If Everyone Was Listening
THE THIRD TIME was truly the charm for Supertramp. After two middling misfires, the British quintet’s third LP, September 1974’s Crime of the Century, vaulted them into the big leagues where progressive-leaning tendencies met not-so-subversive pop sensibilities head-on. Over the course of eight songs, Supertramp took full advantage of the dynamic range of tracks like “School” (punctuated by multiple piano bursts and yelping schoolchildren), “Bloody Well Right” (its razor-sharp guitar line wafting from background to foreground and back like a talkbox in a tsunami), and the ascendant, power-packed rage of the title track (with a final lyrical twist worthy of the last episode of The Prisoner).
The band’s uncluttered arrangements let each Crime song truly breathe—and that was no accident. No one knows it better than Supertramp vocalist/guitarist/pianist Roger Hodgson. “The art of space in our recordings can’t be overlooked,” he tells me. “What you don’t play is just as important as what you do play.”
I wore out my original 1974 A&M LP before the ’70s wound down— and then I discovered better Crime wax existed in Europe. “The best pressing of anything I’d ever worked on was the initial pressing of Crime of the Century,” Crime’s original producer Ken Scott confirms. “That was done through the
CBS classical division [who distributed A&M in Europe at the time], so it was the best vinyl you could get— and it was absolutely phenomenal. The Mobile Fidelity version was indeed good, but still not as good as the original CBS version.”
Scott’s right about that. Mobile Fidelity’s 1978 Original Master Recording LP was
indeed something to behold— but I’ve also come to appreciate the nuances of the remastering job done for vinyl and cut by Ray Staff at Air Studios in London that was used with A&M’S multi-format reissues that honored the album’s 40th anniversary in 2014. For his part, Scott mixed the 13 bonus live tracks from the original tapes of the band’s gig at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on March 9, 1975. While the 2CD Deluxe Edition is certainly worth having, the 3LP set is the better bet, as Scott really brings out the breadth of live performances of Crime tracks like “Rudy” (a 7-minute showcase for the storytelling vocalist/keyboardist Richard Davies) and “Hide in Your Shell” (Hodgson’s whisper to a scream treatise on summoning the wherewithal to overcome personal fears).
On the CD front, I barely spun the 1994 A&M Redbook CD more than a few times since I already had Mobile
Fidelity’s 1993 Ultradisc in hand. I also picked up the Bill Levenson-supervised The Supertramp Remasters CD issued in 2002, but I’ve kept all those discs on the shelves ever since I obtained the High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-ray that emerged out of the aforementioned 2014 Crime reissue campaign. The multiple volume swells during Davies’ frenetic “Asylum” and Hodgson’s wistful “Dreamer” are even more pronounced in 24-bit/192khz 2.0 on Bd—as they should be. Hodgson wholeheartedly approves of going as hi-res as possible with this key entry in the Supertramp catalog.
“The highs and the depth of our recordings are taken out or just missing from MP3S,” he observes. “Lossless formats give you the best quality.”
As good as Crime sounds in stereo, here’s hoping plans are afoot to bring the album into the 5.1 and/or Dolby Atmos arena when the 50th anniversary rolls around in 2024. “I would love to do that surround mix myself!” exclaims Ken Scott. “Crime just lends itself to being in that format.”
Bottom line: It would be an absolute, well, Crime if we never got the opportunity to hear this benchmark Supertramp album mixed in surround sound. If everyone was listening, you know, there’d be a chance to bask in all its 5.1 glory before the curtain falls. Mike Mettler