Disco de Supertramp: “The Very Best of Supertramp”

CONSUMER ALERT: A prior review by Terrence J Reardon claimed that this compilatation has the full length versions of the songs. THIS IS NOT TRUE ON ALL VERSIONS, that is there are at least TWO BEST OF's on the market. I purchase a copy from E-Shops on Amazon and received a South American printing. The tracks are the same as on the the 25th Anniversary classics edition. Goodbye Stranger still has a whole verse missing and the outro is dramaticly shorter. Same is true on Take The Long Way Home as the end fades out much too soon. All the other tracks run the same time as the albums they originally appear on. Only the US printing seems to have the full length versions. Both printings include includes School, a good track but you wouldn't miss it. If you don't have any Supertramp recordings, then you should defenitely get this (you really should have "Crime Of The Century" and "Breakfast In America" anyway as they should be heard in their entirety, truly classics). If you have the 25th A&M Anniversary copy of Supertramp Classic, then it's worth replacing. Just make sure you're getting the right version of The Very Best Of Supertramp. If the timing on "Goodbye Stranger" is under five minutes, then it's the bad one (It should run 5:40). "Cannonball" should be over 7 minutes too.

My God. Supertramp. How could I have missed out on this and so much classic rock, having to instead be subjected to the sonic nightmares of today? Ok enough melodrama, this hits album is greatness. Crime of the century is definitely Supertramps best, followed by Breakfast in america. Appropriately a great # of songs from both albums are here, including my favorites: The logical song, Bloody well right, Take thel ong way home, Crime of the century, Dreamer, and Hide in your shell. They can only be called masterpieces. pop perfection if you will. However on a critical note, the lyrics just dont fit the music. The music is catchy, happy, melodic. The lyrics dark and often brooding and apocalyptic. Still, dont let that sway you, this album is very lcose to musical perfection in my humble little 21 yearo ld opinion.

OK sampler. I tended to favor their earlier material and associate their later stuff as a bit too slick, too pop-like and written to score for the top 40 crowd. They didn't "sell out" it just made good business sense after they demonstrated their ability to deliver stellar, cutting edge material for its day that still holds its own. Their Crime of the Century and Crisis? What Crisis? LP's (CD's) were by far the best experience for my ears. You can't go wrong with this "Best of." However,if you want the full treatment and the continuity of their two masterpiece albums, get the two mentioned above instead of or in addition to "The Best of". I can only hope that the production values of the CD versions of these LP's are superior. The LP's suffered from incredibly poor dynamics and were very flat for such potent material.

Let me start with the basics.

Is this a phenomenal record? Yes.

Are the major hits here? Yes.

Will you like this album? If you have heard any of the major Supertramp hits on the radio, and have liked them, then almost surely you will love this CD.

Can you get away with this being your only Supertramp album? Well, that's the rub.

I always approach a greatest hits package like this the same way. Are an artist's/band's best songs scattered across many records that contain a lot of filler or is there clearly a record or two that encompasses the most vital aspects of the band/artist.

I want the best songs, regardless of whether I've heard them on the radio. I want to understand the "essence" of an artist. for older bands, ones that might have been before my time, ones where I am kinda "going in blind", the collection or individual records question is the one I need the most help with.

So to wit, should someone buy this record or go with a couple of individual Supertramp records? After spending time with this CD and having some background with Breakfast in America in my youth, IMHO, I think the better choice with Supertramp is to go the individual records route.

I say that for two reasons, after spending some time with this CD I noted that the songs I remember and enjoy the most basically came from two records, Breakfast in America and Crime of the Century. The other songs *generally* comprise single selections from their other records. Additionally, I remember really liking Breakfast in America front to back when I was younger.

So in this case, I would recommend starting with Breakfast in America as a starter and then moving on to Crime of the Century. And then possibly deeper into their discography depending on your newfound affinity for the band. If I had to do it again, I would have gone this route.

Enjoy.

Man, this is so good. . .and I claim to not even like Supertramp. Not liking Supertramp, though, is like not liking The Beach Boys or ABBA- - -anyone who claims not to like them invariably finds him or herself singing and tapping their uncontrollable toes right along with them when no one's looking and is careful never to admit it to anyone. This is a pretty intelligent compilation, too, even though it completely ignores SUPERTRAMP and INDELIBLY STAMPED, the bands first two LPs with a different lineup. That's okay, though, as they had quite a different sound on those first albums and pretty much anything from them would sound a bit jarring here. Check 'em out anyway, they're pretty good. Anyhoo, VERY BEST OF contains all (okay, both of) the big hits, of course, and some astonishingly great LP tracks as well- -yes, "Take The Long Way Home" is superlative (that beautiful harmonica intro! that sax break!), and so is "The Logical Song", but it's nice to have tracks like "School" (another great harmonica intro!), "Goodbye Stranger" and "Breakfast In America" here along with them. They were semi-hits of their own anyway, and do rate among the band's best material. It's amazing how consistent these guys were- -the compilation is hardly chronological, yet all the songs follow one another seamlessly. And while Supertramp makes no effort to hide their influences- -"Take The Long Way Home" quotes the Bee Gees, and "Goodbye Stranger" nicks Boz Scaggs' "Dina Flo" virtually note for note- -at least they are decent enough influences. My Complaint Department admonishes, however, that while what the liner notes claim is in fact true- -i.e., that "at least one representative track from each" of the band's "top-selling" albums is present- -they are a little too literal in their representation of most of the albums themselves: CRIME OF THE CENTURY is represented no less than a whopping six times and BREAKFAST IN AMERICA four (heck, the first nine songs here are from those two albums). But EVEN IN THE QUIETEST MOMENTS is represented only twice, and by what in my unhumble opinion are not even the best songs from that album. And poor little CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS, FAMOUS LAST WORDS and BROTHER WHERE YOU BOUND hobble in with only a paltry one song each. Ah well, that's what VOLUME TWO is all about, I suppose. See you there.