“School” is a fantastic opener, starting as a slow burn tune that builds up to a prime slab of pop-prog, not too light, and just heavy enough to indicate that this is a band for those who took their music seriously. The fact that each acted as primary vocalist on what they wrote means that there’s a feeling of precise balance throughout Crime of the Century, as Hodgson’s lighter and more commercial material acted as a fine counterpoint to Davies’ more ‘serious’ work. Despite what the credits would have you believe, the two of them were now writing separately, with Davies’ bluesier material acting as ballast to the more fantastical and poppier material being penned by Hodgson. Key to Crime of the Century’s appeal was the contrast in the material penned by Davies to that penned by Hodgson. While album-length explorations of isolation and insanity were nothing new in 1974, indeed a little album called Dark Side of the Moon had made quite the splash by exploring these themes the previous year, on Crime of the Century Supertramp managed to achieve a fine balance of pop-rock and progressive rock, resulting in an accessible album of big ideas, singalong choruses, memorable tunes and musical drama.
While “Land Ho” made minimal commercial impact, it acted as a fine demonstration of what this revised Supertramp line up was capable of, but even then, Crime of the Century must have come as a surprise. The first recorded material from this revised Supertramp line up was stand alone single “Land Ho”, a cheery slab of pop-prog with plenty of commercial appeal, which despite its lack of chart action must have quelled the fears of A&M, who up to this point must have had significant misgivings about the commercial validity of the band. This smart use of Helliwell’s likeable persona seemingly took the pressure off of the less engaging Hodgson and Davies on the live stage, and the band started to mesh together as a musical unit far better than previous line ups had. Opting to continue under the Supertramp name, the duo started auditioning for bandmates, with their first new recruit being American drummer Bob Siebenberg, before finalising their line up by engaging the services of former The Alan Bown members, Dougie Thomson on bass, and Jon A Helliwell on woodwinds and acting as the on stage MC.
Getting signed to A&M Records seemed to promise great things for Supertramp, however their first two albums met with commercial indifference, and they weren’t gaining much traction as a touring act either.ġ973 was effectively make or break for Supertramp, as they had lost their multi-millionaire patronage, and the band now consisted of just Davies and Hodgson. The first person joining him in the line up was Roger Hodgson, and it was with Hodgson that Davies would form a writing partnership that would form the backbone of Supertramp.
Being bank rolled by a wealthy individual, keyboard player and vocalist Rick Davies set about recruiting his band. There was a point prior to the release of Crime of the Century where Supertramp seemed to be the nearly men of progressive rock.