There are no other words to describe it than “beautiful.”īut it's obvious to me why this album didn't sell very many copies: It has really no gimmicks to speak of. I'd wager “Words Unspoken” is easily within the 90th-95th percentile of prog songs released in 1970 as far as melody is concerned. Early Supertramp preferred to make their art subtle and melodic. (Of course there are so many bands from this era that I've never heard of, so it might have been 2030 or so before I found it.) Unlike many budding prog acts from 1970, these guys chose to write gentler songs as opposed to the overblown and pretentious things we would oftentimes get from other upstart prog groups. I like to think I eventually would have heard this album even if Supertramp never released anything beyond this. The other two would exit the band before 1974. Hodgson and Davies were to become songwriting partners. Now I'm going to have fantasies the rest of the day about being a millionaire from the '60s and '70s funding rock 'n' roll bands.) Davies recruited Roger Hodgson for bass and lead vocals, Richard Palmer to play lead guitar and write lyrics, and Robert Millar on drums. (I didn't know there were millionaires who did that sort of thing. Supertramp was started by Rick Davies who was somehow able to secure financial support from a Dutch millionaire. However, don't dismiss or ignore this album while it's hardly a brilliant piece of work, it's certainly enjoyable in its own right. Hence, this album is really only retroactively famous, recognized chiefly for being the quasi-obscure, humble beginning of a very popular musical group.
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But Supertramp wouldn't achieve commercial success until 1974, which was the same timeframe when those second-wave prog acts like Styx, Kansas, and Rush started to gain prominence. Surely / It's a Long Road A- / Aubade and I Am Not Like Other Birds of Prey B+ / Words Unspoken A / Maybe I'm a Beggar B / Home Again B / Nothing to Show A / Shadow Song B+ / Try Again B+ / Surely B+Įven though Supertramp is considered a second-wave prog act, their debut album was released only a year after the genre's first-wave stalwarts Yes, Genesis and King Crimson released their own debut albums. In the Eye of the Storm (1984) / Brother Where You Bound? (1985) / Hai Hai (1987)
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Supertramp (1970) / Indelibly Stamped (1971) / Crime of the Century (1974) / Crisis? What Crisis? (1975) / Even in the Quietest Moments.