FAMOUS LAST WORDS

(3,5*) Supertramp's best album is for me, like most listeners, unquestionably Crime of the Century. After that it's quite hard to put them in order. I think their most succesful(?) Breakfast in America is slightly disappointing in the use of keyboards and this one often unjustly disliked. I may even prefer this one if they are compared song-to-song. 'Crazy' is better than 'Gone Hollywood'. 'It's Raining Again' is nicer than 'Goodbye Stranger' etc. Both albums have some uninteresting songs - maybe less in BIA, that's true. But if 'Child of Vision' is supposed to be BIA's grand finale, it has 2 superior counterparts here: 'Waiting So Long' and 'Don't Leave Me Now'. Both are among the strongest and most moving Supertramp songs.

I also like 'Know Who You Are' in its sad simplicity (compare 'Two of Us' in Crisis? What Crisis?). The band may have been about to break already but not a bad swansong of the fruitful Hodgson-Davies partnership. Sad that neither of them have been able to keep that high standard on their own (I don't now remember if Davies have had writing partners but the newer Supertramp albums haven't got my interest, and Hodgson's Hai Hai is unbeliavably bad album).