment. I can't for the life of me think why I left it off the tape.

after my 15 y/o declaring “i’ll NEVER get over Styx, ‘come sail away’ rules” last week on a long drive, i’m thinking of inflicting a bunch of Supertramp on him. i think he has only heard the hits off BiA. I don’t really know anything about Supertramp and really prefer not to do, so maybe i will just collect HL’s tapelist (and call a priest to schedule an exorcism in the coming weeks).

That might well work. It was Supertramp who finally encouraged my 13 year old self to overcome a blind adoration of Styx. But you should also introduce him to Dark Side of the Moon after another 6-9 months. Responsible parenting, etc.

Oh yeah, my OPO would also be School

Did a search for Breakfast in America and this came up, which as far as conspiracy theories go is pretty out there. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/supertramp-breakfast-america-album-cover-3040330

somebody ref'd Supertramp in a comment on a post about Candy-O over on Facebook and I thought about how into them I was for a couple of years when I was a kid -- I had Crime, Crisis, and Breakfast and that was it, I'd heard "Give a Little Bit" but never got "Quietest Moments" but like I thought a lot about them, at the age of 12 I'd be in my bedroom under the headphones trying to figure out if Hodgson's thing was actually deep or not -- and as the same FB comment said, "even then a child such as I knew that was nonsense" -- like I could tell his deal was in that grown-up "I'm the clever one" zone that I both hated & genuinely aspired to, I wanted to like SERIOUS music and S-tramp was absolutely trying to position themselves as one of your more serious bands. Their sense of humor had that Zappa-like arrogance to them, but in my I-hope-I-amount-to-something-someday insecurity Zappa was also a sort of beacon, like the stance guys like that copped felt like one I might be able to borrow down the line if I needed it. Growing out of that is important obv but for a couple of years there those three records got tons of play, "Breakfast" was a massive hit and was cool to me because I felt like they'd both retained what made them a fun "not everybody knows about these guys but their records are both-sides good" band & made a record that (what felt like) the whole world would love.

Cued up "Crisis" this morning -- musically they remain a really fun band imo, but, and I've talked about this with respect to Jethro Tull before, what I call the Omniscient Condescending Hippie narrative stance makes them a tough toke: once you've developed an allergy to OCH you have to really work past it when it's there, and when the OCH is coming from Hodgson's voice it's even rougher -- like you absolutely cannot tune this dude out, and he just sounds like he's kind of a drag a fair bit of the time, but musically it's really so nice. "Crime" is their pop-prog apex but the coda to "Another Man's Woman" is such a nice formalization of their schtick, a hummable motif & a pedaling bass & a delicious building tension that resolves on a surprisingly-too-brief sax section -- not just the one sax that intros it, but a couple more joining in, a really fertile sort of rapid growth happen as the song goes into its fadeout -- and I think it was this in their music, the sort of "who we'd be as a band if this weren't kind of the Roger show" feeling, that made this record such a great headphones listen for me back then, those popping synths and little jazz harmony moments like the long ending of "Lady." was working on a theory that they're a Canterbury scene band gone astray but that's not right either, their origin story is as ridiculous as they are and to my mind one of the most interesting things about them is that they're poster boys for the old record business idea of artist development -- of giving a band enough resources & support to guide them to a place where you can cash in, which is Breakfast in America.

Anyway their use of woodwinds was pretty awesome and their sense of the song was pretty cool and they're one of those bands where for me I kind of have to make peace with the frontman to enjoy them

I don't hear omniscience or condescension in most of Hodgson's songs - in fact, if I had to pigeonhole his persona both vocally and in his songs, it would be as a quester, almost spiritually bewildered at times. Also, though I don't like his songs as much, I would have thought that the more down-to-earth Rick Davies perspective would moderate your problems with Hodgson (although in fact Davies tends much more to sarcasm, putdowns and general didacticism).
I said on some other thread that they must be the rock band with most prominent use of clarinet (unless you count Henry Cow-type chamber rock).

This is actually a tough one. Right now, my answer is "Gone Hollywood."

My one pick might be "A Soapbox Opera"; and further to what I said above, compare this with a Tull song like "Hymn 43". Both are critiques of organized religion, but the Supertramp song is mournful, and even sympathetic to believers, while Anderson is all about finger-pointing.

I got totally obsessed with breakfast in america In the winter of 21/22. I was in the darkest emotional time of my life and it seemed to clearly speak of the way my mind was tearing itself apart. I’m actually afraid to listen to it again but it’s a goddam masterpiece. Hooray mental illness!

Oh Darling

as I grow longer in the tooth I gravitate more towards the Davies compositions, am sympathetic to the Omniscient Condescending Hippie turn-off from Hodgson mentioned up thread though honestly his songs never struck me as omniscient or condescending, just very hippie, which nevertheless is a turnoff for me as I get older and cynical and shittier in general, lol

My favorite thing about Oh Darling is that sometimes Davies would write a song that incorporates a high vocal part, and instead of just asking famously high pitched bandmate Roger Hodgson to sing that part, would affect a ridiculous falsetto that is hilarious but also works somehow, in a stubborn workmanlike way that is endearing and also just sounds great

But anyways I love Supertramp, good job everyone involved, also big points for never reuniting for cash grab reunion tour though they absolutely still could today and rake in all the money

The Rick-diculous Davies falsetto reminds me of 10cc's sillier moments like "Donna"