Crime of the Century is the third studio album by the English rock band Supertramp, released in October 1974 on A&M Records. Crime of the Century was Supertramp's commercial breakthrough in many countries, most notably in the UK, Canada and Germany where it peaked in the Top 5 while also making the Top 20 in Australia and France. It was an improvement over their previous sales in the US, but still only peaked at No. 38, with the US hit being "Bloody Well Right". "School" was another popular track, particularly at album rock-oriented radio stations. The album was eventually certified Gold in the US in 1977 after the release of Even in the Quietest Moments.... In Canada, it was eventually certified Diamond (sales of one million copies). The album was Supertramp's first to feature drummer Bob Siebenberg (at the time credited as Bob C. Benberg), saxophone and clarinet player and vocalist John Helliwell, bassist Dougie Thomson, and co-producer Ken Scott. The album has received critical acclaim, including its inclusion in Rolling Stone's "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time".[3]
The album's dedication reads "To Sam", which is a nickname for Stanley August Miesegaes, the Dutch millionaire who supported the band financially from 1969 to 1972.[6]
After the failure of their first two albums and an unsuccessful tour, it looked like the end of Supertramp, but Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson built it up from there, recruiting new members, drummer Bob C. Benberg, woodwinds player and backing vocalist John Helliwell, and bassist Dougie Thomson.[7] Their record label, A&M, in particular A&R man Dave Margereson (who would become their manager for the next ten years), sent this new line-up to a seventeenth-century farm in west Dorset in order to rehearse together and prepare the album.[7][8]
The album was recorded at several studios, including Trident Studios and Ramport Studios (owned by The Who), with co-producer Ken Scott. While recording the album, Davies and Hodgson recorded approximately 42 demo songs, from which only 8 were chosen to appear on the album. Several other tracks appeared on later albums (Crisis? What Crisis?, ...Famous Last Words...).
Due to a contractual agreement, all the songs are credited jointly to the two writers, but some of the songs were written individually. Scott commented that Davies and Hodgson "were very, very different personalities. Those differing personalities made the music sound the way it did."[9] "Asylum", "Rudy" and "Bloody Well Right" were written by Davies, "Dreamer", "If Everyone Was Listening", and "Hide in Your Shell" were written by Hodgson, and both "School" and "Crime of the Century" are Davies/Hodgson collaborations.[10]
Hodgson remarked of "Hide in Your Shell": "I was 23 when I wrote that song, confused about life and like a lot of people are at that age, trying to hide my insecurities. I’ve always been able to express my innermost feelings more openly in song and 'Hide in Your Shell' came to me at a time when I was feeling very lonely – lonely both in life and within the band – with no one who shared my spiritual quest."[9]
"Dreamer" was composed by Hodgson on his Wurlitzer piano at his mother's house when he was 19 years old. At that time he recorded a demo of the song using vocals, Wurlitzer, and banging cardboard boxes for percussion. Hodgson recalled: "I was excited – it was the first time I laid hands on a Wurlitzer."[9] Supertramp cut their own recording of the song in imitation of this early demo.[11] Also, Hodgson stated on In the Studio with Redbeard while talking about the making of the album that the band had difficulty recreating the song when recording it.
Another of Hodgson's philosophical musings, "If Everyone Was Listening", was inspired by the As You Like It adage "All the world’s a stage, and all the men are merely players".[9] According to Entertainment Weekly, the message of the song is, "Not knowing what’s going on in everyone’s mind is just another form of not being in control. The fear comes not from the absence of knowledge of another person’s thought process, but rather from confronting the fact that we have no control over anything."[12] The song would later provide the title track for Michael Ball's 2014 album of the same name.[13]
The album was named after the final song, "Crime of the Century", which the band members felt was the strongest song on the album.[10] Shortly after his departure from Supertramp, Hodgson commented: "I've had more people come up to me and say that that song touched them more deeply than any other. That song really came together when we were living together at Southcombe Farm, Thorncombe, and just eating, sleeping, and breathing the ideas for the album. The song just bounced between Rick and I for so many weeks before it finally took form."[10] For unknown reasons, in several interviews both before and since, Hodgson has attributed the song as being written solely by Davies.
