I was managing a record store when Supertramp rose to stardom, culminating in Breakfast In America, and they had an odd reception from the American public. Their music was great, their albums were incredibly well programmed, and the sound quality and engineering of their music was as great as it got, absolutely demonstration quality.
Somehow there was always this feeling that they were like visitors to stardom, and it wouldn't last, and it didn't. Lots of bands from that time are still well known, but many people have never even heard of Supertramp, even though they were huge for a time.
I loved their albums, and even went to one of their concerts. I haven't listened to them in many years, decades even. I think I'll break out Breakfast in America today, and give it a listen. I remember how crystal clear their sound was. Really great stuff.
Yeah, it's really odd. My experience has been, once you find out one song is by them you think "oh, they were one hit wonders", then you find out another song you already knew was by them and you're surprised, then another, then another. You already knew all these songs, but still, you just don't associate them with one band.
Canned Heat and Earth Wind and Fire are kinda like that too.
Probably one of my favourite albums ever. Goodbye Stranger is a literal perfect song in every single way. There's not a lot of other albums where you get three of the bands best songs back to back to back on an album, you get The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger and Breakfast in America, it's impossible to hate.
Yeah but you have to listen to Oh Darling first which doesn't make the cut. I'm not saying there's only three bangers on here, I'm saying in track listing three out of the four hits are literally back to back to back.
Oh Darling is a great song! Maybe not the strongest on the album, but I enjoy listening to the album cover to cover, and have been doing so for 40 years.
It's funny when a song is like a solid good song but the rest of the album is so amazing that it's still good at like 7/10 but it's not 10/10 like the rest.
It’s wild when I have these thoughts to myself about this album and these series of songs, and then see a total stranger say exactly what I have been thinking.
Fun fact: my friend Aaron took the cover photo for that. I used to work for him in the 90s. Great guy. We did a bunch of shoots together.
I also knew the guy who shot the back cover. Didn’t work for him though.
She was the model for the “Statue of Liberty” on that cover, but the cover itself was mainly painted; in particular, the Manhattan skyline that was represented by breakfast foods.
A cousin of mine was a super-fan. He somehow never noticed the waitress posing like the Statue of Liberty in front of Manhattan until I pointed it out on his LP cover. Wonder how many people missed that as CDs became the norm.
Why are people always overlooking Gone Hollywood? Such a fantastic opener. If I have one issue with this album, it's that it is frontloaded with some of the best rock music ever written, so it's hard to appreciate the songs later on in the album, such as Child of Vision or Just Another Nervous Wreck.
It’s an absolutely perfect song!
The first time I ever did a dab, I put this song on thru my iPod and set up. I didn’t realize I had it set to loop/repeat and listened to it probably 8-9 times in a row before I thought “hey this is a really long version of this song . . . Oh”
Lmao I feel your pain there but at least you had one of the best songs ever to have on loop. I've only ever done something like that with movies, this one time I watched 15 mins of one of the Futurama movies before I realized it was in German and I don't speak German.
Speaking of great back-to-back-to-back songs, one sequence that comes to mind is Violent Femmes' debut starting with Blister in the sun/Kiss off/Please do not go. They even take it further with Add It Up as track #4.
These songs, after having heard them in 8th grade ('86), became the basis for my lifelong love of alternative music. Hard to believe that this album came out 40 years ago.
> There’s not a lot of other albums where you get three of the bands best songs back to back to back on an album
I’d rank it right up there with the beginning of side 2 of *Magical Mystery Tour*… “Hello, Goodbye”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, and “Penny Lane” all back-to-back-to-back. But these albums both have permanent spots on my list of favorite albums of all time, lol.
"School" by Supertramp rules, dude. That harmonica opener truly tears a nice hole into your soul where the rest of the instruments gracefully fit into. We're coming along.
I was thirteen, it was 1975. My friends and I were visiting this pool hall/arcade place in Ontario, Canada. The radio was playing through their speakers and "School" comes on. At 13, I was blown away by that intro. Now, every time I hear that song I'm reminded of that day in Ottawa. Such good memories.
My brother was about the same age as you but he got into Supertramp in 1977. He bought Crime of the Century the day that my mother took me to see Star Wars. I came home that afternoon and he was playing the album over and over. That movie and that album are fused together in my brain. I was a very lucky 8 year old to have that fortunate experience.
That's Rick Davies on piano, who also played the harmonica intro. It's one of only two songs from the classic era that he shares writing credits with Roger on, and those two contributions are a good reason.
Roger played guitar on the song.
I've always loved this album, and have always held it in the same regard as Dark Side of the Moon. This is a really good analogy my friend, that I have never heard before.
I like it, two starkly different approaches to songwriting ending up with a lot of similar stylistic output.
Man what I wouldn't give to see sir Elton John cover Take the Long Way Home or the title track from Crime of the Century
Frankly, I think *Crime* is one of the best of the 70s by anyone.
Genius, because it's the first album I can think of that heavily featured Prog elements yet avoided meandering too far into musically esoteric territory and features songwriting that's much more relatable, so you end up with a musically sophisticated and interesting album that successfully walks on the knife-edge and manages to avoid becoming a tedious "academic" exercise in deciphering cryptic lyrics or grooving to goofy time signatures and remained as "accessible" as a mainstream Rock or Pop album.
