CRIME OF THE CENTURY

This is THE album that changed the way I viewed music as a young teenager. Before hearing Crime of the Century I did not know that any music other than 3 to 5 minute rock/pop songs existed other than 'classical' and 'jazz'! My parents only played The Beatles early stuff or Elvis Presley and I watched 'Top of the Pops' every thursday night. My friends were into the 'New Romantic' stuff or, 'Heavy Rock' or The Jam and I wasn't keen on anything much.

Anyway, it was around 1980/81 and I really liked a Thin Lizzy single called 'Killer on the Loose' so I went to Hillards to buy the 'Chinatown' album. I had a good look at the cover and a browse through what else was on offer. I then happened upon 'Paris' by Supertramp and decided to buy that instead because it included 3 songs that I had heard and liked whereas 'Chinatown' only had the one.

On playing 'Paris', I was blown away by the instrumentation, arrangements and the quality of the songs. Most of them were from this album. The week after I bought 'Crime of the Century' and my eyes were opened.

The whole album has a coehesive atmosphere, partly due to the opening and closing Harmonica and the outstanding Ken Scott production. There was so much more to this LP than anything I had heard before. The songs had depth both in the writing and in the instrumentation. The vocals had emotion and the music was a strange blend of styles that I had not heard before. I was hooked on Supertramp and through them, 'progressive' music.

I believe that this album is THE album to recommend anyone who cannot see beyond the charts to lead them into the possibilities of what music is out there ,'progressive' or not, it did for me.