Jump to content

Crime of the Century (album)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Koavf (talk | contribs) at 00:12, 10 July 2011 (infobox style fix, replaced: = A&M Records → = A&M using AWB). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other uses, see Crime of the century (disambiguation).
Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [1]

Crime of the Century is the third album by the progressive rock band Supertramp, released in 1974. The album was Supertramp's first to feature its classic lineup and co-producer Ken Scott (who previously worked with David Bowie and The Beatles).

Reception

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, accompanied by the hit single Dreamer, also marked the first evidence of success for the band in the United Kingdom; Crime of the Century itself reaching Number One on the album chart there in 1975, and Dreamer number nine on the singles chart the same year.

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 DJ's.[2] In the 1987 edition of the publication, CBC's Geoff Edwards ranked Crime of the Century the 10th greatest album of all time.[2] 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,[3] and it was listed in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[4]

Many of the songs on the album are still staples of the band's shows ("School", "Bloody Well Right", "Rudy", and the title cut). Almost all of the album appears on the band's 1980 live album Paris although the tracks which featured orchestrations on the original Crime of the Century album ("Asylum", "Rudy", and "Crime of the Century") were replaced by string synthesizers or Oberheim synthesizers which were played mainly by John Helliwell with some help from Roger Hodgson.

Track listing

All songs written by Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies.

Side one

  1. "School" – 5:35 (Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson with Rick Davies)
  2. "Bloody Well Right" – 4:32 (Lead vocals: Rick Davies)
  3. "Hide In Your Shell" – 6:49 (Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson)
  4. "Asylum" – 6:45 (Lead vocals: Rick Davies with Roger Hodgson)

Side two

  1. "Dreamer" – 3:31 (Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson with Rick Davies)
  2. "Rudy" – 7:17 (Lead vocals: Rick Davies with Roger Hodgson)
  3. "If Everyone Was Listening" – 4:04 (Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson)
  4. "Crime of the Century" – 5:32 (Lead vocals: Rick Davies)

Recording

The album was recorded at a number of studios including Ramport Studios (owned by The Who) and Trident Studios. While recording the album, Rick Davies and Roger 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....) Hodgson and Davies both stated that communication within the group was at a peak during the recording of this album, while drummer Bob Siebenberg stated that he thought it was this album on which the band hit its "artistic peak". Despite these claims and the importance of the album in Supertramp's development, the band's greatest commercial success was still around five years away.

Lyrics

On the original lyrics sheet insert of the LP, the lyrics and song details were printed with specific attention to the singer of each lyric. Roger Hodgson's vocals were coloured in white and Rick Davies' were yellow. When one sung lyrics in the other's song, his colour was used accordingly. An example of this would be the song "Asylum," where the conversation between the two is represented on the lyric sheet as alternating between white and yellow respectively for each vocalist.

Release history

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. A&M released it as one of their first CDs as part of their "Audio Master Plus" series in the 1980s. Mobile Fidelity also released its own remastered CD version on a gold disc as part of its "Ultradisc" series also in the 1980s.

A new remastered CD version of the album was released by A&M in 1997 followed by a different remaster on 11 June 2002. 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 and 2002 A&M reissues were mastered from the original master tapes by Greg Calbi and Jay Messina at Sterling Sound, New York, in 1997 and 2002. The reissues were supervised by Bill Levenson with art direction by Vartan and design by Mike Diehl, with production coordination by Beth Stempel.

Both the 1997 and 2002 remasters are heavily criticised by audiophiles who claim they were mastered "too loud" as part of the "loudness war" mastering trend. The 1997 remaster has all tracks peaking at 100 percent, significantly altering the original dynamic range of the recording and effectively adding new distortion to the sound. The 2002 edition is not quite as loud but still has much of the same effect.

The album was re-issued in 2010 by the German audiophile label Speaker's Corner as a 180 gram vinyl LP. This version has received praise from collectors for its outstanding sound and faithfulness to the original packaging. It has none of the dynamic range compression applied to the recent A&M remastered CD versions.

Personnel

Supertramp

Other performers

  • Christine Helliwell – Backup vocals on "Hide in Your Shell"
  • Vicky Siebenberg – Backup vocals on "Hide in Your Shell"
  • Scott Gorham – Backup vocals on "Hide in Your Shell"
  • (Uncredited, unknown street musician) – Saw on "Hide in Your Shell"
  • Ken Scott – Water gong on "Crime of the Century"

Production

Original Release

  • Producers: Ken Scott and Supertramp
  • Engineers: Ken Scott, John Jansen
  • Original Vinyl Mastering: Ray Staff Trident Studios
  • String arrangements: Richard Hewson
  • Cover design and photography: Paul Wakefield
  • Art direction: Fabio Nicoli

Charts

Album – Billboard (North America)

Year Chart Position
1975 Pop Albums 38

United Kingdom Album Chart

Year Chart Position
1975 Albums 1

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
1975 "Bloody Well Right" Pop Singles (Billboard – North America) 35
1975 "Dreamer" Singles (United Kingdom) 9

References

  1. ^ link
  2. ^ a b The World Critic Lists. 1978. Archived at rocklistmusic.co.uk
  3. ^ Virgin: All-time top 1000 albums. Archived at rocklistmusic.co.uk
  4. ^ 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crime_of_the_Century_(album)&oldid=438663456"