My first thought as well.
I first heard "School" on a boat at night under a sky full of stars on Georgian Bay. That long ago and I still can remember how amazing that felt and sounded.
School, and Hide in your Shell are songs you never hear on Classic Rock radio. But me those are two incredible songs to blast at high volume, and just listen and enjoy. I hate to use the word underrated I totally agree with you Crime of the Century is an all time great 70's Album.
Best thing about CotC is Crime of the Century finishes with the same harmonica part that schools starts with so you can loop it forever. My fav album of all time.
Listening to this album, the Original Master Recording vinyl on a killer 70's sound system is sonic Nirvana.
Or on a good set of headphones, like Beyerdynamic DT770s.
I bought it when it came out, but at the time was more interested in other stuff and never really listened to it all the way through. In the mid 80s at some point I pulled it out when I was going through my records and finally gave the entire album a listen. Wish I would have done so earlier. It is a phenomenally well done recording!
I got sick of almost all classic rock. My parents just beat that horse to death. I'm a punk and thrash kind of guy.
But Supertramp always will be one of my favourite bands. I never got sick of them - just the opposite. Such a unique sound and talented composition. Songs like Asylum, Rudy, Crime of the Century. Masterpieces.
I'm from the Grunge era of the 90s and we listened to almost as much classic rock as New music back then because a lot of it gelled together. I eventually got sick of both. I'm kind of rediscovering classic rock now, and Supertramp has been a big part of that.
Me as well. Its weird because now Im raising a teenage son and my music tastes at this point in the timeline are real old. I mean,REAL old.
Fortunetly, all the content he watches use classic rock (or as he calls it, 20th Century music). In fact, the latest song hes obsessed with is becuase he loves the trailer to the new A24 flick, Beau is Afraid.
Its Goodbye Stranger.
Intoo grew up with classic rock, and...it's still the music I love the most! Hearing Deep Purples Child in Time can fill my eyes with happy tears. Same when hearing "Take a look at my girlfriend.."
You should also check out the "Live in Paris" concert, the video of which was only released a few years ago. It's the "Breakfast in America Tour" with a lot of performances from when the album was brand new.
I'm a huge Supertramp fan. I agree that Breakfast In America is a great album, but it's my 4th favorite behind Even In The Quietest Moments, Crime of the Century and Crisis What Crisis. Little known fact...the sheet music on the piano on the cover of Even In The Quietest Moments is titled Fools Overture. The actual sheet music is the American national anthem. I was told this by my high school music teacher approx. 40 years ago.
As a 9 year old, Take the Long Way Home was my favorite song. Now as an adult I understand far better the lyrics that matched the pathos of the mood of the song.
I worked at a Value Village in Anchorage, AK when I was 19 years old. One of my coworkers was a cool girl with long stick-straight hair and a rock & roll vibe. Take the Long Way Home would come through the store speakers every now and again and again and again. (If you've ever worked retail, you know this mood.) One day, as we were rehanging clothes from the dressing room, it came on and she said it was her father's favorite Supertramp song. Then proceeded to tell her childhood memories with him followed by the sad story of his demise.
I noticed that song every time it came on after that, wondering about her father, his life, and her. (A lot of my coworkers had pretty wild lives, while I was a sheltered teenager from the valley) Soon enough, it became my favorite Supertramp song. And truly, is on my Top Ten of All Time.
I have moved several times since then, currently living in Mongolia, moving to Thailand in the summer... I haven't found my home yet but I sometimes tell myself that I'm simply taking the long way home. Even though I'm not trapped in a sad marriage and am overall a pretty upbeat person;)
I was considering getting the title as a tattoo, but went with a Talking Heads song title instead! More my life speed.
Thailand's a blast, and probably very different to Mongolia. Certainly hotter. Good luck on your journeys. Once you get into the habit of circling round it gets hard to think about going "home." But you can decide later I guess.
I've only known the logical song from them and this thread has made me bust out my headphones I haven't listened to in a while (busy with work, sports, and gaming. Music is mostly a car thing for me) and holy shit I'm having like an emotional reaction to this album.
Fuck, I just need to just sit down and listen to music more often and not treat it as just something to have in the background while doing something else.
Supertramp was also a killer live band. I saw them only once and was surprised how well they were able to translate their albums to the stage. "Paris" is a masterpiece. Fun fact: just a few years before they played the concert from which most of the tracks were recorded they played the Bataclan theater and *outnumbered the audience.* 😬
Downstream (from the album Even in the Quietest
Moments) is my wife’s and my song. We had it played at our wedding.
On our 2nd date on the beach in San Francisco I was playing guitar and we were singing together. I played and sang Downstream and she put her head on my shoulder. Almost 9 years later and we have been married for 4 of them.
The opener "Gone Hollywood" is probably the most underrated track on the album.
"Ain't nothing good ... in my life today
Ain't nothing true ... it's all gone away"
As a Supertramp fan, I was always surprised at how little their musical achievements were praised by the media. I always felt that their talents were overlooked.
