CHUD Album of the Month: Rainbow RISING/Supertramp BREAKFAST IN AMERICA - Page 2

We're still awaiting responses from a lot of posters in the original thread and I for one haven't had a chance to listen to the Supertramp yet. That said it isn't September yet and we've already generated a lot of activity. Maybe we shouldn't constrict this to a monthly discussion is what I'm thinking, maybe just pass the torch as soon as one conversation dies? Just a proposal.

Recognize the lady on the Supertramp cover? You should! Need a hint? You won't know her name but you've definitely seen her before in a major motion picture in a VERY memorable part.
..You're gonna die when I tell you.

Need a hint? Her famous dialogue line was--"Get ready for a suprise!..."

Arnold's checkpoint disguise in Total Recall, credited as 'The Fat Woman'. Priscilla Allen is her name.
Oh, and Supertramp was awesome till just before the end when they started to break up yet still record. 'Better Days' one of my favorites of theirs, the video of the song was good too, very '1984'/retro scifi.

I actually came up with a pairing I kinda like, so I'd be happy to go next whenever it's appropriate.

Me too Jeb.

After you, Gaston.

If that's the case, the original thread should be used to announce the next album choices.

Well I don't think we're done with these two. Plus Judas selects who goes next.

Yeah, I know these albums are easy to find online, but please give some of us a chance to listen. I do most of my listening on the go and I haven't quite finished up RISING yet. The threads only a couple days old...

I'm really digging Breakfast in America, just full of great pop songs, the guitar solo towards the end of 'Goodbye Stranger' is great, I can't stop listening to it.

Agreed. It's a lot easier to get a hold of a couple of albums than it is to organise and watch 2 flicks. If we're looking for a specific time-limit, maybe one every week or every 2 weeks?

I'm curious why the forces of evil want to destroy us all "slowly"?

That's just the way the devil rolls, I guess...

Rainbow Rising is in my top ten albums of all time, and is up there with Heaven & Hell as the best thing Ronnie James will ever do. It's just a perfect, perfect album. Stargazer and Light in the Black are desert island material for fans of the genre.

I'm pleased to see this kind of good taste on Chud.

Long Live Rock n Roll is definitely less good as a follow-up, but still worth a getting as well.


Priestess nearly ripped off the cover, but who could fault them?

http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Master-P...1474309&sr=8-1

Breakfast In America is great, so many recognisable songs. My favourite's probably the opener - which is really saying something since I almost always negatively associate the sax with really bad love songs.

EDIT: actually, that's unfair. I also negatively associate the sax with Arthur 2: On the Rocks

Sorry for Derailing, Judas. Back on topic...

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

Supertramp is a band I know by their singles. I've never been a fan, but then I've never really listened. On closer examination the musicianship is impeccable, the arrangememts are often ingenious and the production is one of the best I've ever heard (I'm an amateur engineer as well as a songwriter/bassist myself). But just as I'm starting to trip to the groove, something horrible happens; the vocals come in. To be fair Rick Davies' voice doesn't bother me and there are some wonderful Beach Boys style harmonies, but Roger Hodgson's lead vocals are nails on the chalkboard for me. His guitar on the other hand is awesome, as is Davies sometimes out of tune sounding electric piano. The rhythm tracks are pounding and dynamic and as Humanoid pointed out even the sax works here. But those vocals... and the lyrics. For some reason I thought that, like Steely Dan, Supertramp had a satirical/subversive edge. But I missed any hint of wit on my listenings. 'Lord is it Mine' and 'The Logical Song' in particular are plain insipid. 'Goodbye Stranger' is the highlight for me, followed by 'Just Another Nervous Wreck', most likely since Davies' sings lead on both.

I've by no means been converted but I have gained an appreciation for Supertramp. This will never be a favorite, but it's definitely an album I will return to, particularly when I record again. Highly recommended to any aspiring producers.

Way off topic but I'm listening to 'Neon Bible' by Arcade Fire right now and it's reminding me of a largely forgotten Australian band from the 80's, Crime & The City Solution (they appear in 'Wings of Desire'). I encourage you guys to seek them out. Yes, I'm drunk and stoned.

Rising is really growing on me, I still think the DP comparison's are valid but the band is incredibly tight, Stargazer is just fantastic (even with the obvious Led Zeo influence on the song) that kickass drum intro and Blackmore kicking off the song with that ballsy riff, it's rock bliss.

Is Breakfast in America the most sampled/covered album ever made. Never heard the album in my life but I recognised at least seven or six of the songs because of versions made by other albums. It's a pretty goddamn great actually, not what I was expecting at all.

I blind bought Rainbow at my local Cd Wharehouse(ignoring the cutting remarks!). And one of my uncles has Supertramp on vinyl. So I'll try to drop my thoughts this weekend.

My first Rainbow impressions go back to high school; metalhead/sweaty guy rock. I'm trying to overcome the bias.

Still, listening in the car, have to think the biggest difference between Rainbow and Deep Purple, is DP--like Led Zep--is for the girls as well as boys. Put on "Highway Star" while driving with your girl, and she might give you a look, or grimace, but by the bridge her hand will be on your knee and her thighs a little wet. With Rainbow, she'd probably assume you were big into World of Warcraft.

