10CC : they really *were* that good weren't they ?

Is there any future for me as a 10 CC fan?

i'm fond of Peter Cook too, sneezing at Malcolm McClaren's presumed sub-goon Biggsey role for him in " .. Swindle" and instead going with i suppose his musical Peter Sellers attempt (which wasn't as good as Sellers admittedly, but at least it had nothing to do with Dudley)
(ok, and especially since he saved us from Goldenballs)

"I'm So Laid Back I'm Laid Out" only recently got thrown in as a bonus track on the album Gouldman etc. made after the split. I guess that album is more slapstick. Well thanks, after all that. The following duo/10cc Bloody Tourtist is just as much "humour" i suppose (f'in English music hall tradition ?).

Ok, How Dare You has it's moments (mostly on side one, and mostly Gouldman songs), but i do like the group effort of "The Second Holding of the Last Supper" off .. Bends

The first two single lps off Godley/Creme are been nicely collected on a recent one way/cd re-issue, and they'd be my favourites, with all that extreme pre-digital studio experimentation, without the excesses of the Cook folly.

So do I. But its actual title sounds/looks a tad batter, even - "The Second Sitting for the Last Supper" :) \nit-pick-fact-check mode off\ :)

i also quite like neanderthal man from when they were called hotlegs.

So do I. But its actual title sounds/looks a tad batter, even - "The Second Sitting for the Last Supper" :) \nit-pick-fact-check mode off\ :)

btw, Castle Music (part of Sanctuary group now) recently released a compilation of the Gouldman-Stewart-Godley-Creme "hit factory" period called "Strawberry Bubblegum: A Collection of pre-10cc Strawberry Studios Recordings 1969-1972". It looks ace!

Strawberry Bubblegum is a great idea in theory (it's something I've been going on about for years), but the final product is somehow unsatisfying. What we really need is a compilation of Graham Gouldman's beat-era recordings/compositions.

Must say I'm a big fan of humorous 10cc stuff like "Donna", "The Wall Street Shuffle" and "The Dean and I", as well as the *staggeringly sublime* "I'm Not In love", of course. "Lazy Ways" is certainly another real favourite.

Settle for "Freeze-Frame" instead (although Soulseek may be the only possible place to find Godley & Creme albums these days)

Not very well, but I gotta credit them for getting a major label to release what is basically a technical demonstration album for the Gizmo.

Consequences is a spectacular example of the old tradition where the songwriter(s) of a band leaves and then hoodwinks their record label into funding a completely bizarre and self-indulgent album that's PR-ed as being genius, but is really just bulldada. Treat it as a Zappa album only with Peter Cook/Goon fixations instead of Zappa's barnyard humor. If you're going to start with Godley/Creme, I'd go with L first. I believe it got reissued with Freeze Frame together on one CD, but I'd go to slsk first just so you know what you're getting into.

(BTW: I was thinking about you the other day when I noticed that one of the few good things about 'The Dreamers' was the snatch of Polnareff that drifts onto the soundtrack halfway through. They were playing it in the lobby before the film too.)

(This is Stevie T speaking, btw)

I will be reading the LJ with keen interest.

Still waiting for the three 80s albums by 10cc to be re-released too, particularly "Ten Out Of Ten", which is IMO their best post-Godley/Creme album.

mmm, i do suspect there's at least one more place - a very BIG "place", just east of the estonian border - where godley/creme albums, among other things, mightn't be particularly hard to find :)

"Mandy" was a continuation of the story started in "Clockwork Creep" on "Sheet Music".

I like their albums from "Sheet Music" to "How Dare You" the best. The debut contained a lot of great stuff, but there are a bit too many obvious novelties on the album for me to be able to take it fully seriously.

And as for I'm not in love, how beautiful is that after years of not hearing it?

Great song, that, if only for the pretty amazing drum sound.

It was called Thinks: School Stinks. Alice Cooper may or may not have pinched an artwork idea from it.
http://www.planetmellotron.com/images/hotlegs-thinks.jpg

every so often i find myself with an overwhelming desire to listen to 10cc. and every time i find myself thinking, jesus, they *really fucking were* that good. walking up the street earlier, blasting "rubber bullets" into my ear, was a moment of utter joy.

as with so, so many bands, i need to get more of their albums.

also: WTF with whoever it was above who doesn't understand/get/whatever "i'm mandy"? that song ROCKS my SOUL.

("dreadlock holiday" is kinda blowsome, though.)

Oh no! I suddenly have a yearning to track down and hear "Consequences" by Godley and Creme!

Things We Do for Love. Fuck me.

I bought the Best Of for 4 quid in HMV on Saturday, to replace a dusty cassette of Changing Faces. It's ninja.