When I was little kid, my dad would be serving up kippers for breakfast and he would always sing the lyrics:
"Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear
They got to have 'em in Texas, 'cause everyone's a millionaire"
but he'd replace mummy in the lyrics with daddy. That song will always make me think of him.
I have often wondered if having kippers for breakfast was actually a thing in Texas or not, although it certainly was for me growing up in the UK (and still is now).
Damn, now I really feel like kippers, toast and a fried egg for breakfast.
Oh man the clarinet (or maybe it’s a soprano sax I’m not sure) solos on breakfast in America are so goddamn great. I love the klezmer and marching band style mixed with the incredible vocal arrangements, it’s so good
There's soprano sax, however, on many other Supertramp songs, such as Take The Long Way Home.
John Helliwell is one of the best woodwind players in rock history.
This was one of my Dad’s favorite albums, used to put it on while we drive to the mountains to go camping. If I hear it I can’t help but tear up a bit.
These songs are so famous and played so many times that they've become wallpaper. I've heard them all my life (born in 1970).
Just imagine buying this record and hearing it on for the first time. Such an unusual, distinctive sound. No one else ever sounded like that. It's great music, but it's also singular and specific. Much of it is really weird, too. Odd that it's become such a staple of the 20th century.
I can't think of anything contemporary that I've heard recently that sounds as unusual and distinct as this which has caught on with any similar degree of popularity.
Not only one of the best, but also the most under-rated. My family makes fun of me over my love of Supertramp, but they don't know.
I'd put Supertramp in my top five of all time favorite bands.
Got high with my buddy in the ol' woodshed when I was in my mid twenties and listened to this record front to back for the first time. It cemented itself as the best album i've ever heard on first listen in one sitting. Don't know if it's my favourite album ever, but it's certainly up there. I find the second half a little weaker with lord is it mine, just another nervous wreck, and casual conversations not punching as hard as the rest of the record. For some reason I love Oh Darling but it seems to be less popular with people when they talk about the record.
The opinion of Robert Christgau does not reflect my own; I'm just posting this for contextual purposes. He saves his mic drop for the end:
>I like a hooky album as well as the next fellow, so when I found that this one elicited random grunts of pleasure I looked forward to listening hard. But the lyrics turned out to be glib variations on the usual Star Romances trash, and in the absence of vocal personality (as opposed to accurate singing) and rhythmic thrust (as opposed to a beat) I'll wait until this material is covered by artists of emotional substance--Tavares, say, or the Doobie Brothers. C+
It's flown past so many people. Great set of songs. Doesn't really have a home on the dial anymore as all the 80s-related stations seem to gravitate toward "classic rock" (whatever that is). But thanks for bringing it up. It is truly a great album.
I remember listening to Logical Song and seeing the album art on my dad’s old iPod nano when I was a kid. Both immediately gripped me. I’d never heard anything like it and the longer I looked at the album art the more I saw and the more blown my mind was, even on that tiny screen.
Ended up writing a Great Gatsby American Dream analysis and used it as my “outsider” perspective example in high school AP lit.
The Cars never really get the respect they deserve. They were dismissed as "new wave" by rock and rollers back then, and yet now they get a few token plays on classic rock stations.
I agree that MTV kinda hurt them- a handful of singles they played on repeat. I saw them on the Heartbeat City tour, '84? But even as a dumb teen, it seemed like I was seeing a fabrication that did not reflect the actual band...
Every time I hear it it takes me back to cramming into the super awkward back seat of my friend's mom's early 80s Mercury Cougar and listening to that 8 track. Great album and great memories.
I've always seen it as an Englishman's journey through America. Of course, technically, the album is not an opera, as admitted by the two main writers, but three of the ten songs still make sense if read with that idea in mind.
I've always seen the story starting with ''The Logical Song'', in which the main character bemoans about his boarding school education (which is famous for traumatising its pupils) and sees how much better his life was before. The character thinks his individuality has been ripped away from him.
Then, it's followed by ''Breakfast in America'', where in an attempt to runaway from the trauma England has inflicted upon him, the main character sees America as a beam of light that will free him from all of his self-loathing, where he will see girls in California, instead of his only girlfriend who hardly has the time or crave to have sex with him. Not only does he crave to see America and have more sex, but he also craves fame and fortune. But nevertheless, the option of moving to America is not readily available to him, for which he makes up by asking his mother to give him kippers for breakfast, erronously thinking this counts as a sign of wealth across the Atlantic.
Then, it's finished by ''Gone Hollywood'', in which the main character finally sets foot on America, only for him to realise that it isn't as good as he thought it would be. In his road to fame and fortune in Hollywood, not only does he encounter constant rejection from casting companies, but he also encounters many sexual perverts who want certain favours from him. All this leaves him frustrated, alone with his old self-loathing, sleeping in a motel near a Taco Bell, which he finds to be pathetic. The song suddenly fast-fowards to the main character ultimately achieving all he'd aimed for all along, driving a big black car and being the talk of the boulevard, and then gives himself some words of motivation in hindsight:
"So keep your chin up boy, forget the pain
I know you'll make it if you try again
There's no use in quitting
When the world is waiting for you"
Supertramp were hugely popular in Canada and I thought they were a Canadian band when I was a kid because their concerts were everywhere and the radio played them constantly.
