The Cavern
Rock & Words
THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (10cc, 1975)
Artist: 10cc (D+)
Recording Date: 1974 Strawberry Studios, Stockport, Cheshire, England
Release Date: March 1975
Record Label: Mercury
Producer: 10cc
Rating: 9.5 (MUST HAVE)
Era: The Great Transition (1970-1979)
Subgenre: Art Rock
Best Song: Une Nuit A Paris y I’m Not In Love
Songs: 1) Une Nuit A Paris; 2) I’m Not In Love; 3) Blackmail; 4) The Second Sitting For The Last Supper; 5) Brand New Day; 6) Flying Junk; 7) Life Is A Minestrone; 8) The Film Of My Love.
And so we come to what many consider 10cc's best work. It's true that their debut album sets a high bar, as it's also an impressive record brimming with classics, but in my opinion, both are perfectly equal in terms of quality. They are very different albums, although The Original Soundtrack stands out primarily as their quintessential album and their most sophisticated, or at least the one that best reflects 10cc's insatiable perfectionism.
It also represents a significant leap forward from their second album, Sheet Music, as there are practically no filler tracks, and the melodies and arrangements are vastly superior.
These melodies are now a bit more conventional and not as unusual as on previous albums, which makes them easier to connect with and remember. This doesn't mean they've been "softened" or become more predictable; not at all. In fact, the tracks remain as bizarre and delirious as ever, plunging us into all sorts of twisted stories that seem lifted from a dark comedy.
As has become customary, each track is a micro-universe in itself, and they all reflect more or less the same thing: Godley, Creme, Stewart, and Gouldman were all frustrated filmmakers who, somehow, ended up becoming musicians. And I say this not in a derogatory way, but rather because the narrative of each song is as if it were telling the story of a film that was never made, a script or premise that had been swirling around in the minds of its creators for years.
That's the premise of The Original Soundtrack (the name wasn't chosen arbitrarily!): to tell a whole series of stories for films that don't exist and that had to settle for coming into this world in the form of songs. From their very first album, the guys had more than proven their talent for writing brilliant and outlandish lyrics (Godley and Creme strike me as two of the most underrated lyricists in rock), but it's on this third record that they reach their peak in that regard. The guys (because they all sing and compose to a greater or lesser extent) don't just tell a great story; they embody the character in question and get so completely in their shoes that at times you forget you're playing a rock band.
But the album doesn't only shine lyrically; the music is equally superb. At times, it's even revolutionary due to the combination of instruments used and the recording studio, quite advanced for its time: progressive pop at its finest. As I mentioned, it's a sophisticated, innovative work, but it never feels pretentious or excessive, as was often the case with many other progressive rock contemporaries of the same era.
Perhaps the track closest to the term ‘ambitious’ is the opening, Une Nuit à Paris, but its lyrical content makes it clear that it's a joke of Dantean proportions. It's a deranged mini-opera that recounts the adventures of an American tourist in a Parisian brothel in lavish detail and with meticulously crafted cinematic storytelling. As the verses unfold, it's suggested that the guest isn't just any customer, but a police investigator sent to inspect the place. A mistake that will cost him his life, as the owner of the establishment has no intention of letting him leave, knowing what goes on there and the kind of… ahem… services offered.
The song's construction is sublime. The band moves between each section of the suite with complete naturalness, while the pianos and vocal harmonies frequently recall the spectacularity of Supertramp, the most bombastic Queen, and the humor of Sparks and the Kinks. The difference lies in the fact that the levels of satire are immeasurably higher. The guys never stop mocking classic French snobbery, starting with the fake Parisian accent that Stewart and company adopt as the characters are introduced with hilarious theatricality, and the song becomes increasingly absurd as it progresses. It sounds like a full orchestra was used in its creation, but in reality, they needed nothing more than piano, bass, drums, and some great studio production to create this gem.
An unbeatable opening, one of the best ever conceived. Rumor has it that its inspiration was crucial for Freddie Mercury in the composition of Bohemian Rhapsody, which doesn't sound far-fetched considering that The Original Soundtrack was released months before A Night At The Opera.
The second track is just as good: I’m Not In Love, the best and greatest satire of a love song ever recorded. Very well-known, one of those songs you've surely heard before but perhaps didn't know who it was by (it appeared, for example, not too long ago on the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack). Due to its accessibility on FM radio, it was actually the song that saved the group from their critical financial situation. Because of the very modest commercial success of their other two albums, record labels weren't exactly fighting to sign 10cc. But the success of "I'm Not In Love" was such that the album managed to reach the top of the British charts for a while—which, considering the era, was quite an achievement—and gave 10cc a temporary reprieve.