Can I say "it's ninja"?

yes.

i was a kid when this was a hit and my mother and i used to sing it together when it would come on the radio. that song is still totally classic!

The National Guard, The National Guard
The exercise yard, the exercise yard

Jonathan King may be a child molester, but I am still thankful for the fact that he discovered two of my all-time favourite bands.

Just listened to "I'm Not in Love" on repeat. What a brilliant track. This song must have been a balearic hit, fits perfectly within that sound.

have you heard their other song like this, Godley & Creme's "Cry"?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B1Z8pSXCNFI freaky video

wow that track is nice. i have a couple of their lps from the 70's which are really good, but beyond that i never investigated their later stuff. i am going to now.

10cc were the British Steely Dan. I say it is so, so it is so.

Not sure about this. I'm sure I'll be crucified for this (bring it, bitches), but Steely Dan never wrote anything as sublime as "I'm Not In Love".

Erol Alkan has been halting intense electro sets at 2 a.m. in vast warehouses before thousands of people by playing I'M NOT IN LOVE. IN FULL!

10cc were the British Steely Dan. I say it is so, so it is so.

If you regard the fact that 10cc were indeed very typically English whereas Steely Dan were very typically American (at least in an East Coast way), then this may well be a very good way to see it.

That makes me LOL so hard.

If the name had been deliberately chosen for the reasons cited, it would have been a misnomer: The average male ejaculation actually contains only about 3cc of semen.

Wasn't 9CC supposed to be the max male ejaculation rather than the average?

props to lol creme for his incredible name

how have i never heard about this group

i get the feeling theyre more of a singles band, right?

and maybe not so much of a "any american has heard them" band

besides xhuxk of course

'im not in love' was surely a big hit stateside

ive only heard the album 'bloody tourists' (dreadlock holiday was on it) and it was dissapointing. i might pick up their greatest hits sometime if i see it for cheap.

god, i heard i'm not in love all the time when i was a kid. i certainly knew who they were in the 70's in the u.s. that and the things we do for love were huge on the radio.

i wonder what kind of station would have played 10cc. they don't seem like they really fit. i was born in 1974 and the earliest thing i ever remember hearing on the radio was eddie rabbit.

"i wanna rule the world" is like.. ambient techno ambient highway 61 style queen or something.

Amazing BBC doc online here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kn4q5/The_Record_Producers_10cc_6_Music_Producers_Cut/

Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart provided the entire package. Not only were they great musicians but they also wrote all their hits in various group combinations, produced their own recordings and, in Eric Stewart, had a built-in engineer. They also owned their own recording studio which made them a highly productive self-contained unit.

Featuring new interviews with all four band members and exclusive access to the original multi-track recordings of Donna, Wall Street Shuffle and I'm Not In Love.

This extended 6 Music Producer's Cut includes additional 10cc tracks and related music. Broadcast on:BBC 6 Music, 9:00pm Saturday 9th May 2009
Duration: 120 minutes

No, they were much better.

"Please install Real Player".

Fuck that noise.

maybe not so much of a "any american has heard them" band

Most Americans above a certain age have probably heard their two huge sellout hits "I'm Not In Love" and "The Things We Do For Love." Beyond that pair (and among younger Americans), maybe not, though.

(Ha ha, just looked up their chart positions and found out their third biggest U.S. hit -- only went to #40 -- was something called "People In Love." I can't even think of how that goes. And like their two top fives, it has the word "love" in its title.)

Actually, "Cry" would be their third biggest U.S. hit if it counts, and "Neanderthal Man" their fourth biggest.

Amazing BBC doc online here

AH DUDE thank you for sharing this link: I knew nothing about this. That's one to luxuriate in tomorrow.

"Please install Real Player".

Fuck that noise

WTF, you keeping it real with your Babbage Engine there or something?

"People In Love." I can't even think of how that goes

"People in love do funny things
walk under buses, um tum ti tum tum..."

Fascinating article about the recording of "I'm Not In Love" here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/classictracks.htm

About recording the a cappella backing:

"Each note of a chromatic scale was sung 16 times, so we got 16 tracks of three people singing for each note. That was Kevin, Lol and GiGi standing around a valve Neumann U67 in the studio, singing 'Aahhh' for around three weeks. I'm telling you; three bloody weeks. We eventually had 48 voices for each note of the chromatic scale, and since there are 13 notes in the chromatic scale, this made a total of 624 voices. My next problem was how to get all that into the track.

