Supertramp POX

School
Hide In Your Shell
The Logical Song
Breakfast In America
Give a Little Bit

1. Take The Long Way Home
2. Bloody Well Right
3. Lady
4. School
5. From Now On
6. Rudy
7. Hide In Your Shell
8. Give A Little Bit
9. Ain't Nobody But Me
10. It's Raining Again (would be higher if not for that wretched "no need to get uptighter" line)

I had "Easy Does It" stuck in my head today and I think I'm just going to spend the week listening to nothing but Supertramp. I'm tempted just to put all of Crisis, What Crisis? here. Only ten is too hard!, but:

+ Babaji
+ Fool's Overture
+ School
+ Crime of the Century
+ Hide in Your Shell
+ If Everyone Was Listening
+ Sister Moonshine
+ A Soapbox Opera
+ Poor Boy
+ The Logical Song

This thread is appropriate, since they have about 10 good songs.
Although I appreciate the contrasting dynamic of earnest/spiritual tenor and cynical/earthy baritone on their albums, I think Roger Hodgson wrote and sang all their best songs. Best Rick Davies song would be "Oh Darling".

"Words Unspoken" from Supertramp
"Hide in Your Shell" and "If Everyone Was Listening" from Crime of the Century
"A Soapbox Opera", "The Meaning" and "Two of Us" from Crisis? What Crisis?
The title track and "Fool's Overture" from Even in the Quietest Moments...
"The Logical Song" and "Take the Long Way Home" from Breakfast in America

They're an intriguing band, at least from my vantage, since no matter how many "good" songs they may have, there sure are more than a handful that get regular play on the radio, and yet the band seems to have no real traction. Or, I dunno, maybe as much as the Moody Blues or Procol Harum or whatever. Like those bands, I'm not even sure where this band even fits in. Did they have peers? Were they part of a particular scene? Does their fan base cross over with, say, Genesis? No idea. They're just out there floating around in the ether.

They are still critical punching-bags, seen as representing the nadir of the 70s; neither the prog nor the FM rock revivals seem to have helped them, maybe because they sat between the two camps.
For instance, John Corbett's book on 70s music, Pick Up the Pieces, has chapters on Heart, Boston and ELO (among hipper acts) but he still uses Supertramp as a punchline on a couple of occasions, like they are the least defensible remnant of the age.

the band seems to have no real traction. Or, I dunno, maybe as much as the Moody Blues or Procol Harum or whatever.

They were apparently more popular in Canada than anywhere else so maybe my perspective is skewed but this seems totally wrong to me.

xpost Huh, I wonder why? I mean, a band like Styx seems a much better nadir. Maybe it's that Supertramp doesn't even get *ironically* cited, but as band like Styx does?

Tame Impala guy is a big fan, I thought? I suspected they were the secret influence on a lot of millennial indie rock.

https://www.spin.com/2012/08/tame-impalas-surprising-lonerism-influence-supertramp/

Their profile might have been raised by the ad that featured "Give a Little Bit" a few years ago, I don't like that song.

Nadirs of the 70s: Styx vs Supertramp?

the album after breakfast in America is totally underrated

crime of century and quiet moments are both solid

they’re a bunch of ringers with no charisma but they made good records

"Know Who You Are"on that 1982 album is a very nice acoustic ballad completely at odds with the increasing slickness of their sound.
Was John Helliwell the most prominent clarinetist in rock? Who would be his competitors, among people that were actually members of name bands? Ian McDonald of King Crimson?

Andre 3000? The Mascara Snake?

Walter Parazaider from Chicago dabbles in clarinet when the mood takes him

Which it too often does

did Andy McKay play one on “ladytrpn”?

Mackay doubled on oboe, but no clarinet as far as I know.

The poppier end of art/prog-rock, not as good as first-greatest-hits Electric Light Orchestra, but still pretty good I'd say. I saw them live in their late-'70s heyday! ("They were apparently more popular in Canada than anywhere else"--I think that's true, yeah.)

...and yet they snubbed us, when Breakfast in Canada would have made a perfectly good song/album title!

They already had us; they were hunting bigger game.

I was surprised to see a Guardian article the other week listing Supertramp's best songs, thinking there'd been a Supertramp revival I wasn't aware of... but it was because Rick Davies died.

+ Babaji
+ Fool's Overture
+ School
+ Crime of the Century
+ Hide in Your Shell
+ If Everyone Was Listening
+ Sister Moonshine
+ A Soapbox Opera
+ Poor Boy
+ The Logical Song

― salsa shark, Monday, 18 August 2008 01:17 (seventeen years ago)

I mostly stand by this, but swap Poor Boy for Try Again, and depending on mood, Sister Moonshine for Another Man's Woman or Asylum or Lady