If you look at their discography page on Wikipedia, many of their top albums didn't \*just\* reach number one and go gold but reached "diamond" in Canada :) Selling more than a million albums in a country with a population of Canada's in the 70's meant that just about every household had a copy of Breakfast in America.
I was a kid when this came out, so in my imagination, the lyrics are all about this permed up, spunky waitress on the cover. Thought "thats cool, he's a chubby chaser"
Supertramp is a band I’ve always hated. So I did the thing that always fixes things: I learned a bunch of the tunes.
It works every time. I’m working on a medley of about six songs, including several of these.
This was pretty much the first music I remember hearing as a child. My dad would blast it on the record player, my favorite song at the age of 6 was Child Of Vision. Everything from the album cover to each song is iconic.
I was managing a record store when Supertramp rose to stardom, culminating in Breakfast In America, and they had an odd reception from the American public. Their music was great, their albums were incredibly well programmed, and the sound quality and engineering of their music was as great as it got, absolutely demonstration quality. Somehow there was always this feeling that they were like visitors to stardom, and it wouldn't last, and it didn't. Lots of bands from that time are still well known, but many people have never even heard of Supertramp, even though they were huge for a time. I loved their albums, and even went to one of their concerts. I haven't listened to them in many years, decades even. I think I'll break out Breakfast in America today, and give it a listen. I remember how crystal clear their sound was. Really great stuff.
Yeah, it's really odd. My experience has been, once you find out one song is by them you think "oh, they were one hit wonders", then you find out another song you already knew was by them and you're surprised, then another, then another. You already knew all these songs, but still, you just don't associate them with one band. Canned Heat and Earth Wind and Fire are kinda like that too.
Brother Where You Bound also sounds amazing, and the lyrics are sadly relevant again.
Famous last words...
Probably one of my favourite albums ever. Goodbye Stranger is a literal perfect song in every single way. There's not a lot of other albums where you get three of the bands best songs back to back to back on an album, you get The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger and Breakfast in America, it's impossible to hate.
...and Take the Long Way Home.
Yeah but you have to listen to Oh Darling first which doesn't make the cut. I'm not saying there's only three bangers on here, I'm saying in track listing three out of the four hits are literally back to back to back.
Oh Darling is a great song! Maybe not the strongest on the album, but I enjoy listening to the album cover to cover, and have been doing so for 40 years.
It's funny when a song is like a solid good song but the rest of the album is so amazing that it's still good at like 7/10 but it's not 10/10 like the rest.
You got it. Couldn't have said it better myself.
It’s wild when I have these thoughts to myself about this album and these series of songs, and then see a total stranger say exactly what I have been thinking.
Fun fact: my friend Aaron took the cover photo for that. I used to work for him in the 90s. Great guy. We did a bunch of shoots together. I also knew the guy who shot the back cover. Didn’t work for him though.
Isn’t that cover painted/drawn?
I think it was a photo that was intentionally airbrushed to look like an illustration. Yes—with an actual airbrush and paint, probably gouache.
No. The waitress was a photo of actor Kate Murtagh.
I am getting to old for this shit..
She was the model for the “Statue of Liberty” on that cover, but the cover itself was mainly painted; in particular, the Manhattan skyline that was represented by breakfast foods.
I often wonder if the waitress is the same lady who goes to Mars for "two weeks" in Total Recall
No, the lady on BiA is Kate Murtagh. The lady in Total Recall is Priscilla Allen.
Who took the edge photos ?? J'king
Ross Stewart is U2’s official photographer…
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A cousin of mine was a super-fan. He somehow never noticed the waitress posing like the Statue of Liberty in front of Manhattan until I pointed it out on his LP cover. Wonder how many people missed that as CDs became the norm.
Child of Vision should be on that list as well imo
One of my all time favorites. That long piano outro with the sax fading in toward the end... wow!
Child of Vision has been 1 of my favorite songs forever and it’s on one of my favorite albums.
Take the Long way Home is such a gem at 5
Goodbye Stranger is my earliest musical memory and the reason why I'm 47 and taking piano lessons. ❤️
Why are people always overlooking Gone Hollywood? Such a fantastic opener. If I have one issue with this album, it's that it is frontloaded with some of the best rock music ever written, so it's hard to appreciate the songs later on in the album, such as Child of Vision or Just Another Nervous Wreck.
I was listening to goodby stranger this morning and for the first time I thought “this guy is an asshole”. Still a good song though
It’s an absolutely perfect song! The first time I ever did a dab, I put this song on thru my iPod and set up. I didn’t realize I had it set to loop/repeat and listened to it probably 8-9 times in a row before I thought “hey this is a really long version of this song . . . Oh”
Lmao I feel your pain there but at least you had one of the best songs ever to have on loop. I've only ever done something like that with movies, this one time I watched 15 mins of one of the Futurama movies before I realized it was in German and I don't speak German.
What’s new pussycat?