"I mixed down 48 voices of each note of the chromatic scale from the 16-track to the Studer stereo machine to make a loop of each separate note, and then I bounced back these loops one at a time to a new piece of 16-track tape, and just kept them running for about seven minutes. Because we had people singing 'Aahhh' for a long time, there were slight tuning discrepancies that added a lovely flavour, like you get with a whole string section, with a lot of people playing. Some are not quite in time, some have slightly different tuning, but musically a lovely thing happens to that. It's a gorgeous sound. A very human sound, very warm and moving all the time."

as nice as this thread is, it is still SERIOUSLY lacking in worship and praise for the guitar sound(s) on silly love. and it sounds just as glorious live:

OK, the BBC doc is absolutely tremendous: thanks again for sharing, piscesx. I didn't realise it'd cover so much of Godley & Creme's later material, too (must go and revive that G&C thread) ... what, with that and the Sound on Sound article I can become the world's most tedious I'm Not In Love bore.

So basically, "Hotel" on Sheet Music (1974) sounds like Vampire Weekend, three and a half decades before the fact. (Lots of the album sounds too indie/twee to me, in retrospect. Convinced nothing much matches th side openers, "Wall Street Shuffle" and "Silly Love" -- well, maybe "The Worst Band In The World" I guess -- though feel free to try to convince me otherwise. Also guessing they liked Zappa a lot.)

hey who's drummer number 2 on that live clip?!

If only Vampire Weekend had had the same wonderfully slick and absolutely perfect production...

i don't think there is a rock band working today that has that production. and i wouldn't call it slick. it's hand-crafted and...words fail me. it's wonderful. i'm talking about the early stuff that chuck was listening to though. they did get much slicker. and great too, but in a different way.

massive desire to hear "Rubber Bullets" now need to find my LP...

So, maybe this is common knowledge, but it never occured to me before today that pretty much the entire (great) first side of 10cc's first self-titled album from 1973 is done as ironic but loving nostalgia for high school life in the '50s and early '60s, with music to match. "The Dean And I" is probably my favorite track on that side, but I swear I could imagine the Dictators doing "Sand In My Face" (only they'd do it a lot louder, of course.) Second side isn't as good but does include the album's (and probably the band's) best song in "Rubber Bullets," definitely the funniest fusion of rockabilly and proto-Eurodisco ever.

Also just noticed that they didn't chart in the States until Sheet Music in 1974 (which got to #81; debut didn't even hit #200.)

I did pull out and listen to "Rubber Bullets" like 4 times in a row after my post immediately above xhuxk's.

except I don't have the first album, I have it on this:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/102/271548150_cdd96c3906_m.jpg

The first album is great, but a bit too tongue-in-cheek for its own good maybe. Their golden age for me remains 1974-76 - all those three albums were absolutely awesome.
Then, they parted into two, and even though still making great music, the split was a disadvantage for both parts. Goldman and Stewart lost the creative x-factor and that the two others provided, whereas Godley & Creme were often just too weird, and didn't quite match Stewart and Goldman when it came to writing great pop songs.

My 100cc LP looks different than the one Stormy posted -- actually says 100cc Greatest Hits Of 10cc, released in 1975 on UK Records, but apparently only draws "hits" from their first two albums (making it one of the fastest best-ofs in history probably), since I guess they'd switched labels to Mercury, at least in the States. (My copy's a Brit import, which might explain the different cover.) Anyway, B-side is six useless outtakes -- what sounds like a back-to-the-land Neil Young tribute or parody ("Waterfall"), a quasi Clapton blues rock hack thing ("4% of Something"), some forgettable elevator music instros and a couple maybe goofier songs that aren't particularly catchy. Any reason I should keep hanging on to this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qXm4nzyev8

ok I never actually knew the dude's name was lol creme
I just thought that people thought he was funny
so when they typed his name they would just ad the word lol in front of it

LOL :D

love this thread title

"I'm Not In Love" is so frickin' uber-classic it's not even funny. Monster of a song, especially the "big boys don't cry" whispers in the middle.

I still reckon this one was their best ever moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUhjVWA2S8Y

2 weeks ago, due to hearing Cry and wanting more of the same, i had a real urge to pick up the three albums that have been reissued by mercury on cd (original soundtrack, deceptive bends, bloody tourists, how dare you).
i used to have soundtrack on tape, and have a vague memory of loving most of it.
as yet i've not acted upon this urge.

can't believe that in the almost-8-years since starting the thread i've never put up a link to the official promo for Don't Hang Up:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2pth8_10cc-dont-hang-up_music

still unsure why it even had an official promo. anyroad it beats many of the singles into a cocked hat.

Godley and Creme's late period was strange but wonderful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hjkXxHogPc

so, late last week, i was writing some things about the Oakland General Strike and what not and googled the term 'rubber bullets,' and 10cc came up, and i listened to it and was blown away, and then my australian housemate was like, "what, you mean you didn't know 'i'm not in love,' and then i was like OOOOOOHH SHIT THIS SONG. such a great band.