Hodgson describes "School" as "my song basically" but admits that Davies wrote both the piano solo and a good deal of the lyrics.[10] Interviewed by Jeff Parets of Acoustic Storm in 2010, Hodgson confirmed that the song was based on his experience at boarding school and said of the girl's scream: "Everything, especially that scream that you're talking about just before the band comes in, does represent a lot... I mean, you know, school is a wonderful place. Obviously, it's a school playground but that scream does represent a lot more."[14]Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso rated "School" as Supertramp's 3rd greatest song, calling it a "jazz fusion-informed gem" and praising its "free-form creativity," "plaintive lyric" and "stirring musical specificity."[15]
On the In the Studio with Redbeard episode devoted to the album, Hodgson stated that "Rudy" was the character on the album and was seen as somewhat autobiographical of Davies' life at the time.[citation needed] The sound of the train in "Rudy" was recorded at London Paddington station, while the crowd noises in the song were taken from Leicester Square.[8]
Hodgson and Davies both stated that communication within the group was at a peak during the recording of this album, while drummer Siebenberg stated that he thought it was this album on which the band hit its "artistic peak".[16]
Crime of the Century deals loosely with themes of loneliness and mental stability, but is not a concept album.[8] Davies consciously linked the opening track "School" to "Bloody Well Right" with the line "So you think your schooling is phoney", and according to Hodgson, any unifying thread beyond that was left to the listener's imagination.[8]
Artwork
The photograph for the cover was Paul Wakefield's first album work. A&M Records' art director Fabio Nicoli invited Wakefield to the studio where the band were recording and had him read the lyrics. With the album title already chosen, Wakefield started asking himself "what an appropriate sentence could be for 'the crime of the century'" and combined it with a line from the song "Asylum": "when they haunt me and taunt me in my cage." One of his ideas, a prison cell window floating in space with a person silently screaming through the bars, was approved by the band, and when Wakefield started to develop the idea, he reduced the prisoner to just hands clutching the bars, "a resignation to fate that the other didn’t have. It felt like there would be no reprieve." A friend made the set of polished aluminum bars and welded it to a stand, and underneath it Wakefield's twin brother grabbed the bars, with his hands whitened with stage make-up. Through multiple exposure, Wakefield shot 12 pictures on transparency film, which he then combined with a back-lit starscape, that was actually a black card sheet filled with holes in a darkened studio. Half of the resulting pictures had the expected result. The back cover photograph, featuring band members in their underwear holding dress suits and top hats, was originally made when the album cover was meant to be a gatefold.[17]
Crime of the Century was Supertramp's first U.S. Top 40 album and was eventually certified Gold in the U.S. in 1977, after the release of Even in the Quietest Moments.... The album also marked the commercial breakthrough for the band in the United Kingdom; Crime of the Century peaked at number four in the album chart in March 1975, and "Dreamer" reached number thirteen on the singles chart in the same month.[23] The album was particularly successful in Canada, staying on the album chart for over two years, peaking at number four, and being certified Diamond (10 x platinum) signifying sales of over one million copies.
In 1978, Crime of the Century was ranked 108th in The World Critic Lists, which recognised the 200 greatest albums of all time as voted for by notable rock critics and DJs.[24]Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was ambivalent towards the album's "straight-ahead art-rock", which he called "Queen without preening. Yes without pianistics and meter shifts."[18] Adam Thomas's retrospective review in Sputnikmusic described it as one of the better albums of the 1970s for its powerful expression of young adult confusion and alienation, and for its consistent contrast between prog and pop elements.[5]
In the 1987 edition of The World Critic Lists, CBC's Geoff Edwards ranked Crime of the Century the 10th greatest album of all time.[24] A 1998 public poll, aggregating the votes of more than 200,000 music fans, saw Crime of the Century voted among the all-time top 1000 albums,[25] and it was listed in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[26] In 2015, it was chosen as the 27th greatest progressive rock album by Rolling Stone.[3] Paul Elliott of Classic Rock magazine called it a progressive rock masterpiece.[27]
Many of the songs on the album remained staples of the band's shows well into the 21st century ("School", "Bloody Well Right", "Rudy", and the title song). Almost all of the album appears on the band's 1980 live album Paris although the tracks that feature orchestrations on the studio versions ("Asylum", "Rudy", and "Crime of the Century") were replaced by string synthesisers or Oberheim synthesisers, which were played mainly by Helliwell with some help from Hodgson.[citation needed] Hodgson has also included songs from the album ("Dreamer", "Hide in Your Shell", "School" and "If Everyone Was Listening") in his concerts.[28]
Releases
The first release was on vinyl by A&M Records in 1974. In 1977, it became the first pop music LP title re-issued by the audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.[29] A&M released it as one of the first CDs in its "Audio Master Plus" series in 1984, which it then reissued in 1990.[29] Mobile Fidelity also released its own remastered CD version on a gold disc as part of its "Ultradisc" series, in November 1984.[29]
A new remastered CD version of the album was released by A&M in 1997, followed by a different remaster on 11 June 2002.[29] The newer A&M remasters feature all of the album art restored plus credits and full lyrics, which were missing from some earlier editions. Both 1997[30] and 2002[31] A&M remasters were from the original tapes by Greg Calbi and Jay Messina at Sterling Sound in New York.[citation needed]