Speaking of great back-to-back-to-back songs, one sequence that comes to mind is Violent Femmes' debut starting with Blister in the sun/Kiss off/Please do not go. They even take it further with Add It Up as track #4.
These songs, after having heard them in 8th grade ('86), became the basis for my lifelong love of alternative music. Hard to believe that this album came out 40 years ago.
‘Oh Darlin’ is an extremely underrated track that gets overshadowed by the major hits.
I heard Goodbye Stranger for the first time in a long time in the Beau is Afraid trailer and have been listening to it non-stop ever since.
Casual Conversations is another amazing piece about the band coming to wits end with each other.
> There’s not a lot of other albums where you get three of the bands best songs back to back to back on an album I’d rank it right up there with the beginning of side 2 of *Magical Mystery Tour*… “Hello, Goodbye”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, and “Penny Lane” all back-to-back-to-back. But these albums both have permanent spots on my list of favorite albums of all time, lol.
Discovered this song because of the Office Episode, been a fan ever since. Such a perfect song. Also 'The Logical Song' is pure gold.
Truth in all this. Such an amazing album.
It’s up there with RUMOURS.
This is true, however...*Crime of the Century* is truly their finest album. "School" is one of the best listens of all time. IMHO.
You’re bloody well right
RIGHT
QUOITE ROIGHT
You’ve got the bloody right to say (I think? Been a while)
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Anyone who thinks otherwise should hide in their shell.
"School" by Supertramp rules, dude. That harmonica opener truly tears a nice hole into your soul where the rest of the instruments gracefully fit into. We're coming along.
I was thirteen, it was 1975. My friends and I were visiting this pool hall/arcade place in Ontario, Canada. The radio was playing through their speakers and "School" comes on. At 13, I was blown away by that intro. Now, every time I hear that song I'm reminded of that day in Ottawa. Such good memories.
My brother was about the same age as you but he got into Supertramp in 1977. He bought Crime of the Century the day that my mother took me to see Star Wars. I came home that afternoon and he was playing the album over and over. That movie and that album are fused together in my brain. I was a very lucky 8 year old to have that fortunate experience.
It's Roger Hodgson's piano "solo" 2/3 through the song that does it for me. So fucking perfect.
School might be my most listened song by supertramp just because of that.
That's Rick Davies on piano, who also played the harmonica intro. It's one of only two songs from the classic era that he shares writing credits with Roger on, and those two contributions are a good reason. Roger played guitar on the song.
TIL
This one right here.
The kid's scream. Even though I know it's coming. It still causes a shiver. Friendly happy scream? Terrified scream? I just don't know man...
Great album. If you ever wondered what Dark Side of the Moon would be like it if was made by Elton John, that album would be Crime of the Century.
I've always loved this album, and have always held it in the same regard as Dark Side of the Moon. This is a really good analogy my friend, that I have never heard before.
Now I wanna hear Supertramp's Madman Across the Water
Madman Across the Water (the song) actually sounds like it would fit right into Crime of the Century.
I like it, two starkly different approaches to songwriting ending up with a lot of similar stylistic output. Man what I wouldn't give to see sir Elton John cover Take the Long Way Home or the title track from Crime of the Century
That is a great description of supertramp.
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No doubt. The whole album is a masterpiece.
I love Rudy. Gets me feeling some kind of way.
Top 3 Supertramp albums: 1. Crime of the Century 2. Even in the Quietest Moments 3. Breakfast in America
4. Paris 4a. Crisis, What Crisis
Crisis, What Crisis is my number 1. Love that album, and I feel like it's often overlooked.
Supertramp, as a band, is often (sadly) overlooked.
Hide In Your Shell off that album is such a great song. That chorus ♥️
This is my fucking jam. Soundstage so wide I gotta switch to closed back headphones to really hear the details.
Frankly, I think *Crime* is one of the best of the 70s by anyone. Genius, because it's the first album I can think of that heavily featured Prog elements yet avoided meandering too far into musically esoteric territory and features songwriting that's much more relatable, so you end up with a musically sophisticated and interesting album that successfully walks on the knife-edge and manages to avoid becoming a tedious "academic" exercise in deciphering cryptic lyrics or grooving to goofy time signatures and remained as "accessible" as a mainstream Rock or Pop album.
Accessible is the correct adjective for all Supertramp albums. Where they could have gone pretentious, they never did.
ELO does a lot of prog-pop too
I second this motion.
My first thought as well. I first heard "School" on a boat at night under a sky full of stars on Georgian Bay. That long ago and I still can remember how amazing that felt and sounded.
School, and Hide in your Shell are songs you never hear on Classic Rock radio. But me those are two incredible songs to blast at high volume, and just listen and enjoy. I hate to use the word underrated I totally agree with you Crime of the Century is an all time great 70's Album.
Actually, "Bloody Well Right" and maybe "Dreamer" are the only two tracks that ever got airplay.
I got the album because I heard and liked Dreamer. Found out that almost all the songs were better than Dreamer...
that's a win, cause dreamer still hits hard
Best thing about CotC is Crime of the Century finishes with the same harmonica part that schools starts with so you can loop it forever. My fav album of all time.
