10CC

For years, I had convinced myself that I was a huge 10CC fan based on a few songs that I absolutely adored and from hearing this album and "The Original Soundtrack". After finally having gone through all of their albums now several times, I find that the two full albums that I had originally are their best ones, with an honorable mention to "Bloody Tourists". All of the other albums I have finally given up on since I have only found a hand full of songs on them that I find interesting and the rest are just not living up to the original high bar that I had set with the band from the two previously mentioned albums.

So what makes this album one of the two favorites from this band? I love the variety here in the same manner that I love the variety in the best Queen albums. I love all the tweaks that they put in the simple melodies that elevate their pop music to a higher level, that actually begin to give pop music a progressive edge. On this album, most of the music is "sort-of" 50s and 60s style doo-wop and rock n roll, especially in the first 5 tracks, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But, like I said before, they add little bits of ingenuity throughout that keep things interesting. The remainder of the tracks are more 70s pop oriented and all throughout the album, satire and sarcasm abound making it all a big poke of fun at the radio-friendly sounds that were around at the time. The humor is in the words as in "The Hospital Song" and "Sand in My Face". The humor is in the music too as in "Fresh Air for My Mama" which is as sarcastic of a ballad as you can get, so much so that if you are not careful, you might find your eyes welling up until you realize it's just making fun. Same applies to the song "Donna" which is a well sung poke at the simplistic lyrics of old 50s music and the utter silliness of it all, yet it is done so well that you can easily miss the humor of it all and think that it's in all seriousness. Subtle humor exists throughout and so does the subtleness of the progressiveness of the music, careful or you might miss it, which makes it even more enjoyable when you do get it.

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong initially by trying to base my love of this band on only hearing 2 great albums. I should have been more familiar with their discography, but at least I can say that they had 2 masterpieces when it comes to pop-progressive music because if anyone knew how to do it well, it was these guys at least twice, which is more than most pop groups who can't even get close to a 2-star album throughout their entire career. 5 stars. A progressive-pop masterpiece if there ever was one.