Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The wheels of Time constantly turn but they never seem to move very far from certain seminal points that repeat themselves over and over again. When it comes to nostalgia and thinking back to how much Time has irrevocably altered and magnified certain pieces of art, then the re-master, re-issue or just plain re-discovery of a lost epic is enough to make Time smile and make its heart go a little faster.
Supertramp’s Crime of the Century was once such moment in time for Progressive Rock fans and for genuine lovers of good popular music in 1974. Not only was it the breakthrough album for arguably one of the finest bands of the period, but it sowed the seeds of a run of albums that captured the imagination that went on to showcase the absolute sincerity of art in Roger Hodgson, John Anthony Helliwell, Dougie Thompson, Rick Davies and new addition to the group, drummer Bob Siebenberg.
From Crime of the Century the group released four sensational studio albums and one of the better live albums of the period on the bounce, From Crime…to Crisis? What Crisis? (1975), Even In The Quietest Moments (1977), Breakfast In America (1979) and Paris (1980), this was a run of form that was perhaps only matched by arguably the real piledrivers of 70s Rock Britain, including Pink Floyd and Genesis and Marillion in the 1980s.
The two studio albums that bookend this run of form, Crime of the Century and Breakfast In America are perhaps the most loved by Supertramp fans, they resonate with an abundance of tracks that just sit in the mind and play over and again, the lyrics deep, rich and infectious are never enough for just one fix, they like albums such as Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, itself released in the same year as Crime…and Pink Floyd’s The Wall demand to be played as often as possible and are amongst the highest of reasons why the Supertramp are considered in that pinnacle of British Rock music from that period.
1974 was dominated by many things, both at home and abroad. The lack of leadership from one of Britain’s worst Prime Ministers and a Government that went from one shambolic catastrophe to another. It was the re-emergence of Tony Benn as a serious political force, the start of the downfall of the Liberal Party under Jeremy Thorpe, the three day week, the Government versus the Miners, the despair of a nation as new lows were found in sport, OPEC flexing its muscles and finally the hope of a new dawn which sadly also floundered in its dying administrive days; however it also bought Supertramp together to release their first album in three years and it was a real Time defining moment.
Crime of the Century, even forty years on has the raw power to make you believe that some things are just pre-ordained, that they have the potential to be something more than magnificent. An album that was Progressive to its core and yet was so handsomely disguised that perhaps many didn’t see it; it is a story of one man, a true concept album, a tale of what could be seen as disjointed tracks, of an album of singles that somehow matured into one expanded piece. Like snippets of a life we have no right to comment on fully unless we have lived that life for each and every day of its existence, Crime of the Century offers several outstanding peeks into the psyche of a revolution that failed to materialize and of that peculiarity of spirit found in the British nation.
Tracks such as School, a fore-runner perhaps of Roger Water’s own inspection of the education system and its almost suicidal and damaging way of dealing with children at the time, the tremendous Bloody Well Right, the veiled, almost mysterious thoughts of Hide In Your Shell, the absolute brilliance in Dreamer and the sublime Asylum added to Genesis’ The Lamb… album but also contradicted the destruction and bleakness offered in their peers release. It is an album that whilst showing the futility of certain actions and regrets in life was able to propose that whilst existence was bleak in 1974, there was always hope, the peculiar spirit that gets associated with Britain’s War-Time efforts, the Blitz factor.
Crime of the Century, like the next three studio albums that followed it, showed a different way of presenting Progressive Rock, the power of the story needn’t be one that was introspective that the music should be considered bleak. If anything, even if the lyrics suggest as such the damage to the nature of society and one man’s place in it, then the music can still be considered uplifting, joyful and full of unabashed brilliance. 1974 was arguably a year of national self-destruction presided over by a weak and character flawed man but the music of Supertramp, this flowering of greatness to come, was nothing short of phenomenal.
Ian D. Hall