1979
Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxW7O6yL-jAmJtqVKe3TVP02-2RvQ27f
There's a few cases to be made for this as a must have album - if not at least a must-hear album. The cover alone - with waitress Libby replacing Lady Liberty in a scene outside an airplane window, behind her New York City is reconstructed with common diner items and breakfast cereal boxes stacked up as skyscrapers, all spray painted white. Genius design - is a rare piece of art certainly worth the ticket.
The album is an excellent collection of English art rock at the end of the 70s. Instead of guitars, saxophones often top the arrangements like syrup on the already-sweet foundation of Wurlitzer piano.
The melodies are gorgeous, lulling and fun. For the most part it is quite an upbeat album - mainly mid-tempo pop songs with hooks aimed straight at radio. In fact during the producing of the album, some band members encouraged Roger Hodson (Rick Davies is the other main writer in the band) to strip out some of the darker lyrics to keep the songs fun, especially in Gone Hollywood, where the star of the song starts out struggling but then, in the final version, gets his big break. Ironically, though, the biggest hit of the album IS a darker, more satirical song showing a man bemoaning his youth when he was sent away to become more "logical, a vegetable." Another great song for me that coincided with my own circumstances of being sent away to military school.
They composed their songs first on a piano or Wurlitzer - and then brought them to the rest of the band to finish them.
The first half is packed with hits, four of which went on to become top-ten hits: "Breakfast in America," "Take the Long Way Home" (a lyrical high point, amongst many peaks on the album), "Goodbye Stranger," and "The Logical Song." They could just as easily had hits with "Oh Darling" or the epic piano-driven finale "Child of Vision," with a fantastic sax solo wafting out into the ether of end of the 70's. Interesting ... that song, which gets at how two individuals creatively clash, was originally intended as the main theme of the album, what was supposed to be a concept album detailing a conversation between Hodgson and Davies. But that, like the darker lyrics, was scrapped for the album that now exists.
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