Anyone else like that Ramases "Space Hymns" album they played on / produced before they were actually 10cc?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuD9tT1qmxE

o'ye, i love the sweet bejeesus outta lots of those ramases songs!

I just received word that Hotlegs, the Godley/Creme featuring band just pre-10CC that had a random American hit via "Neanderthal Man," is getting a full reissue of their 1970-71 work. A quick google search led me to this amazingly detailed post about 'em -- anyone interested should give it a full read:

http://accelerateddecrepitude.blogspot.com/2011/12/hotlegs-thinks-school-stinks.html

And as for that reissue:

https://www.burningshed.com/store/progressive/product/99/4137/

huh, i dont know 10cc beyond the ubiquity of i'm not in love, the off-putting falseness of dreadlock holiday, and the straight corn/cheeze of things we do for love, but based on that exposure, i figured the correct usa equivalent would be h&o, not steely dan. i should probly check them out then, i guess.

Yup you should.

first EVER 10CC box set coming:

http://theseconddisc.com/2012/10/03/new-box-set-spotlights-10cc-and-the-things-they-did-for-love/#more-17145

10cc come together for the first time in 36 years to explain where it went wrong
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/22/10cc-tragedy-didnt-stay-together

Anyone check out the "Tenology" box set? I've just got a single disc best-of that I'm thinking of replacing, possible with the first 4 albums, possible with the box or the 3CD "Collected". Opinions?

much of it (not all of it though for some bizarre reason) is on Spotify http://open.spotify.com/album/37Iqxhq5QHYHhLn9kcAkHu

not interested really in the tenology box set.
i think just the 'classic' albums boxset thats just come out will suffice for me.
all being well, i hope to get a copy today
(hence todays need to listen to that other purveyor of high production excess ELO, and the Moody Blues)

"I'm Not in Love" is such a staggering, endlessly-replayable work of genius. I'm awe-struck every time I listen to it.

I should really get some of their albums, really really.

^^This!! Thanks for bumping this thread, I need to check out their first 4 albums!

Listening again today and the "oooh, you wait a long time for me/ooooh, you wait a long time" section is, to me, one of music's greatest moments. Sublime, now and forever.

Kind of surprised this band never quite caught on (belatedly) as a hip touchstone. Beach Boys plus Queen bubblegum plus plus Sparks plus ... soft rock? Is it all just a little too much? Can imagine a lot of bands digging them, but can't imagine many bands sounding like them, or daring to try to sound like them.

Yep

They maybe dont have the personality to latch on to? Unlike Brian Wilson, Mercury, Mael, Fagen even?

To my mind, if you like The Raspberries you should give these guys a try. But maybe that is already a small subset to start with.

I have a pathological hatred of dreadlock holiday and it's affected my ability to like anything they ever did

that tune is truly vile. that that band, of all quasi colonialists fucking around with this "exotic" rhythm, made the worst british white guy reggae record is peculiar, although I despise "I shot the sheriff" more out of it being shoved down your throat for 40 years and…y'know…clapton.

I urge you and anyone else to fuck with the first five records, of which the last is just Stewart and Gouldman. Never had the inclination to go further…but yeah, steely Dan is probably an apt comparison…

There's a vein of "Let's laugh at other cultures" running through their work that is very 70's Britain and fairly unpleasant... great band though!

Check out "Don't hang up" from "How Dare You", it's 10cc in a nutshell, there's great music and poignancy in places, but a whole chunk of comedy wackiness spread on the top like too much nutella.

Interesting. The more I listen, the more I hear Steely Dan, sure, and I guess Randy Newman, at least in spirit (both of them). But they sort of lack the grasp of irony that Randy Newman mastered, and are more on the nose than Steely Dan, which can teeter toward the ... smug? Lots to enjoy, though.

http://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/gfx/400-6772.jpg

feel like the tagline/pun would make more sense with a photo of Creme holding a pint of Boddingtons- did they ask Lol Creme, but he turned then down? did they think that Godley was more recognisable? or is it meant to work as a visual pun (Godley and 'Cream')?

I mean Creme is the Creme of Manchester but Godley would be the Godley of Manchester, surely?

probably spent 7 hrs trying to bash out a pun on 10cc, then thought fuck it, creme of manchester, job's a good un

I went on a big Graham Gouldman kick recently, finding his various songwriting credits for Herman's Hermits etc. The 10CC wiki entry on their various studio projects, like recording "Sausalito," credited to The Ohio Express, is really interesting.

In which case, don't forget "Man from Nazareth" by John Paul Jonas

(or "Jones" )

Not Jonas, Joans!

