10cc – 10cc

10 cc’s debut. Get it! Their first four albums are great and make your hi-fi sound fantastic.
Holdout for a minty copy, the band is way underrated and thankfully undervalued at the record shops.
Sheet Music, their second album is my go-to favourite, but like I wrote, get all four of their first albums.
Still good after that, but only two of the original four after the first four records.
They did an album as Hotlegs before changing their name that can be found pretty easily. Might as well get that too.

Best CD version of this album.

All other copies either have the incorrect track order, or they mess up the segue between Rubber Bullets and The Hospital Song by adding 5 seconds silence.

This CD is flawless!

The Beach Boys/Jan and Dean- style vocals were no accident. Tracks like 'Donna ', 'Johnny...' , and 'The Dean...' were Zappa-esque love/hate parodies of 50s americana, a subject the band were to return to on later releases. Like Zappa had done on 'Ruben-and-the-Jets', the moronic lyrics found on some doo-wop tracks are marvellously sent-up here ('Donna') ; The tragic youthful James Dean- type figure, as immortalized in mawkish hits like 'Leader of the Pack', 'The Drunken driver' or 'Tell Laura I love her', gets revived in 'Johnny ...', which also seems to lift the hook from 'Earth Angel' to re-enforce the effect.

'The Dean...' was a more cinematic effort, blending high school romantic cliché after cliché as a jaded narrator recalls the golden days of his youth in the 50s, whilst lamenting the humdrum nature of his current life - then, in a sharp twist, ends by extolling the virtues of a sudden fortune and material success - all American Dream claptrap, marvellously crammed into a two minute song.

There are so many references on this album it would take three pages to go through and discuss them all, so will just stick to those three songs.

Those tracks were released as singles at a time when '50s nostalgia was becoming a big thing, with mindless UK acts like Mud and Showaddywaddy in the charts. The band must have been tickled to see how their '50s parodies climbed the charts amid that lot, and were taken at face value by most DJs and the public, who mostly didn't realize that 10cc were poking fun at the whole hackneyed shebang. Subversive genius!

BASICS: 10CC, Steely Dan, Hunter Thompson ... I put the three of these in the same class ... and as I think about it, I might want to throw Frank Zappa in that mix as well. 10 CC are extremely brilliant, seem completely natural, unpretentious in the development and execution of their art, and they have a way of bending words that brings on a big “Ah Ha ...” Once you hear what they have to say, you are left wondering why you weren’t able to have seen or said things in such a cinematic manner ... it’s all about the word play, and there are fewer things finer in music or literature then that.

Probably the biggest problems, if one can call it a problem is that there were no less then two really strong writing teams within the ranks of 10CC ... those being Kevin Godley and Lol Creme [and] Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman. The first half of the team took a very artsy, and as I said, cinematic view of the music, while latter were more straight forward in their approach to pop music. Non of these people could be considered a ‘flash in the pan’ in any manner ... Eric Stewart had been a member and writer for Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders and had a super hit with “The Game Of Love,” “A Groovy Kind Of Love” and several other songs. Gouldman succeeded in knocking out the world by writing both “For Your Love” and “Heart Full Of Soul” for the Yardbirds [ Eric Claption and Jimmy Page], the songs “Bus Stop” and “Look Through Any Window” for The Hollies [and of course you Graham Nash from CS&N] and he even wrote two hits for the group Herman’s Hermits. They were also part of, if I may put it this way, a music factory, who turned out one hit after bubble gum and pop hit after another. The point being, that individually, these guys had tremendous street credits, all it took was for them to merge their talents and take the world by storm.

How can you not love 10 CC? Well, actually I guess if I were to set my mind to it, I could come up with a dozen reasons, but hey, I’m a fan, so it’s about why I love this band ... and I do.

I find them talented and more then interesting on many levels. First I was struck by the harmonies, which reminded me of Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys and other bands from the California scene. Secondly, the lyrics are amazingly satirical, full of puns and double edged meanings ... most regarding the manifestations of our sexual being. But please, don’t think they are limited to “peek a boo humor,” their twisted minds go much deeper, vastly exploring every aspect of human nature, the things that drive us crazy, the things we love, and the things that drive us beyond insanity ... sometimes they even manage to conger all of these into one song. And it’s all done in an off the cuff manner, as if this is the way they really think ... which probably isn’t that far from the truth. I would be so bold as to compare them to Frank Zappa, only the songs of 10 CC are much more listenable.

You’ll discover so much here, you could spend a life time combing through the catalog of 10 CC and merely scratch the surface ... so take your time, dig the songs, and then laugh your butt off when you get a joke ... stop taking yourself and music so seriously, stop looking at the big picture for a little while, and listen to 10 CC reduce it all to a really fine song.

Review by Jenell Kesler

light pop rock. nice guitar solo . beatiful vocal lines