[ad_1]
1974 was one of pop music’s most eclectic years. Sparks were confronted by an effeminate bohemian and a keyboardist with a Hitler mustache. Roxy Music had an album featuring two naked German beauties. Queen has released her finest work, an amalgamation of white and black theaters. “On The Beach” showed Neil Young unveiling his soul, following in Bob Dylan’s footsteps a year ago. Among it all, English rockers from the North 10cc released their second record, a clever combination of invention and pop recommendation.
Hailed like the Beatles of the ’70s, 10cc had something that even the Beatles didn’t have (my apologies to Mr. Starr): four accomplished songwriters and singers, each brimming with ideas, each capable of transforming a strange idea. to great success. No George Martin was needed, each being a skilled producer, Stewart’s technical know-how served him well as a resident engineer at Strawberry Recording Studios.
Continuing the Beatles analogy, 10cc had a McCartney songwriting partnership brimming with pop melodies and wonderful melodies, guitarist Eric Stewart and bassist Graham Gouldman, giving the album its most obvious hit, “The Wall Street Shuffle ”(Prior to joining 10cc, Gouldman had written beloved 1960s hits for The Yardbirds and The Hollies as a hire songwriter). Their counterparts at John Lennon, second guitarist Lol Creme and drummer Kevin Godley, cast esoteric lyrics and edgy sensibilities into their songs, though perhaps going further to the left of that direction than Lennon did. never did – “Clockwork Creep” gave a bombshell prospect, the mood of the bomb itself – even Gainsbourg didn’t! Nor where they are afraid to swap writing partners, ´Illy Love´ a beautiful piece combining Stewart’s ear for guitar melodies and Creme’s accomplished use of the pun – “you take away the beauty of beauty / you play the strings of my heart / Oh baby, you take away the wonder of wonderful / Oh my, oh my, and my, if you were mine “, making it one of the most idiosyncratic seventies.
Naturally, these different factions led to a split two years later, with Godley and Creme transforming their cinematic artistic sensibilities into filming music videos for Sting, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Duran Duran, while the other two bravely ventured under the name of ´10cc, winning a No. 1 valid in 1978 with a reggae inspired track “Dreadlock Holiday”.
But never where they are better than as a four-piece, “The Sacro Lilliac” one of the finest examples of a ska-beat by English musicians, Gouldman and Godley bouncing and harmonizing well one on the another, “Oh Effendi” as perfect for the Caribbean sparkle as anyone is likely to hear; sung by Godley, he had the loudest voice of the four, which Creme and Gouldman have reiterated over the years. “The Worst Band in The World” is one of the finest language pieces in cheek art, ersatz in the extreme, incorporating a mix of styles, pop, rock, even baroque – a song by the worst band in the world. world played by one of the best bands in the world.
“Sheet Music” proved to be an interesting addition to the ever-growing palette of musical styles launched at the time. The album’s greatest service was in its songwriting prowess. A group without a distinctive leader (Creme had the personality closest to the savage men of the seventies with his long, lucid hair and Stewart was certainly the prettiest, though neither presented himself as anything other than artists and musicians), the band’s legacy depended on its ability to compose. And “Sheet Music” struck the fine line between ingenuity and modesty that their subsequent records failed to handle. “Our best album,” wrote Gouldman (the only original member who still performs live with 10cc to this day), “embodying what 10cc was. Unique composition and production.”
[ad_2]
Source by Eoghan M Lyng
