Chula Vista

Crime of the Century - 1974

This may disappoint but I've decided to review this album as a whole rather than breaking it down song by song. I did try taking a few stabs at going tune by tune but frankly it just wasn't working. I kept finding myself being redundant since many of the overall redeeming qualities of each song are indicative of the entire piece of work.

I have to start by saying this is one of my all time favorite rock albums. A deserted island disc for me. I think it's a total masterpiece in every single way; songwriting, production, concepts, performances, tones, mixing, and on and on. It's one of the very few albums I would categorize as perfect. It's also one of the few that I can't just listen to a song or two at a time. If I put it on I listen to the whole thing, every time.

After the poor sales of their first two albums, Supertramp had broken up. Founding members, and singers/songwriters Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson regrouped with three brand new members. The bands A&R man (and subsequent long time manager) convinced their record label to give them another shot. The label financed putting the "new" group up in a centuries old farmhouse out in the English countryside so that they could get to know each other personally and musically in an intimate setting. For the next few weeks it was nothing but eating, sleeping, and music.

Davies and Hodgson had gone armed with dozens of demo ideas and slowly the 8 songs that made the album began to take shape. It was time to head into the studio. It was at this point that the new group struck gold by way of hooking up with famed recording engineer Ken Scott. Scott had been lead engineer working for George Martin and had manned the board for the majority of the Beatles work from 1967 till the band broke up. In the years since he'd moved on to producing, taking everything he'd learned previously and putting his own stamp on it.

Scott and the band immediately hit it off and he not only helped them fine tune the songs, but also encouraged them to experiment with different tones, effects, recording techniques, and adding orchestration. I consider him a sixth band member based on his contributions on COTC. A perfect example: for the train sounds in Rudy the guys took a field recorder to a London station. After getting what they needed they were wrapping things up when a busker started playing a violin nearby. Scott immediately decided to record him and to use it on the song and it completely works and fits the mood of the track.

If you've never heard COTC do yourself a favor. Get the remastered CD and then put aside 45 minutes where you won't be interrupted in any way. Be sure to use a good quality stereo or set of headphones. Now listen to the album from start to finish. The lyrics cover fear, loneliness, cynicism, self doubt, mental illness, and underneath it all, a hint of hope. The songs are all gems that would stand on their own if only strummed on a single acoustic guitar. And the overall production value of the finished product is remarkable. Sometimes it's a single reverb drenched harmonica, or an untreated piano, other times there's so much going on, so many different instruments and tones, so many effects and changes in the mood and ambiance of the pieces, yet is all 100% works perfectly.

If I had to vote on the most perfect rock album ever I'd probably give the nod to DSOTM, but COTC would make the decision a really hard one.

(reserve the right to supplement this review later)

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”