Friday 11 January 2013

Albums for Life: 70: 10CC: Sheet Music

Ooh ... you know the heart of conversation must be dying
Ooh....when a romance depends on cliches and toupees and threepees

This was irresistible to me upon its release.
I well remember getting caught by a monitor throwing shapes in my dorm' mirror to the solo in 'Silly Love'. Much ridicule that I still haven't quite recovered from. There was no embarrassment in my professing a love for this at the time though; if you liked Wings you loved 10cc.
Smart, cynical and great tunes.
There was even a twist of sadness ('Old Wild Men' & 'Somewhere in Hollywood') that kept me interested.
My favourite 10cc song is 'I'm Mandy Fly Me' from a later album but 'Old Wild Men' runs it pretty close. It's also the favourite album of Kevin Godley and Graham Gouldman: "Our best album, epitomising what 10cc was all about. Unique songwriting and production."
There is a recent box set release that you can read about here.


8 comments:

  1. One of those bands who have been dragged under by the specific gravity of one song alone (or maybe two). Never looked beyond I.N.I.L. and Rubber Bullets.

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    1. I'm Not in Love definitely defined them...
      Original Soundtrack is great too.

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  2. Another big gap in my knowledge - they've become a bit of a forgotten band in that they rarely feature in retrospectives etc

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  3. Sheet Music is quite possibly my favourite album ever.

    In the seventies, 10cc followed Slade as the best band in the world and I became mildly obsessed with their music and album covers. As fifth formers, we were able to listen to albums during art class, and Sheet Music was played endlessly. Even now - as a dodgy designer, I still use Sheet Music playing in the background to inspire the carefree expression of youth, needed to ease the 'designers block' of middle age!

    I still hope for the original four members of 10cc to one day reunite in a recording studio and see what happens, in the same way that I continue to hope for a Miracle Mile world tour.
    One of these things will never happen!

    The new box set is a good introduction to 10cc, but 10cc albums should be heard as they were originally intended - from start to finish, so mixing them up seems a bit pointless. The box set just led me straight back to Sheet Music and The Original Soundtrack, but the BBC In Concert show from 1974 on the DVD is pretty amazing, confirming that they were just as great a live band as they were the 'clever bastards in the studio'.

    My most recent live concert was to see "10cc" (Only Graham Gouldman from the original band remains, but nonetheless a stunning live experience with the songs recreated perfectly) and it is great to hear them play 'Old Wild Men' - as the old wild men they were no doubt writing about.

    Gouldman's recent Love & Work album is also worth a listen, one of the UKs most underrated songwriters can still write a decent tune.


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  4. Cool pick! Didn't see that one coming...
    TT

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