Damn spelling corrector.

had totally forgotten about this one song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1isRH9E9WAE

kinda catchy, kinda terrible, i didn't mind hearing it again though

true sound of home counties local radio, it's the '87 model fleet car sledgehammer

they have some good stuff and "i'm not in love" is one of the greatest recordings ever yep

yeah that Wax is better than most of the late-period 10CC

and not forgetting..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIRJYTTeAWk

"I'm Not in Love" is such a staggering, endlessly-replayable work of genius. I'm awe-struck every time I listen to it.

yes. this.

as indicated earlier, i picked up the classic album boxset, and, it's bloody brilliant.

this is excellent

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06r14pr/im-not-in-love-the-story-of-10cc

Yeah, watched it this morning.

Funny how the TOTP perfances all seem to survive. I reckon they had them all recorded for themselves.

Just saw said doc now with my girlfriend Kate -- great stuff.

Yes, they absolutely were!

Sheet Music > The Original Soundtrack > How Dare You! > 10cc > Deceptive Bends > Bloody Tourists >>> the rest.

So 7 years later im taking Ned’s advice, and incredibly glad for it. Really enjoying Sheet Music. The prevalence of hyper-flat american accents and intonations is disturbing as hell to my understanding of their identity. The crosscultural code switching thing is pretty arch, I guess? I dunno, it was not really part of my expectations. Was it just them or were all englishes doing this and i just didn't notice?

Have you never heard rock music before?

lol theres a dif between what limey rock myoosishuns sing like and what creme is doing there- he’s ~convincing~

He's a talented fellow! And he only sings lead on three of the songs.

Top Gear's Richard Hammond always looked like Lol Creme having a petrol-induced mid-life crisis.

yup i was tryna josh you- i have no idea who’s doing the vox, song to song yet, i’m am def trying to get informed. but first, listening.

If you’re really into 10CC the Consequences Podcast is about the greatest thing going:

https://consequences.podbean.com/

It began as a multipart deep dive into G&C’s recently reissued epic but the album-by-album breakdowns of the 10CC albums proper since—with an entire episode dedicated to “I’m Not in Love”—are equally fabulous.

What a voice Kevin Godley had. Now that guy could sing.

Ok, the eras are different, so the palettes are different, but the band that 10cc reminds me of on Sheet Music, in terms of WHAT they’re doing, and the spirit and ability with which they do it (though not HOW they sound), is RATW Super Furry Animals. Which is a real favorite.

Woah Naive that podcast sounds great.

What a voice Kevin Godley had. Now that guy could sing.

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Sunday, September 15, 2019 10:58 AM bookmarkflaglink

I mean it's in his name

Woah Naive that podcast sounds great.

Im trying to revive my life so im distracted, but i’m stoked to listen when i get round.

But for now, endless sheet music is inspiring as hell.

Thanks, this is an excellent set of podcasts with an great eye for production detail. It's very much been put together by fans of Consequences though, so they rate the quirkier side of 10CC higher than I would.

I also don't share the love for How Dare You?, with the obvious exception of the album's singles.

Didn't realise until I listened to the Consequences podcast that, after the recording of How Dare You!, Godley, Creme & Gouldman called a band meeting at which the group's manager informed Eric Stewart that the trio no longer wanted to work with him. Godley & Creme then decided to strike out on their own to record Consequences, at which point Gouldman had to go back to Stewart and ask to work with him again as 10CC. This is according to Eric Stewart's autobiography Things I Do For Love.

The incident helps to explain why Stewart and Gouldman started to drift apart so soon after the first couple of albums recorded by the rump 10CC. There couldn't have been much trust left on Stewart's side after that. Can't imagine too how Godley & Creme sat through the band meeting at which Stewart was ejected knowing that they were going to be working as a duo anyway on Consequences.

Help me out here (or maybe not )... I've always adored what were their big singles in the US : "I'm Not In Love" and "The Things We Do For Love" but listened to a Greates t Hits collection and found them overall too... jokey? Was this just their overall schtick or am I missing something?

No, they were pretty jokey.

Agreed. I haven't listened to 10CC's albums since I was in my early teens, and they now very much come across as a band whose humour you would appreciate more at that stage of one's life than in your later years. The Zappa influences seem stronger in retrospect, as do some of the dodgier aspects of 1970s British humour - clumsy foreign accents and stereotypes on 'Hotel' and 'Oh Effendi', for example, and a nasty Yewtree vibe on 'Iceberg' (whose lyrics, according to the podcast, Godley wanted to be even more stalkerish and scatological).

10CC had the same combination of 1950s references and art school pretensions as Roxy Music, but Roxy would never have written a closing song to an album such as 'The Film of my Love', which sounds like an over-extended outro to a Monty Python film, while 10CC could never have written a song such as 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' without inserting at least one mildly humorous middle eight that pastiches an entirely different musical genre to deflate the mood.

Is the Godley & Creme stuff just as jokey - I only know "Cry" - or is the goofiness absent?

