Don't you let the sun fade away

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

08/05/77 : Even In The Quietest Moments - Supertramp

Supertramp are another band I just don't get - there's obviously skill involved and I believe they're making the sort of sound they want to, but it doesn't click with me and I don't see why they're making it.  Hopefully this will enlighten me...

It surprises me by opening with one of the few tracks of theirs I know "Give A Little Bit" and I quite like it - it's surprisingly understated.  Which is actually true for most of the album - whilst at the same time it's also overblown and over-the-top, which is all quite clever.  Except for "Fools Overture" which could never be considered as understated - it's just overblown and over-the-top.  I actually got the impression that one listen isn't enough for this album - that doesn't mean I'm going to listen to it again, but at least I feel I should.  And I enjoyed what I heard on first listen a lot more than I was expecting - a very pleasant surprise.

We're at #12 this week on fourth week of a surprisingly length 21 week run, with this being as high as it got.  The top five this week were ABBA (halfway through a nine week run at the top), Eagles, The Shadows best-of (just finishing a thirteen week run in the top three!), A Star Is Born and The Stranglers and the highest new entry was 10cc (#15).

Wikipedia has a random selection of facts on each of the tracks, very few of which are of any interest at all - the most interesting fact is that it's a real piano on the cover which they gutted, shipped to a ski resort in Colarado and left out overnight in the snow, which feels like waaaay too much effort to take a picture.  The critics were nice enough about it and I have to agree with All Music that it's "elegant yet mildly absurd" - commercially it did well, getting to #1 in Canada and The Netherlands and #16 in the US, selling 500k copies over there.

"Customers also listened to" Roger Hodgson (unsurprisingly, the lead singer of Supertramp), Genesis, The Alan Parsons Project and ELO - no major surprises there.  However, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this album - it wasn't bad at all!

01/05/77 - All a bit dated 
15/05/77 - A most peculiar album

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