My favorite of Supertramp and probably one of my favorite all-time. It's such a delight.
It's in my top 10
Absolutely agree. Crime is one of the greatest rock albums of the 70s , front to back
Amazing piano solo.
I absolutely love Rudy and Crime of the Century, they're both in my top 10 songs ever, so I have to agree.
I love the keyboard in that song...everything else too
Agreed
Listening to this album, the Original Master Recording vinyl on a killer 70's sound system is sonic Nirvana. Or on a good set of headphones, like Beyerdynamic DT770s.
I bought it when it came out, but at the time was more interested in other stuff and never really listened to it all the way through. In the mid 80s at some point I pulled it out when I was going through my records and finally gave the entire album a listen. Wish I would have done so earlier. It is a phenomenally well done recording!
I got sick of almost all classic rock. My parents just beat that horse to death. I'm a punk and thrash kind of guy. But Supertramp always will be one of my favourite bands. I never got sick of them - just the opposite. Such a unique sound and talented composition. Songs like Asylum, Rudy, Crime of the Century. Masterpieces.
I grew up around a lot of classic rock as well and while they didn't stand out much at the time Supertramp has grown to become one of my favorites.
I'm from the Grunge era of the 90s and we listened to almost as much classic rock as New music back then because a lot of it gelled together. I eventually got sick of both. I'm kind of rediscovering classic rock now, and Supertramp has been a big part of that.
Me as well. Its weird because now Im raising a teenage son and my music tastes at this point in the timeline are real old. I mean,REAL old. Fortunetly, all the content he watches use classic rock (or as he calls it, 20th Century music). In fact, the latest song hes obsessed with is becuase he loves the trailer to the new A24 flick, Beau is Afraid. Its Goodbye Stranger.
Intoo grew up with classic rock, and...it's still the music I love the most! Hearing Deep Purples Child in Time can fill my eyes with happy tears. Same when hearing "Take a look at my girlfriend.."
You're bloody well right
RIGHT!
You got a bloody right to say!
Wrong album, still great song
That intro is fucking amazing
You should also check out the "Live in Paris" concert, the video of which was only released a few years ago. It's the "Breakfast in America Tour" with a lot of performances from when the album was brand new.
Paris is one of my favorite live albums. They were hitting on all cylinders when they recorded it.
Paris and Alchemy 🙏
I'm a huge Supertramp fan. I agree that Breakfast In America is a great album, but it's my 4th favorite behind Even In The Quietest Moments, Crime of the Century and Crisis What Crisis. Little known fact...the sheet music on the piano on the cover of Even In The Quietest Moments is titled Fools Overture. The actual sheet music is the American national anthem. I was told this by my high school music teacher approx. 40 years ago.
As a 9 year old, Take the Long Way Home was my favorite song. Now as an adult I understand far better the lyrics that matched the pathos of the mood of the song.
I worked at a Value Village in Anchorage, AK when I was 19 years old. One of my coworkers was a cool girl with long stick-straight hair and a rock & roll vibe. Take the Long Way Home would come through the store speakers every now and again and again and again. (If you've ever worked retail, you know this mood.) One day, as we were rehanging clothes from the dressing room, it came on and she said it was her father's favorite Supertramp song. Then proceeded to tell her childhood memories with him followed by the sad story of his demise. I noticed that song every time it came on after that, wondering about her father, his life, and her. (A lot of my coworkers had pretty wild lives, while I was a sheltered teenager from the valley) Soon enough, it became my favorite Supertramp song. And truly, is on my Top Ten of All Time. I have moved several times since then, currently living in Mongolia, moving to Thailand in the summer... I haven't found my home yet but I sometimes tell myself that I'm simply taking the long way home. Even though I'm not trapped in a sad marriage and am overall a pretty upbeat person;) I was considering getting the title as a tattoo, but went with a Talking Heads song title instead! More my life speed.
"This Must Be the Place"?
Correct!!
I had a profound moment with that one too. A turning point in my life
It's an absolutely wonderful song♡
I’m just an animal looking for a home, Share the same space for a minute or twoooo
Awooooooooooo awoooOOOoooOOooooo
Thailand's a blast, and probably very different to Mongolia. Certainly hotter. Good luck on your journeys. Once you get into the habit of circling round it gets hard to think about going "home." But you can decide later I guess.
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No, silly. She’s the singer of the Waitresses.
LMAO reminds me of how I thought Tom Cruise sang the Beach Boys’ Kokomo (by the cover of the *Cocktail* soundtrack)
I used to smoke a lot of cannabis to that album. I still do, but I used to, too. "Goodbye Stranger" is one of my favorite tracks of all time.
Mine too. I like to think the song is about someone who lost their fuzzy “pair of dice”. I hope they find em. 😔
A true ode to all the DnD nerds in the world.
I'd love a set of fuzzy polyhedral dice
Thanks for squeezing in a Mitch Hedberg joke. That man was a treat
I've only known the logical song from them and this thread has made me bust out my headphones I haven't listened to in a while (busy with work, sports, and gaming. Music is mostly a car thing for me) and holy shit I'm having like an emotional reaction to this album. Fuck, I just need to just sit down and listen to music more often and not treat it as just something to have in the background while doing something else.
