FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Um??. not so much. Their debut album and "Indelibly Stamped" were not at all very good and to their credit they were finding their way. They hit gold when they drug in John, Bob and Dougie and "Crime Of the Century" pushed them into their style. Tramp is a strange band in that the differences between songwriters was so dramatic. Roger was more pop (with the exception of songs like "Fool's Overture") and Rick was more into blues and prog. Their lifestyles were also very different. Roger was more spiritual and the rest of the band were not. He stated in an interview that he felt on the outside at times over that. As far as music went, Roger said they had to work at blending their ideas together so that the albums flowed from song to song since their styles were different.

Rick and Roger drifted further apart as the only common threads between them were: 1) They were both musicians and 2) They were in the same band.

When they moved to California they had a geographical space and Roger felt that the band had run its course with him in it which I disagree. The massive success of "BIA" had to have started wreaking havoc on marriages as fame tends to do. It is conceivable that Roger saw his marriage as something that needed to be invested in and thus he listed his need to raise his family as the one of the primary reasons for exiting. He did dedicate a great deal of time to doing just that before he really came back as a solo artist. His voice and playing to this day are fantastic since he had that huge break. Most musicians keep pushing and by the time they hit 60 they can no longer sing on play as well.

This all led to the problems with this album. They recorded most of it at Roger's home studio up in northern California and Rick never came for those sessions and instead recorded his parts from his studio in southern California. When you are rich celebrities and won't even invest in a plane ticket or go for a nice 6 hour drive to be together with your band, the resulting album will lack something and this one did. The differences in the song styles didn't flow well from track to track. Unlike several reviewers I did like some of the songs quite a bit. Crazy is my favorite track with its hopelessness and the melodies are rich. I was not a big fan of "BIA's" overly pop feel so "It's Raining Again" is just more of the same. Rick's songs were mostly a loss and the video for "My Kind Of Lady" was just not at all Supertramp any more than the song was. I will say every album after this one is also not a Tramp album. "Some Things Never Change" was the closest thing Rick did that sounds like the old Tramp and on that album the most Tramp track was one that Roger helped him write ("You Win, I Lose").

"Waiting So Long" was definitely the best Rick track on the album especially with what is the best guitar solo that Roger ever did. And I was strangely attracted to "C'est le bon."

But overall this album is a disappointment and the band admitted that from the beginning. Sadly Roger departed and Rick has never allowed a true reunion to occur but falsely advertised tours as just that and Roger basically got the shaft. While they separated on good terms, the terms Roger verbally laid down would spell disaster for the band. The agreement was that Rick could not play Roger's songs. Okay, letmeseehere??. The band's fortunes were made off Roger's songs far more than Rick's. Omitting them on tours would be band suicide. Roger essentially told Rick to dissolve the band and start over with a new name. But Rick conformed to that agreement for a time but then due to fan pressure, he started playing them so they ended up with a rift that has never been resolved.