If you're not careful and don't pay close attention to the lyrics, you might think it's your typical soft/adult-contemporary ballad, but it's actually a direct parody of that very genre. It tells the story of a guy hopelessly in love with a girl, but whose pride is so great that he refuses to admit it, perhaps as a way of protecting himself. (“I keep a picture of you / Hanging on the wall / To hide an ugly stain that’s out there”… One of my favorite lines and one of the few that have truly made me laugh out loud while listening to a song).
But what stands out most is its perfectionist and complex production, often compared to the aforementioned Bohemian Rhapsody, due to its unusual and deliberately excessive overdubs with all four members singing the same note in unison, creating the ethereal atmosphere that characterizes the track. The voices were multiplied and inserted into a loop, resulting in a constant chorus of 256 voices—crazy for the time. Even someone like Brian Eno would borrow this idea three years later to develop his Music For Airports.
Because of this, some people even have the mistaken idea that 10cc is just a run-of-the-mill one-hit wonder, but the truth is that the rest of his work disproves such a thing, at least speaking of the artistic side and not the commercial side.
The string of hits continues with Blackmail, a slightly (just slightly) more conventional rocker. Amidst a strange mix of disco and hard rock, it presents the sordid tale of a lunatic whose favorite pastime is obtaining compromising photos of famous women and then blackmailing them with anonymous letters or, failing that, sending them to the publications that dominate the gossip industry. When he stalks one of his victims, he opts for the latter, but the twisted turn of events is that the woman in question, upon seeing her own photos published in the media, ends up loving them and orders a dozen copies to later sell to "Hefner" (an obvious reference to Hugh Hefner) and become a Playboy Playmate.
It's a kind of direct sequel to Headline Hustler from the first album, and it makes it perfectly clear that, if they wanted to, these guys could rock like hell. This becomes even clearer in The Second Sitting For The Last Supper (the title alone is enough to make you chuckle before it even starts). On the surface, it might seem like just a critique of Christianity per se, but it's more of a satire of blind faith and all those people who seek "salvation" and the easy path through preachers, TV messiahs, and brainwashing cults. In the unsettling instrumental interludes, Stewart and Gouldman demonstrate that their guitar skills were far from negligible, always with that characteristic clean and sharp tone.
Brand New Day doesn't quite reach the same heights, but it remains a great exercise in studio production. It's a very Freddie Mercury-esque ballad, but the 10cc signature comes through in their strange arrangements with Moog synthesizers, timpani, and marimbas, along with the operatic choirs so typical of the group. Apparently, it's a social critique of child labor and its emotional repercussions.
Next up is Flying Junk, with equally extravagant arrangements featuring electric pianos and autoharps that create an ethereal and dreamy intro. The song quickly mutates into a progressive rocker (?) that sounds like a strange combination of Genesis and Paul McCartney. It describes the typical drug dealer who ends up becoming the lord and master of his addicted clients, who count down the minutes until they see him again and he supplies them with his flying junk.
Another gem from the album follows, Life Is A Minestrone, whose lyrics make absolutely no sense, but are as funny as ever ("Life is a minestrone / served with Parmesan cheese / Death is a cold lasagna / suspended in the freezer…"), accompanied by a very surreal tone that immerses us in the world of Italian chefs and gourmets. The pompous choruses are ridiculously catchy, and before you know it you're repeating the main theme of the song almost involuntarily.
And finally, the waltz from The Film Of My Love closes in a most fitting way, given the album's themes. It's a kind of operetta in which Godley and Creme seem to poke fun at themselves and their frustrated dreams as filmmakers. This time, the protagonist is an ambitious film director who can't wait another minute for his film to travel the world and become incredibly famous. The lyrics, as always, are pure gold: "Co-starring you / And co-starring me / Starring us both together / The film of my love / Will travel the world / Forever and ever and ever!" The mandolins add a brilliant touch that immediately transports you to the canals of Venice in the 1950s, alongside the two lovers. A masterful ending.
An essential album for fans of classic rock, progressive rock, and 70s music in general. Perhaps the only thing that prevents an album like this from reaching the heights of other perfect 10s is ironically its greatest strength: its immeasurable levels of sarcasm and satire, which make it impossible to ever take 10cc seriously. Yes, it will make you laugh like few other albums can, but it is precisely for that reason that it will be very difficult to awaken deeper and more complex feelings in you, unlike something like Tommy, OK Computer, or Ziggy Stardust. This is its only drawback, although insignificant, depending on how you look at it. Even so, it's essential, along with the two albums that precede it.
“A close-up of yours, a long shot of mine, superimposed together. I'll zoom in on you, with a love that is true, in cinemascope together!”
By el Hombre Mojón
Dic/10/2014