Guess it shows Blackmore always wrestling for control of his bands needed the influences of the like of Gilliam, Lord, and Glover.

And Dio-Arghhhh! The production doesn't do him any favors. Only the sludge-like Sabbath successfully found a counterbalance to his high-pitched wailing. In the context of Rainbow, on top of Blackmore's guitar and production flourishes, comes off ridiculous.

I'm going to listen to the whole album. Hopefully, the deeper tracks with alter my perspective.

I appreciate the picks, Judas. It's making me at least "try" to give two bands I despise another shot!

I absolutely love The Rising, amazing album even if I can see where Fat Elvis is coming from in terms of the connotations of the sound. Whilst I don't think it holds up to something like Machine Head it's still an amazing sounding album and Stargazer is just incredible. Interestingly the album sounds about a decade out of time, it sounds more like something from the early mid-80s (in particular the last song reminds me heavily of Judas Priest) rather than the mid 70s.

I actually like "Long Live Rock n Roll" better. Not only does it tone down some of the trademark keyboard wankery, songs like Gates of Babylon and Kill the King are great singles to show off the bands power. I definately agree that RJD hit a high water mark on "Rising" in terms of his vocals, but the one song that really bothers me is Do You Close Your Eyes. Cliche as it might be, I'd much rather Dio be singing about Wizards and Demons than ever hearing him croon to the ladies.

Side note: when seeing Heaven and Hell in 2006 I was waiting in line for the men's room. The line was monsterous, and there was no line for the ladies room- BECAUSE THERE WERE NO LADIES there. Seriously, none. On guy remarked,
"what do you expect when Dio's first band was called Elf?".

I responded, "considering his next band was called Rainbow, we should probably prepare for the worst when we make it to the restroom"

But keyboard wankery was part of what cements the amazing songs to the perfect cover art to the time period, and makes it much more than just near-forgettable hard rock. This band played a huge part in defining early forms of fantastical/medieval/classical elements in this style and I don't think a band called RAINBOW should be anything less than slathered in some sort of colorful sounds like an organ or keyboards. Without them a song like Light in the Black would be 50% less great.

If I sound defensive it's because that aspect of the record is my favorite thing about these songs, even above the vocals.
They really cement the Tarot/Stargazing gypsy elf dungeon thing.

Though I love Do You Close Your Eyes, you make a good point.
That song really belongs on the first record, in tone.

I also mentally marry these types of 70's synthetic arpeggios and keyboard parts to the songs of the prog era like Gabriel-era Genesis and Wakeman's playing in Yes (where they are more acceptable), rather than what THIS style became - namely 80's Rainbow in the Dark Metal and it's more popularly thought-of-as-dated keyboards.

Did that make sense?

I think my issue with the keys lays in how the keyboards use is Rainbow and Deep Purple sound so similar. I disagree in that I do think it sounds dated. If Dennis DeYoung could change things up and use a real piano every once and awhile, Ritchie Blackmore and company could have done the same. And no, I don't consider Styx to be of the same calibre, but they are a progressive band of the same era who used keys in different manners for different songs. Street Fighting Man has that Rainbow/DP tone, but that sounds nothing like Come Sail Away, Renegade or anything on Kilroy Was Here.

I think any complaints of "sameiness" in the songs stems from the keys.

But I want dated things to sound dated. An old argument for sure, but a still valid one. I want my 80's music to sound like 80's music, not timeless. I want my 40's movies to look like 40's movies.

A wonky 70's keyboard sound is awesome and glorious, and changing it to an organic piano sound and having it be potentially less left-field sounding to modern ears would be robbing it of it's essence.

Switching the keyboard sound throughout the album is not necessary, when the mood of the album is set and consistent. People usually don't mind a bass or guitar tone staying the same for 8 songs in row, this is the same.

An Breakfast in America is equally dated, just a more acceptable tone/style of dated.

Breakfast in America is very much a product of its time, probably even moreso than Rising, actually. If nothing else, those sax solos couldn't have come from any time other than the late 70s/early 80s.

Just finished listening to Breakfast, and I don't know - I don't have an aversion to it as pronounced as I do to the band's contemporaries who will eternally populate "classic rock" radio with them, but it just sounds really simplistic for a band with prog roots, and that's not a good thing here. I love pop music, and I have a love-hate thing with prog rock, but Breakfast falls a little short for me on most fronts.

First off, the lyrics are distracting. Bad lyrics aren't necessarily a killer (especially in rock, and especially especially in prog), but there's an undue emphasis on them here. It seems like Breakfast in America wants to occupy the sly, sophisticated, smartass territory staked out by Steely Dan, but it's too earnestly sung and the lyrics too straightforward to qualify as remotely subversive or witty. Again, this wouldn't be a crime if it didn't seem as if the band really wanted us to pay attention to them via arrangements that heavily highlight them.

