DECEPTIVE BENDS

In 1976, tensions and personality clashes were starting to get the best of the members of 10cc, however, they started working on their fifth album "Deceptive Bends" anyway. Once the first track, "People in Love", was finished, they considered it awful, and this was the straw that divided the classic band. Kevin Godley and Lol Crème went off to do their own album leaving Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman to try to pull together the album on their own.

Those that had been following the band would notice a difference. This album was much more pop-oriented and less artsy as before. The songs were straightforward leaving behind a lot of the imagination and original feel of previous albums. Yet, Stewart and Gouldman were encouraged because this would become their biggest selling album with their most popular hit "The Things We Do For Love" carrying the album. There is a good chance you know this song, so you can pretty much tell from that song where the band was going with only half of the songwriting part of the band missing.

The first half of the album is the most accessible with the most famous songs on it. The upbeat and driving beat of "Good Morning Judge" will almost make you thing the band hasn't suffered much from the division. This song was the 2nd single from the album and it continued the band's string of top 10 songs in the UK. There is a bit of wry humor there, but the song is pretty straightforward. This is followed by the extremely popular "The Things We Do for Love", the song that almost everyone knows by the band, reaching the top 10 in at least 6 countries including the US. But, as most people know, it's straightforward pop. It's interesting that on this album the most radio friendly songs are by Stewart. "Marriage Bureau Rendezvous" is the first song on the album by Gouldman. This one is a mid-tempo track and has no real hooks or anything that makes it memorable. "People in Love" is the 3rd single from the album, and is a nice ballad that for some reason didn't do well on the charts, barely making a dent in the top 100 anywhere even if it somewhat mirrors "I'm Not in Love", an earlier mega hit from the band. It's also quite straightforward, but I find it more interesting than "The Things We Do?." with a nice, somewhat orchestral instrumental break. The first side ends with "Modern Man Blues" tries for a bluesy style, but seems a bit washed out even with some attempt at raspy vocals. At least we get a few shifts in tempo where it speeds up a bit to a boogie riff for short sections. Unfortunately, it's too overproduced to be taken seriously.

Side 2 goes for a more art-pop sound, but the slickness of it all tends to drain any spirit out of the record. "Honeymoon with B Troop" goes for a tricky Beatlesque style and takes another stab at lightheartedness, but the humor just doesn't work. "I Bought a Flat Guitar Tutor" tries to recall some progressive sound by chords being worked into the lyrics while the music shifts as the chords are mentioned. It's a short song, a novel idea, but goes over most people's head and doesn't save the album. "You've Got a Cold" also tries to be funny trying to bring back the banal humor of the band, but it just comes across as silly with the music being as mundane as the lyrics. This used to be a strength of the band, putting the mundane to great instrumentation and melody, but this time they forgot to make the music interesting. The album ends with the 11 minute suite "Feel the Benefit" divided up into 3 sections. Again, this is inspired by The Beatles sound. "Reminisce and Speculate" begins with a chord progression similar to "Dear Prudence", then brings in an orchestra before vocals begin. This one is definitely more complex, however, once again, there is nothing there that really hooks the listener into the song, at least through the first part. After a guitar solo, the 2nd section, "A Latin Break" finally introduces a bass-induced riff and a reggae beat, making it a bit more poppy sounding. After some more vocals, the guitar riff fades into the 3rd section "Fell the Benefit", which brings back a lot of the themes from the first section, more vocals, and finally a guitar solo that ends suddenly. Yes it sound interesting, but I challenge anyone to try to recall anything about it once it's done.

So, the main problems here are 1) half of the band is missing, apparently the most imaginative half, 2) the other half that remains tries way to hard to cover for the missing half and it is painfully obvious, and 3) the production is way to slick and overdone, so everything just sounds "plastic" to me. On top of this, most of the music isn't that interesting and the humor is painfully missing. When it's all said and done, the only things you remember is that there are 2 songs that are somewhat familiar and 1 that was overly played. The rest of the album is just too mediocre and a great example of what happens when a band tries way too hard to cover the fact that they are just not all there anymore. Sure, it's not as embarrassingly poppy like Ambrosia's "One-Eighty" album, but it's just not really that great either. In the long run, it only brought in new fans for the short haul as most pop fans just didn't get it. They ended up losing their appreciative fans who decided that the band had gone too commercial, and they never really had any follow up success after this album.