I associate the jokiness and slightly sneery humour more with Godley and Creme than Gouldman and Stewart tbh.

clumsy foreign accents and stereotypes on 'Hotel' and 'Oh Effendi'

... "Une Nuit a Paris", "Dreadlock Holiday".

Godley & Creme were almost 100% responsible for the group's goofiness, and their post-10CC albums as a duo are full of it.

Having quit 10CC in part because they had grown tired of Stewart's more saccharine songs such as 'The Things we do for Love', Godley and Creme are ironically most remembered for songs such as 'Cry', which you could imagine them having rejected if Gouldman & Stewart had written it in 10CC. Probably the best track on their Consequences triple album is also the most straightforward ballad 'Five o'clock in the morning'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-3z2FdJXSo

Thank you kindly!

xhuxk and Stormy's favorite 10CC song and probably mine as well, is a jokey rewrite of "Jailhouse Rock" that Nick Lowe might have been proud to have written:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dTnvhGHDGA

ha my 15 y/o loves loves what he understands as rockabilly and jump blues and 50s stuff generally, and also he loves rubber bullets, so i asked “you get that’s a sendup mostly of jailhouse rock, right?” and i was glad he said- “of course it’s obv,” so there’s that. aaaand then he goes back to extolling fats domino, dion, and brian setzer but also as tho they were all contemporaries. which is probly no less accurate than my 50 y/o history of rock so whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhjl6kibE_s

Been listening to the first two albums a lot recently.

(xp) That's one of the geekiest things you're ever likely to see. It's great how they don't remember recording it at all!

quite telling that Graham and Kev cooperate, and that Eric and Lol don't; Eric particularly loathes Graham for continuing the 10cc brand… it is exciting to hear the track broken down…

Kevin's got a solo album to promote and Graham Gouldman just seems like a really nice guy.

Don't want to tell you how far I was into the video before I realized that "The Great Stockport Bake-off" is not the title of a previously unreleased 10CC song.

Yeah, I heard Graham Gouldman on one of the Finders Keepers radio show things, an amiable bloke certainly.

I'm revisiting 10cc lately...and discovered Dee Dee Sharp rescued "I'm Not in Love" from narcolepsy along with Gamble and Huff.

Really brings out the polish. How did I miss this? It's stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNg3RQRTgiQ

Also good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfXkNOdlVxM

Woah

From the Strawberry archive, a previously-unheard full version of an early mix of 10cc's I'm Not In Love. What genius to have realised that less was more for the final version! Thanks to @SeanMMedia for baking the tape and transferring the sound https://t.co/CNs8fYFq3v pic.twitter.com/wETpsXlUjX

— Strawberry Studios (@StrawberryNorth) August 3, 2021

I'm kind of shocked that 10cc has yet to become, to coin a phrase, a hip musical crush.

Are any of the young people learning about Queen these days also exploring similar acts like 10cc, or Sparks? All these guys need is a biopic called Une Nuit À Paris and the revival will be started.

Sparks had a 2hr 15 doco released internationally in multiplexes this year

Right, I'm not saying Sparks are neglected now, but I'm wondering whether the specific audience that is discovering Queen are listening to other groups that were popular enough to be seen as rivals at the time. I mean, I suspect that even most of the people today who stream "I'm Not in Love" are not going to go on to listen to a second 10cc song; there's only a limited amount of public attention available.
I suspect one thing that could prevent 10cc from being seen as hip today is that their image and artwork were pretty dreary even by mid-70s standards.

Also, unlike Queen (but like Sparks, and Steely Dan) there is a real smartass/snide/acidic/satirical quality to a lot of the lyrics that some might find oft-putting, or less accessible.

Maybe, although hasn't that lyrical aspect has been part of the appeal in the Sparks and Dan revival?

The band might have been dreary to look at but I wouldn't say their artwork was? I think I said it before itt but there's a lot of Let's Laugh At Foreigners And Their Funny Ways stuff going on in their work, which seems very UK in the 70s and probably deserves to stay there.

There's a quote from Gouldman or Stewart: "we had two arts students in the band, so why were our sleeves always such crap?"

Let's Laugh At Foreigners

Surely appropriate in the age of Brexit!

Blame Hipgnosis.

Maybe, although hasn't that lyrical aspect has been part of the appeal in the Sparks and Dan revival?

Absolutely, I was saying that more in comparing/collecting 10Ccc to/with Queen, who lacks that acid tongue.

Let's Laugh At Foreigners

Is there? I know there's "Dreadlock Holiday," but I always thought the narrator was the butt of the joke there, kind of like in a Randy Newman song, or "Safe European Home."

There's also "One Night in Paris" (making fun of the French and Americans), "Oh Effendi" (Arabs and Americans), "Hotel" (unspecified Third World cannibals and their Western victims), maybe "Baron Samedi"?