As for how it fares on the pop melody front? Not nearly as bad. "Take the Long Way Home" is pretty, "The Logical Song" is catchy, if not enough to distract from the godawful simplistic lyrics. I was hoping that the songs that I hadn't heard a billion times would help explain to me why this album is held in such high regard, but they're cut from a similar enough cloth to "Long Way Home," "Logical," "Goodbye Stranger," and "Breakfast in America" that they didn't register all that much. Maybe it's the keyboard-driven meticulous instrumentation applied to simple pop songwriting, but it reminds me of 70s Todd Rundgren. The thing is I can't see ever listening to this instead of Something/Anything, y'know? Maybe I'm overly familiar with the hits on Breakfast, but they just never seem to go where I don't expect them to, melodically.

All said, it's not terrible, and I probably enjoyed it more than Rising (if only by virtue of it being loosely in a proggy pop genre that I should, by all accounts, enjoy in theory), but I can't see much more than nostalgia driving love for this.

Man, if I hadn't already chosen my two albums for this project...

Todd's actually touring this year, doing a complete performance of... sadly, A Wizard A True Star, rather than Something/Anything, but I might still take a chance.

Not being familiar with Rainbow, but being a big Gabriel-era Genesis fan, I got excited by the keyboard intro to Rising, only to be let down when it turned into 70s metal.

You've echoed my thoughts on Supertramp almost exactly, though I think my overall impression was a little more favorable. I'm especially grateful to know that I'm not alone in my assessment of the lyrics. I've always found 'The Logical Song' embarrassingly self pitying.

On a side note I'm ashamed to admit my total unfamiliarity with Todd Rundgren. Seems that is something I'll need to rectify post haste.

I'm pretty undereducated on him myself. I just know Something/Anything? and the Hermit of Mink Hollow, really.

Yes, but what's wrong with 70's metal?
I don't understand the hang-up.

So many classic rock radio bands are given a free pass -- Metallica, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Ozzy Sabbath (NOT Dio Sabbath of course), but anything else is looked up as fringe cockamamie music to be scorned on some level.


Also, tangent -- Rush's Signals is a great example of electronics in rock music sounding really 80's/futuristic but the drums still being stuck in an organic 70's level of production, before the gated and over compressed/fake sound hit with full force. In songs like The Weapon it's fun to hear a wall of keyboards, but also enjoy the nuances of an actual recording of a live Hi-hat.

I hope that someone chooses a Rush album in the future. It would give me a great excuse to get back into the band, who I haven't really listened to seriously since I started college.

Just finished listening to Breakfast in America. I think my fave tunes are actually toward the end. I'm not gonna pretend that I enjoyed it immensely, but it's a pleasant diversion. When the charged chorus of 'Just Another Nervous Wreck' kicked in, I got whiplash of the neck from me bopping my head back and forth. Love the keyboards on that track.

I guess I was expecting an album of irresistible power-pop, or at least songs that were irresistibly produced. There isn't really much that I connected with, other than a few catchy hooks.

I've only managed to listen to the first track from Rising, but those keyboards hit some kind of sweet spot in my head.

To be fair, I'm not a huge fan of any of those, though the more early 70s glam aspects of Alice and the thick fuzzy guitars of Ozzy-era Sabbath have their charms.

Plus it's really easy to pick the bad Rush albums out of a lineup (hint: the entire 90's).

Yeah, same here. It's not so much that Rainbow's "fringe" or something; it's just that I don't really care for that style. I can't say that I'd be much more inclined to listen to other hard rock bands of the era due to their being perceived as more central on classic rock radio. I mean I've certainly heard more Metallica and AC/DC, but it hasn't exactly been willingly.

Of course! Like I've said, I was sort of predisposed to dislike both of them a bit, but I think that'll be the case with at least someone with every pick. There are a bunch on your list of also-rans that I would've been more inclined to enjoy (or already enjoy), but I almost kind of prefer the challenge of wrapping around my ears around something I wouldn't normally listen to, even if it doesn't catch.

Judas will inevitably break our hearts tearing apart some beloved, incompetent 80's underground obscurity.

For all the classic rock I've grown up listening to this was my first time listening to these albums, like a lot of people here. I enjoyed each album but Breakfast in America quite a bit more than Rising.

Supertramp put together a solid album and I can see why it apparently was huge when it came out. Considering I grew up listening to classic rock stations, and how semi-infrequently something like "The Logical Song" or "Take the Long Way Home" was played, I was surprised to hear the album was huge when it came out. I thought Supertramp was more on the obscure side of classic rock. "Just Another Nervous Wreck" was a highlight for me. But I have to admit "The Logical Song" does test my patience a little with the high-pitched harmonica and the vocals.

After two listens I can't really remember much of Rising. I liked listening to it and can appreciate both the technical skills and the pure badassery of "Stargazer". I even like late-70's heavy metal. It just didn't stick. Sorry Judas.

Off topic but it's funny to see Todd Rundgren come up in discussion. I just listened to his first three albums a few nights ago so seeing his name here was a weird coincidence. Well worth giving a spin.

Also, I highly recommend imeem. It's a free site with a fairly large streaming library. It's also usually good at having full discographies on there (I'm pretty sure nearly all Rainbow and Supertramp records). It has unlimited plays but is interrupted by a short commercial once in a while.