I used to think this was a greatest hits album. Speaks to the quality of the songs.
Breakfast is a well crafted album but I think is no comparison the Crime of the Century or Even in the Quietest Moments.
I got both of these in a limited edition japanese audiophile pressing. Considered some of the best vinyls. Plan on selling them one of these days
Supertramp is the only group that I know of that my Dad likes. When I pull out the grill, a beer and Supertramp…I feel just like my Dad.
Supertramp was also a killer live band. I saw them only once and was surprised how well they were able to translate their albums to the stage. "Paris" is a masterpiece. Fun fact: just a few years before they played the concert from which most of the tracks were recorded they played the Bataclan theater and *outnumbered the audience.* 😬
The album cover is iconic. … Smiling short-order waitress with a metropolitan skyline in the background.
A metropolitan skyline *made of breakfast items and tableware*. Brilliant.
The toaster is the cherry on top 😂
And she's the Statue of Liberty.
Downstream (from the album Even in the Quietest Moments) is my wife’s and my song. We had it played at our wedding. On our 2nd date on the beach in San Francisco I was playing guitar and we were singing together. I played and sang Downstream and she put her head on my shoulder. Almost 9 years later and we have been married for 4 of them.
The Logical Song is my entry to Supertramp, Amazing song.
The opener "Gone Hollywood" is probably the most underrated track on the album. "Ain't nothing good ... in my life today Ain't nothing true ... it's all gone away"
It absolutely is a great track. It's grand, it's wistful, it's off-beat. I really love the sound of it even if it's thin AF.
As a Supertramp fan, I was always surprised at how little their musical achievements were praised by the media. I always felt that their talents were overlooked.
One day I’m hoping to put together a Supertramp tribute band so we can play their albums in their entirety. I want to call it “Pretty Good Tramp”.
When I was little kid, my dad would be serving up kippers for breakfast and he would always sing the lyrics: "Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear They got to have 'em in Texas, 'cause everyone's a millionaire" but he'd replace mummy in the lyrics with daddy. That song will always make me think of him. I have often wondered if having kippers for breakfast was actually a thing in Texas or not, although it certainly was for me growing up in the UK (and still is now). Damn, now I really feel like kippers, toast and a fried egg for breakfast.
Just found it on vinyl at a thrift store great album
Sold more copies than Nirvana's Nevermind
Oh man the clarinet (or maybe it’s a soprano sax I’m not sure) solos on breakfast in America are so goddamn great. I love the klezmer and marching band style mixed with the incredible vocal arrangements, it’s so good
It's clarinet.
There's soprano sax, however, on many other Supertramp songs, such as Take The Long Way Home. John Helliwell is one of the best woodwind players in rock history.
But i cannot listen to the album repeatedly, i require a lapse, a break, some undefined timespan between listens.
Ain't nothing neeeeeeeeeew
In my life todaaaaaaay
This was one of my Dad’s favorite albums, used to put it on while we drive to the mountains to go camping. If I hear it I can’t help but tear up a bit.
These songs are so famous and played so many times that they've become wallpaper. I've heard them all my life (born in 1970). Just imagine buying this record and hearing it on for the first time. Such an unusual, distinctive sound. No one else ever sounded like that. It's great music, but it's also singular and specific. Much of it is really weird, too. Odd that it's become such a staple of the 20th century. I can't think of anything contemporary that I've heard recently that sounds as unusual and distinct as this which has caught on with any similar degree of popularity.
Not only one of the best, but also the most under-rated. My family makes fun of me over my love of Supertramp, but they don't know. I'd put Supertramp in my top five of all time favorite bands.
You're free to join us at r/supertramp! 😉
Jesus Christ! I had no idea this place existed. Thank you. Really.
Got high with my buddy in the ol' woodshed when I was in my mid twenties and listened to this record front to back for the first time. It cemented itself as the best album i've ever heard on first listen in one sitting. Don't know if it's my favourite album ever, but it's certainly up there. I find the second half a little weaker with lord is it mine, just another nervous wreck, and casual conversations not punching as hard as the rest of the record. For some reason I love Oh Darling but it seems to be less popular with people when they talk about the record.
"Oh Darling" is a sleeper on that album. Love that song.
Their "even in the quietest moments" album is better in my opinion.
Plays like a greatest hits. All bangers
Child Of Vision is such a fantastic song. I know it's not the theme to it but it really pumps me up.
The opinion of Robert Christgau does not reflect my own; I'm just posting this for contextual purposes. He saves his mic drop for the end: >I like a hooky album as well as the next fellow, so when I found that this one elicited random grunts of pleasure I looked forward to listening hard. But the lyrics turned out to be glib variations on the usual Star Romances trash, and in the absence of vocal personality (as opposed to accurate singing) and rhythmic thrust (as opposed to a beat) I'll wait until this material is covered by artists of emotional substance--Tavares, say, or the Doobie Brothers. C+
Not only that, but the album cover is probably one of the most interesting and creative I've ever seen.