I think Godley and Creme were largely responsible for those.

I think their albums are kind of difficult and dense for your average American dan fan that buys mash up shirts on Etsy. The Original Soundtrack is so sick tho and every time I DJ and play Blackmail, a lot of youngins freak out and ask me what it is.

Anyone read this?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41jOme9WPZL._SX338_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Gonna suppose the reason sparks and 10cc aren't experiencing a breakout with the youth is that they lack an iconic character of a frontman and had one hit song in the US between the two of them

I think I said it before itt but there's a lot of Let's Laugh At Foreigners And Their Funny Ways stuff going on in their work, which seems very UK in the 70s and probably deserves to stay there.

There's also a fair amount of 1970s misogyny in 10cc's lyrics that deserves to stay there, especially the stalker song 'Iceberg' on 'How Dare You'. Kevin Godley apparently wanted to make the lyrics even darker and scatological, but other band members disapproved. Eric Stewart said it was 'one of the songs that almost split the group', although the split wasn't far away by that point.

Kinda surprised Bon Iver Nation hasn't made its way into the 10cc back catalogue, via Gayngs' cover of "Cry" several years back.

I don’t really like or “get” this band except for “I’m not in love”. “the things we do for love” just sails past me. “Dreadlock holiday” yikes. They seem to have recorded lot of deliberately goofy stuff that’s not my cup of tea. I understand they did incredible things production/studio-wise. “I’m Mandy (fly me)” is pretty okay. I’d listen to an ilmer-compiled comp of fav cuts sans goofy stuff.

I feel with 10CC there are a lot of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” aesthetic choices that just seem bewildering when divorced of the context in which they made them. More so than Queen, who, when faced with the same issue, could at least go *bigger*/more anthemic

I feel with 10CC there are a lot of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” aesthetic choices that just seem bewildering when divorced of the context in which they made them

So well put. Despite finding these guys pretty hard to get into, it helps a tiny bit if I think of them as related to broadly the same cultural moment that’s responsible for Kenny Everett or The Goodies. Which gels well with the presence of Peter Cook on Consequences I guess? Douglas Adams / HHG2G kind of in this space as well maybe? Also feel like Rupert Hine/Quantum Jump are related to this vibe.

I don't know that Godley or Creme would have been too pleased to be associated in people's minds with the Goodies tbh. Peter Cook, obviously. Kenny Everett, meanwhile, was still a slightly dangerous maverick at the time. Clever dickery in general though.

Ha yeh probably conflated a few thoughts there - Goodies sprang to mind because I watched a few episodes with my kids recently and was shocked at the degree of casual racism/sexism. Cue slightly flustered explanations about how the past is a foreign country (as it were).

Casual racism and sexism? That's just 70s UK in general.

Last 4 posts illustrate why these dudes never broke with hipster USA. Way too British!

They should do a post-brexit comeback now that we've fully wound the clock back 50 years. Plus they'd now be free to call themselves 0.34 fl oz.

As a young-un I thought that 10cc referred to some kind of engine or motor, and had assumed that the band trafficked in what was would later come to be known as "classic rock."

Speaking of 10cc, I just heard (or I should say, listened to) "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel, and there are some striking similarities with "I'm Not In Love." Not just the electric piano, but also the vaguely Latin rhythm and, most conspicuously, the ghostly vocals droning in the background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STugQ0X1NoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA3YZ6QdJU

You aren't the only one:

Composer and music theory professor Thomas MacFarlane considered the resulting "ethereal voices" with distorted synthesized effects to be a major influence on Billy Joel's hit ballad "Just the Way You Are", released two years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQRce_GTksw

Can't imagine too how Godley & Creme sat through the band meeting at which Stewart was ejected knowing that they were going to be working as a duo anyway on Consequences.

This is just next-level dickery.

I mean, that's Stewart's account, so it makes sense he'd remember it that way. Another account I've heard was that it was the other way around and that G&C were booted for doing Consequences on their own. Regardless, there aren't a lot of bands that can subsist as long as they did with four songwriters.

As for the comments upthread about their songs about foreigners, the funny accents and the like, I do get the sense that this was something of a mid-70s UK thing -- but it also feels to me as if most if not all of these pieces are poking fun at colonialism above all else. At least one of the transcriptions of the lyrics to Hotel I found online uses Uncle Remus/Br'er Rabbit-like spellings ("Can see, cross water, to de' mainland") for the first verse. That seems rather intentional.

Anyway, no, you could never get away with the *way* they do it today -- and I'm not doubting that there may be some actual racism in there as well. But the white people seem to be the punchline of almost all of these songs.

I seriously don't think they are.

