THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

A Nuit A Paris has similarities with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody that was released the same year. But while Queen was a hard rock band, 10cc was a pop band. 10cc also did not have a guitar player like Brian May or a vocalist like Freddie Mercury, neither did they have the same originality or talent or grand vision that Queen did. So 10cc is really a (very) poor man's pop version of Queen. But they (tried to) hide their lack of musical originality and their lack of instrumental and vocal skills behind a wall of humour and sarcasm (and very high production values). It sometimes works, but most of the time it doesn't.

On this album, it works for about the first 15 minutes. That is, the first two tracks, the aforementioned, almost nine minute long, A Nuit A Paris. And the very good and very emotional, and at the same time ironic ballad, I'm Not In Love. These two opening tracks set the expectations for the rest of the album quite high. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is utterly disappointing in this light. The rest of the album reverts to the bands earlier style from the first two albums and offers very little for the prog fan to enjoy.

This album, like all 10cc albums, is only for fans of this band. There are a lot of other bands you need to consider in the prog related world before you turn to 10cc.

But if you do want to explore 10cc you should probably start with their next album How Dare You! which I think is a stronger album overall.