The 1997 remaster has all tracks peaking at 100 per cent, significantly altering the original dynamic range of the recording and effectively adding new distortion to the sound. [citation needed] The 2002 edition is not quite as loud but still has much of the same effect.[citation needed]
The album was re-issued by German audiophile label Speaker's Corner in 1999, as a 180gram vinyl LP.[32] It has none of the dynamic range compression applied to the A&M remastered CD versions.[citation needed]
It was announced in October 2014 that the album, remastered by Ray Staff, would be reissued in CD, digital download, and 180g vinyl formats on 9 December 2014.[33] In addition to the original album, the release would include a complete recording of a 1975 Hammersmith Odeon concert, a 24-page booklet of photographs, and an essay written by Phil Alexander with new interviews with Ken Scott, Dave Margereson, and most of the band members. Two 10×8 prints and a longer version of the essay were announced as exclusives of the vinyl version.[33]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
Related Research Articles
Supertramp were a British rock band that formed in London in 1970. They experienced their greatest global success in 1979 with their sixth album Breakfast in America. Marked by the individual songwriting of founders Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, the group were distinguished for blending progressive rock and pop styles as well as for a sound that relied heavily on Wurlitzer electric piano. The group's lineup changed numerous times throughout their career, with Davies being the only constant member throughout its history. The classic lineup, which lasted ten years from 1973 to 1983, comprised Davies, Hodgson, Dougie Thomson (bass), Bob Siebenberg (drums) and John Helliwell (saxophone).
Breakfast in America is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Supertramp, released by A&M Records on 16 March 1979. It was recorded in 1978 at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. It spawned three US Billboard hit singles: "The Logical Song", "Goodbye Stranger", and "Take the Long Way Home". In the UK, "The Logical Song" and the title track were both top 10 hits, the only two the group had in their native country.
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Paris is a live album by the English rock band Supertramp, released in 1980. It was recorded on Supertramp's Breakfast in America tour in Paris, France, with most of the tracks taken from a 29 November 1979 show at the Pavillon de Paris, a venue which was once a slaughterhouse. The album was originally going to be called Roadworks. Paris reached number 8 on the Billboard 200 in late 1980 and went Gold immediately, while the live version of "Dreamer" hit the US Top 20.
...Famous Last Words... is the seventh studio album by English rock band Supertramp, released in October 1982. It was the studio follow-up to 1979's Breakfast in America and the last album with vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Roger Hodgson, who left the group to pursue a solo career. Thus, it was the final album to be released by the classic lineup of the band.
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Charles Roger Pomfret Hodgson is an English singer, musician and songwriter, best known as the former co-frontman and founding member of the progressive rock band Supertramp. Hodgson composed and sang the majority of the band’s hits, including "Dreamer", "Give a Little Bit", "Take the Long Way Home", "The Logical Song", "It's Raining Again", and "Breakfast in America".
The Autobiography of Supertramp is the first greatest hits album by the English rock band Supertramp, released in 1986.
"Breakfast in America" is the title track from English rock band Supertramp's 1979 album of the same name. Credited to Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, it was a top-ten hit in the UK and a live version of the song reached No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1981. The lyrics tell about a person, presumably British, who dreams of visiting the United States.
"Dreamer" is a hit single from British band Supertramp's 1974 album Crime of the Century. It peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1975. In 1980, it appeared on the band's live album Paris. This live version was also released as a single and hit number 15 on the US charts, number 36 in the Dutch Top 40, and number one on the Canadian Singles Chart. When "Dreamer" had been released in 1974, its B-side "Bloody Well Right" was more popular in North America leading it to chart instead, at No. 35 in the US and No. 49 in Canada, with "Dreamer" only charting in Canada, that being at No. 75. "Dreamer" also appeared on Roger Hodgson's album, Classics Live, recorded on tour in 2010.
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"Bloody Well Right" is a song by English rock band Supertramp from their 1974 album Crime of the Century. It appeared as the B-side of the single "Dreamer" in 1974. Listeners in the United States preferred it to the A-side, and "Bloody Well Right" became their breakthrough hit in the country, peaking at number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"School" is a song co-written by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson of British rock band Supertramp, and included in the band's third and breakthrough 1974 album, Crime of the Century, of which it was the opening track. It was later released as a single in 1983, backed with "Oh Darling", a track from their 1979 album Breakfast in America, and charted at number 27 in Netherlands in 1989. In 2020, the song peaked at number 1 as its highest radio airplay chart in Spain.
"Babaji" is a song by English rock band Supertramp, written by Roger Hodgson and also credited to other band member Rick Davies. First released on their 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments..., it was subsequently released in Europe and in Australia as the follow-up single to "Give a Little Bit".
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