The westerners in "Oh Effendi", at least, are also specifically Americans (which is why the music is quasi-Southern rock), and they're definitely included in the satire. Also "Hotel" has musical elements that echo the 30s and 40s, so in many ways it's a parody of the xenophobic attitudes of those eras, and the films of the times. Also a song like "Punchbag" on L shows that Godley and Creme were recipients of racist attacks and sensitive towards the issue.

I had always heard the story that Godley and Creme were ostracized from the other two as a consequence of planning their own album. I have trouble imagining Gouldman deciding he had more in common with those two rather than Stewart, or unilaterally deciding, once they were a trio, that they couldn't return to the group.

OK so "Oh Effendi" is (I assume) about westerners desperate to make deals with Arabs for oil. But it manages to mention white slave girls, harems, turbans (Arabs don't wear turbans) and also finds time to refer to the French as "frogs".

What sort of enlightened racial and cultural attitudes would one expect from a gang of US mercenary gun runners in the 70s?

Having their cake and eating it I'd call it, lampooning uncultured American assholes (it's never British arseholes you'll note) while getting to slip in a few funnies about Arabs etc.

If it was only one song too...

I do get the sense that this was something of a mid-70s UK thing

I agree. The turn the thread has taken reminded me of the episode of Rising Damp that opens with Leonard Rossiter returning from his holiday in Spain, wearing a sombrero and glumly shaking a pair of maracas. His lodger asks him, "How was the food?" "Greasy." "And the people?" "The same."

Well, I just got back and I wish I'd never leave now

Each night in this thread...

...could be your last

Americans are funny foreigners too remember.

I try to pretend I'm Canadian.

A few years ago we had a compilation of the pre-10cc bubblegum material - a period memorably (and pretty accurately) described as "a load of crap" by Kevin Godley - but this looks more interesting...

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/godley-creme-frabjous-days-the-secret-world-of-godley-creme-1967-1969/

Well, I just got back and I wish I'd never leave now

I mean, that's Stewart's account, so it makes sense he'd remember it that way.

10cc manager Harvey Lisberg confirmed in an interview for the Consequences podcast (about 18 minutes in) that Eric Stewart was summoned to Manchester and told that Godley, Creme and Gouldman didn't want to work with him any more. Godley and Creme were unhappy not only that the group's music was becoming blander, but also with Stewart's dictatorial approach to studio production and engineering.

They resented the fact that their work was being produced in a certain way. They wanted the freedom to do it their way, instead of having to argue every minute. So, obviously, they pinpointed Eric - from their point of view, they wanted to get away from that. Graham was stuck in the middle of the deep blue sea, and I think... Graham was in an impossible position, because Kev and Lol definitely wanted to leave, and the question was "Do they carry on as 10cc with the three of them? How does it work?" But the reality was Kev and Lol wanted to do their thing, they wanted to do Consequences, and they wanted to be free.

Lisberg also suggested that, if Gouldman had stayed on the Consequences project, he "would have also been controlling them (Godley and Creme) to a degree, probably in deciding whether they would have done a single album", as opposed to the triple LP that emerged.

in the bbc doc lol (lol) describes consequences as a heaven's gate* project, and hints that here was a symptomatic ballooning that a better managing of band politics (by everyone) might have mitigated

*= the 5 and a half hour cimino western that destroyed united artists at the start of the 80s: i don't think you cite it as a comparison -- even as a joking drive-by -- to induce a positive response

Yeah, Gouldman and Godley both think now that they should have just put the band on hold for a year to allow Consequences to be recorded and then reconvene afterwards.

As for 10cc trying to continue as a trio after Stewart had been removed: Gouldman said in another interview on the Consequences podcast (about 1hr 17 minutes in) that he had not been 'part of the initial Consequences team,' as had been suggested in Godley and Stewart's books.

I don't think it was going to be a three-man team, I think Kevin and Lol just wanted me to play on the album. I remember doing some stuff right at the beginning. Their sessions would start at sort of 10 at night and go on until 6 in the morning. I didn't like that at all. And I just sort of eventually drifted away from it.

So at some point Gouldman must have gone back to Stewart, who he'd just co-ejected from 10cc, and suggested that they carry on with 10cc after Godley and Creme had formally left. Can't imagine how that conversation went, although Gouldman said that he and Stewart were both 'on a mission' with Deceptive Bends to prove that they could deliver as a duo.

Thanks for that info, it sounds like everyone has their own perspective on the break-up.

I was curious about the Frabjous Days compilation, although the Hotlegs album from 1971 doesn't encourage my hopes: it has a fair amount of decent music, but not a lot of 10cc's specific virtues (the lyrics, in particular, are vague or self-consciously dumb).

Seems like a lot of the songs on the Hotlegs album date from the Frabjous Days period.