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Superpoll

What would you say? (clap-clap!)

Breakfast in America	0 votes
Dreamer	1 votes
Give a Little Bit	4 votes
The Logical Song	5 votes
Hide in Your Shell	0 votes
Take the Long Way Home	3 votes
Bloody Well Right	0 votes
It's Raining Again	0 votes
Goodbye Stranger	4 votes

Johnny Dickshot Jun 07 2007 09:35 AM

Thanks to Farmer Ted for the inspiration for this week's Important Poll. Here we examine the work of the 70s prog-pop masters. Also gives us the opportunity to decide our favorite Tramp between Davies (the gravelly-voiced guy whose songs were bluesy) and Hodgson (the high-voiced one whose songs were all wurlitzery). A) Breakfast in America B) Dreamer C) Give a Little Bit D) The Logical Song E) Hide in Your Shell F) Take the Long Way Home G) Bloody Well Right ( no vid available ... performed below by Canadian classic-rock cover group the Tommyknockers, whjo appear to be good players and bad singers) H) It's Raining Again (cute video) I) Goodbye Stranger

Edgy DC Jun 07 2007 09:50 AM

This is hard (and a day early!). The seventies videogame tones of "Logical Song" grow more appealling every year, but the desperate alienation of that poor high-voiced guy gets more terrifying.

Rockin' Doc Jun 07 2007 10:48 AM

Another group of my youth. Several of these songs still reside on my MP3 player. This is a tough one, I'll have to think on this one a while.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 07 2007 11:11 AM

I can't make up my mind either

soupcan Jun 07 2007 11:13 AM

I voted 'Logical' but now I'm thinking 'Goodbye Stranger'.

Willets Point Jun 07 2007 11:22 AM

I thought Rockin' Doc was getting a split personality there for a second. It's so confusing to have two Fonzies posting in a row. I voted "Logical Song". It was a tough choice, but I relate to being a persecuted liberal.

TransMonk Jun 07 2007 11:44 AM

I went with Dreamer...though they're all pretty good songs. They certainly had an original sound that they milked the hell out of. Dreamer's keyboards just blew me away when I heard it a few months ago after not hearing it for a long time.

RealityChuck Jun 07 2007 01:49 PM

Actually, I like their first album the best -- but not for the songs. ;)

Edgy DC Jun 07 2007 02:30 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jun 07 2007 07:42 PM

It's hard for any cover band to copy that guy's voice unless they're a 'Tramp-specific coverband who recruited somebody specifically for the job. The same guy covered sax, clarinet, and trombone?

cooby Jun 07 2007 04:04 PM

I don't know why, but all of Supertramps songs always depressed the hell out of me. Same with Al Stewart.

Edgy DC Jun 07 2007 05:16 PM Re: Superpoll

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Also gives us the opportunity to decide our favorite Tramp between Davies (the gravelly-voiced guy whose songs were bluesy) and Hodgson (the high-voiced one whose songs were all wurlitzery). I've got to go to Hodgeson. His hair is thinner, despite the castration surgery, but he beats his competitive bandmates in the all important looking-like-Jesus category. I had to stop myself from dropping to my knees. Davies did that wierd thing on "Goodbye Stranger" when he kept lipsynching during Hodgeson's part. Did he forget who sang what? Was he not in the studio when they cut it? I remember one post-Davies single. I think Davies did that crappy Lyndsey Buckingham maneuver where he recorded a final album with the band but left before the tour, miaking them unable to adequately perform the singles that were on the radio.

Batty31 Jun 07 2007 05:51 PM

I can't think of one Supertramp song that I like. That voice is like nails on a chalk board.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 07 2007 06:45 PM

Hodgson is the one who left, leaving Davies to tour with a group that couldn't play "Give a Little Bit," for instance. He did anyway and some bandmates loyal to Hodgson left too. To my knowledge they have yet to reconcile.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 07 2007 07:34 PM

By the way, the reason they haven't reconciled is right of Spinal Tap. Hodgson doesn't get along with Davies' band manager/wife (who btw dresses like an Austalian's nightmare).

Edgy DC Jun 07 2007 07:44 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Hodgson is the one who left, leaving Davies to tour with a group that couldn't play "Give a Little Bit," for instance. He did anyway and some bandmates loyal to Hodgson left too. To my knowledge they have yet to reconcile. Yeah. That's what I meant. The single they were touring off of was "It's Raining Again," but they lacked Hodgeson to sing it.

