Vinyl log 12 - 30 May

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
30	May	1975	10cc	The original soundtrack

I had probably read about the impending release of this record in the music papers; after the success of 10cc's previous release, "Sheet music", I would have been impatient to hear their latest recordings. I had also read about how a record company had bought their contract for 1 million GBP, which at the time seemed like a huge amount of money.

The first time that I heard anything from this album was when I was riding on a bus and I heard a young girl singing what turned out to be the chorus from "Life is a minestrone". The fact that I was on a bus was unusual enough; I think that I was returning from a stay at my parents.

Anyway: the album. A fantastic one-two punch of an opening, with "Une nuit a Paris" and "I'm not in love". Unfortunately, the rest of the album wasn't so good; the above mentioned "Life is a minestrone" is remnant lyrically of their previous "The Wall Street Shuffle", and is still good for a laugh. "Second sitting at the last supper" is a piece of furious rock; intriguingly all four members have a writing credit. This has always struck me as a strange theme for 10cc as 7.5cc are Jewish.

Personal recollections: my girlfriend, G, could not get enough of "I'm not in love"; we used to listen to this on repeat all the time. I used to entertain thoughts of returning from the university to find her in my room, playing this song (like all fantasies, it never came true).

Forty years on, I find the opening "Paris" track to be incredibly strong, which shows how advanced it must have been then. But there is too much filler, and I wonder whether Phonogram, the record company, recouped their advance.

[SO: 3919; 3,16,37]