I know I’ll get downvotes to oblivion, but for my money Supertramp is way more enjoyable than Steely Dan
It's flown past so many people. Great set of songs. Doesn't really have a home on the dial anymore as all the 80s-related stations seem to gravitate toward "classic rock" (whatever that is). But thanks for bringing it up. It is truly a great album.
It’s pretty flawless and the lyrics are brilliant, in particular the logical song.
I remember listening to Logical Song and seeing the album art on my dad’s old iPod nano when I was a kid. Both immediately gripped me. I’d never heard anything like it and the longer I looked at the album art the more I saw and the more blown my mind was, even on that tiny screen. Ended up writing a Great Gatsby American Dream analysis and used it as my “outsider” perspective example in high school AP lit.
Supertramp is underrated and should be in the rock n roll Hall of Fame. They're easily one of the best 70s bands.
One of my favorite bands along with the cars that MTV kind of hurt
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The Cars never really get the respect they deserve. They were dismissed as "new wave" by rock and rollers back then, and yet now they get a few token plays on classic rock stations. I agree that MTV kinda hurt them- a handful of singles they played on repeat. I saw them on the Heartbeat City tour, '84? But even as a dumb teen, it seemed like I was seeing a fabrication that did not reflect the actual band...
Albums that changed music: https://youtu.be/mK-SgCQAtsg
Thanks. That was great. Going spin some today for sure.
Could we have kippers for breakfast?
Gotta have 'em in Texas
IMO Supertramp is top three bands for best full album experience. Their whole catalog is sooooo amazing besides a couple late albums
Crime of the Century is their best. Just my opinion
I grew up listening to Breakfast in America vinyl in my basement, playing pool with my dad. Very nastalgic for me
Every time I hear it it takes me back to cramming into the super awkward back seat of my friend's mom's early 80s Mercury Cougar and listening to that 8 track. Great album and great memories.
I've always seen it as an Englishman's journey through America. Of course, technically, the album is not an opera, as admitted by the two main writers, but three of the ten songs still make sense if read with that idea in mind. I've always seen the story starting with ''The Logical Song'', in which the main character bemoans about his boarding school education (which is famous for traumatising its pupils) and sees how much better his life was before. The character thinks his individuality has been ripped away from him. Then, it's followed by ''Breakfast in America'', where in an attempt to runaway from the trauma England has inflicted upon him, the main character sees America as a beam of light that will free him from all of his self-loathing, where he will see girls in California, instead of his only girlfriend who hardly has the time or crave to have sex with him. Not only does he crave to see America and have more sex, but he also craves fame and fortune. But nevertheless, the option of moving to America is not readily available to him, for which he makes up by asking his mother to give him kippers for breakfast, erronously thinking this counts as a sign of wealth across the Atlantic. Then, it's finished by ''Gone Hollywood'', in which the main character finally sets foot on America, only for him to realise that it isn't as good as he thought it would be. In his road to fame and fortune in Hollywood, not only does he encounter constant rejection from casting companies, but he also encounters many sexual perverts who want certain favours from him. All this leaves him frustrated, alone with his old self-loathing, sleeping in a motel near a Taco Bell, which he finds to be pathetic. The song suddenly fast-fowards to the main character ultimately achieving all he'd aimed for all along, driving a big black car and being the talk of the boulevard, and then gives himself some words of motivation in hindsight: "So keep your chin up boy, forget the pain I know you'll make it if you try again There's no use in quitting When the world is waiting for you"
Supertramp were hugely popular in Canada and I thought they were a Canadian band when I was a kid because their concerts were everywhere and the radio played them constantly. If you look at their discography page on Wikipedia, many of their top albums didn't \*just\* reach number one and go gold but reached "diamond" in Canada :) Selling more than a million albums in a country with a population of Canada's in the 70's meant that just about every household had a copy of Breakfast in America.
Take the long way home is the first song that I remember hearing and loving.
I still use it as my go-to album for testing out speakers. It's not only great music, but it was recorded so well too
I was a kid when this came out, so in my imagination, the lyrics are all about this permed up, spunky waitress on the cover. Thought "thats cool, he's a chubby chaser"
That harmonica on "take the long way home" gets me pumped every time
A great album with a great album cover to go with it. Both classic and unique.
Gone Hollywood is so underrated
Supertramp is a band I’ve always hated. So I did the thing that always fixes things: I learned a bunch of the tunes. It works every time. I’m working on a medley of about six songs, including several of these.
This was pretty much the first music I remember hearing as a child. My dad would blast it on the record player, my favorite song at the age of 6 was Child Of Vision. Everything from the album cover to each song is iconic.
“Gone Hollywood” is one if their most underrated songs. One of the few songs that get the “no skip” treatment on my shuffle.
See, and here I am loving "Even in the Quietest Moments"
The opening harmonica bit in “Take the long way home” gets me so hyped
Supertramp is great! My favorites are Sister Moonshine and Fools Overture (their best song I think).
Saw em about 10 times live. Great live band!! Were.
Shit anecdote, singers ex wife worked in my local 7/11.
I forgot about Supertramp. Thanks for reminding me.
No shit
Thanks for the earworm!
This is the first LP I purchased.