Edgy DC Jun 07 2007 07:45 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: By the way, the reason they haven't reconciled is right of Spinal Tap. Hodgson doesn't get along with Davies' band manager/wife (who btw dresses like an Austalian's nightmare). Show me.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 08 2007 06:07 AM

(pssst: I'm quoting Spinal Tap)

Edgy DC Jun 08 2007 07:09 AM

I know. I hoped it was true anyhow.

sharpie Jun 08 2007 07:14 AM

I never understood their popularity at the time. Still don't.

Frayed Knot Jun 08 2007 07:47 AM

Good things to say about Supertramp: ummmm .... better than REO Speedwagon

Johnny Dickshot Jun 08 2007 07:59 AM

]I never understood their popularity at the time. Still don't. ]ummmm .... better than REO Speedwagon ]I can't think of one Supertramp song that I like. That voice is like nails on a chalk board. Important Polls aren't necessarily about good bands, they're about songs and memories, so I hope you haters voted anyway. That said I rather agree with the below 4.5 star Rolling Stone review of BiA, which like it or not was a phenomenal success. ]Breakfast in America is a textbook-perfect album of post-Beatles, keyboard-centered English art rock that strikes the shrewdest possible balance between quasi-symphonic classicism and rock & roll. Whereas Supertramp's earlier LPs were bogged down by swatches of meandering, Genesislike esoterica, the songs here are extraordinarily melodic and concisely structured, reflecting these musicians' saturation in American pop since their move to Los Angeles in 1977. Supertramp's major problem is an increasing dichotomy between their rhapsodic aural style and a glib, end-of-the-empire pessimism. The music in "Gone Hollywood" is so suffused with romantic excitement that it's difficult to believe the ennui the lyrics claim: "So many creeps in Hollywood/...Ain't nothin' new in my life today." Though laced with nice, Beach Boys-style falsettos, "Goodbye Stranger," an uncharacteristically happy fantasy about endless one-night stands, seems far more honest. But the only cut that really wrestles the dichotomy is "The Logical Song." In this small masterpiece, singer Roger Hodgson enacts an Everyman who excoriates an education that preaches categorical jargon instead of knowledge and sensitivity. "And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical," he declaims, reeling off three- and four-syllable assonances with a schoolboy's tongue in cheek worthy of Ray Davies and the Kinks. Flamenco flourishes and a hot sax break help deflate the tune's self-pity with a wonderfully wry humor. The next "logical" thing for these guys to do with their awesome technique is to turn it more toward this sort of ironic drollery. Then Supertramp might become not only the best-sounding art-rock band in existence, but one of the most interesting. (RS 293)

metirish Jun 08 2007 08:04 AM

] bogged down by swatches of meandering, Genesislike esoterica, Slap I went with "The Logical Song",must say that I am not all that up on my 'Tramp music.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 08 2007 08:18 AM

I finally cast a vote... for Goodbye Stranger. The tamborine-shakin' finishing guitar solo did it for me. I also am a fan of the noodling keys in Dreamer, especially at the "If I can do something" part, but can barely get over the fact it's based on the schoolyard tease better known as "Nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah."

Edgy DC Jun 08 2007 08:22 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jun 08 2007 10:47 AM

There is a moment where a band is on the cusp between art rock and pop $, when the solipsism of their nebulous vision finally forms enough to lock eyes with the world around them. Very often it's their great moment. Very often they go to crap afterwards, as it's a balance that's near impossible to maintain. I agree that VIPs aren't about the greatest bands, but reviewing legacies that impacted and that had a place in American culture whether you like it or not. That's why I leave out America's hit sunset single "You Can Do Magic" and likely why Dickshot left out "Cannonball." They're not part of the canon of the band's cultural impact, nor indicative of their patch of the American quilt. 'Tramp joins Fleetwood Mac as British bands who had to move and get caught in the beautiful misery of seventies California in order to fully find their voice.

Farmer Ted Jun 08 2007 09:59 AM

I threw down for Give A Little Bit. The fact that the Goo Goo Dolls remade this a couple years back had me on the fence but the new version was OK.

Centerfield Jun 08 2007 10:50 AM

I voted Goodbye Stranger. I like that he takes time to whistle between the first verse and chorus. The version I own doesn't have that and it makes me a little mad.

metsguyinmichigan Jun 08 2007 01:32 PM

Goo Goo Dolls have a version of "Give a Little Bit" that's pretty good!

Iubitul Jun 08 2007 05:56 PM

I voted for Goodbye stranger - I remember that song being used in an episode of WKRP (not why I voted for it).

cooby Jun 08 2007 06:42 PM

I am having a terrible, terrible time deciding. I just don't like any of them much

Batty31 Jun 08 2007 07:01 PM

cooby wrote: I am having a terrible, terrible time deciding. I just don't like any of them much Me neither...so I'm sitting this one out.