Supertramp
| Track | Album |
|---|---|
| Bloody Well Right | Crime Of The Century |
| Breakfast In America | Breakfast In America |
| Dreamer | Crime Of The Century |
| Give A Little Bit | Even In The Quietest Moments |
| Goldrush | Slow Motion |
| It's Raining Again | Famous Last Words |
| The Logical Song | Breakfast In America |
| Take The Long Way Home | Breakfast In America |
| Try Again | Supertramp |
| Your Poppa Don't Mind | Indelibly Stamped |
Supertramp playlist
Contributor: Peter Viney
All tracks except Try Again and Goldrush are on the Retrospectacle anthology where Surely represents the first album beautifully, but is very short.
Supertramp continued after Roger Hodgson left, and billed himself as “The Voice of Supertramp” which indeed he was. Richard Davies was the rhythmic heart of Supertramp, which is why Your Poppa Don’t Mind is on there. Try Again demonstrates the King Crimson/Genesis major prog group which Supertramp Mk 1 might easily and deservedly have become.
Your Poppa Don’t Mind is Supertramp Mk 2.
All the hits are Supertramp Mk 3 and pretty much choose themselves. Dreamer, Give A Little Bit, The Logical Song, It’s Raining Again, Breakfast In America are Roger at his best. Bloody Well Right is Richard Davies.
Crisis? What Crisis? isn’t represented. Lady nearly made it, a great song, but is too obviously Dreamer Part II.
There’s just one “post-Roger” track … Goldrush, a left over from Supertramp Mk 1, which Supertramp Mk 2 used to play live. Apparently they tried to record it many times without success, finally nailing it (Supertramp Mk IV) on 2002’s Slow Motion. I wish there was a version with Roger on vocals available too.
I’ve seen Supertramp without Roger, and Roger without Supertramp. Both are necessarily incomplete.
The official site of Roger Hodgson
Supertramp biography (Apple Music)
Peter Viney has been an educational author and video scriptwriter since 1980. He has written articles on The Band, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. He also writes novels under the name Dart Travis and writes on popular music, theatre and film at his website.
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I think I could live with just Indelibly Stamped in a desert island situation. The riffy prog rock of the debut was tempered and a very interesting collection of songs was the result, but looking ahead as well as back you can equally say that while songs became the focus, Indelibly Stamped gave no clues to the hit machine that lurked around the corner
Roger Hodgson has often said that some of his best songs pre-date Supertramp. I think the first album has strong melodies that do predict what was due to happen four years later: Try Again, Surely, Maybe I’m A Beggar, I Am Not Like Other Birds of Prey, Shadow Song. But it also has the more rocking sound of ‘Indelibly Stamped’ on It’s A Long Road and Nothing To Show.
The second album has the sax sound of Dave Winthrop (later of Secret Affair), who was succeeded by John Helliwell by ‘Crime of The Century.’ Dave Winthrop joined right after the first album was recorded, so the sound of Supertramp Mark 1 live already had that sax element in all the songs, though it’s not on the LP. Somewhere that must be documented on a John Peel Show recording, but as far as I know it’s never emerged. The first LP, A&M mentioned once, has never been unavailable since its release in 1970.
The other stand out track on “Indelibly Stamped” is Rosie Had Everything Planned, but I went for a choice (Your Poppa Don’t Mind) that showed the contrast in style.
And those are exactly the two cuts – along with that gloriously distorted intro to Remember – I would cite as favourites. And Forever was good in a Plastic Ono-era Lennon kind of way.