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Supertramp - Dreamer / Bloody Well Right CD (album) cover

DREAMER / BLOODY WELL RIGHT

Supertramp

Crossover Prog


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AtomicCrimsonRush
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Hodgson and Davies belt out some great melodic top 40 hits as Helliwell blasts out beautiful tones on the saxophone. On this single we have 2 great tracks from the COTC album. These songs are among some of the all time greatest Supertramp blockbusters. 'Dreamer' is found on every compilation and features in many pop culture forms on TV. It is interminably catchy and unforgettable. 'Bloody Well Right' is the angst driven rocker where we can't get that wretched chorus out of our heads. The music is infectious and catchy hooks are prevalent. Both are well known outside of prog circles of course. As with the album, there is a kind of running theme on the ideas of education, loneliness and alienation. The lead vocalist Roger Hodgson is as high pitched as Jon Anderson, and he is balanced by Rick Davies. The keyboards are a main focus played deftly by Davies and there are some delightful soaring saxophone passages by Helliwell. The musicianship is very innovative and replete with driving rhythms and soft ambience. Get this single as vinyl sibhies with cool covers are a collectors treasure.
Report this review (#1432154)
Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2015 | Review Permalink
Guillermo
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Maybe I am one of the few people who does not like very much all the Hit Singles that Roger Hodgson composed for SUPERTRAMP. Also maybe I am one of the few people who sometimes likes more SUPERTRAMP without him than with him in the line-up.

This is the case with "Dreamer", a very Pop song with good lyrics but musically not very interesting for my taste. Maybe is the song that I like the less from Roger Hodgson with SUPERTRAMP. Maybe I am also one of the few that thinks that their "Crime of the Century" album was not their best in their discography. While the new musicians in the band (John Helliwell, Dougie Thomson and Bob Siebenberg ) were very good, this line-up still was by 1974 learning how to play with each other. Without doubt, this line-up of the band (Davies, Hodgson, Helliwell, Thomson and Siebenberg) was the best. But in general their "Crime of the Century" album was for me their first step as a band with the new line-up, and they still were going to record better albums and singles in the future. In "Dreamer" there is a very monotonous use of the Wurlitzer electric piano and not much drums playing. Maybe many people likes this song...but not me. Anyway, the live version from their "Paris" album is better than this studio recording. Hodgson was going to compose other very good songs for the band. I still like more the songs from their previous single ("Land Ho" / "Summer Romance").

"Bloody Well Right" is better as a song. A song composed by Rick Davies and influenced a lot by Blues music, also played using the Wurlitzer electric piano, an instrument which was very related to the sound of the band. But this song also has some very good lead guitar parts played by Hodgson. The only thing that I don`t like very much from this song is the use of falsettos sung by Davies and in the backing vocals by Hodgson and Helliwell. Unfortunately, this is one thing that I still don`t like very much from this band. But they are very good musicians.

Report this review (#1432219)
Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2015 | Review Permalink
Matti
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars After two unsuccesful and uneven albums SUPERTRAMP released Crime of the Century, which is regarded as their finest work, at least in the prog circles (the more commercial world probably favours the bestselling Breakfast in America, 1979). The 1974 album was excellently produced by the legendary Ken Scott, who had worked with e.g. David Bowie and Mahavishnu Orchestra.

This is a typical single, both tracks taken from the album and representing its more hit-oriented material. Roger Hodgson's 'Dreamer' is a charming and very energetic song in a fast tempo, with a slower mid-section featuring also Rick Davies' vocals in a dialogue-like manner. The electric piano sound that colours the whole Crime of the Century is extremely dominating on this one.

Rick Davies composed the more bluesy 'Bloody Well Right' which I don't enjoy as much; it's the heavy repetition of the boring chorus that annoys me a bit. Together these songs are almost like Supertramp in a nutshell, with both unique songwriters represented. Except that of course the more progressive tendencies and the emotionally deeper songs are to be found elsewhere on that album.

Good, but totally non-essential for the album oriented listeners.

Report this review (#1592014)
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2016 | Review Permalink
3 stars A chronicle of the mythical space window, for fun. A hidden chronicle.

1. School and the harmonica, that's it, the man with the harmonica, a duel? Nah, it's school, just the bell; the sax on the left, yes from the time when we liked stereo effects; hold an arpeggio on G, another on D and the cries of the schoolchildren... let's go; the sound is used yes, the progression does not care, it wants to be latent and brings this rise which is good for morale, yes the gallop of the drums, you had almost forgotten, and the piano which suddenly snorts Also; it's beautiful, inscribed in our ears between the anvil and the stirrup; grand finale but it's not over a chorus for fun come on 2. Bloody Well Right on the crystalline piano, half jazzy half pop-rock, a sound apart, well, we're on SUPERTRAMP; the croaking guitar, the bass struggling and trying to forget that it doesn't have enough strings; this hard riff, yes I say it, or I write it, it's up to you, all right? The simplet piece from Simplet that works on its own, the sax adds a layer of it, not for nothing is it an OMNI 3. Hide in Your Shell yes deep in your eyes, look who pumped on the other; in short, here we are talking about one of my favorite tracks from the album, everything is the intoxicating keyboard... water only water, the rise in several times, the explosion I would even say, the echo drums, the diphthong voices, the musical saw, in short everything 4. Asylum piano input yes, any voice, yes .... bof; this is where I find the original sound of the intro of 'Fool's, but hey it's so fleeting that I keep it to myself; I feel that it will rise, in a symphonic way, like pompous titles by BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST, melodic, soporific but with enough rhythm to make great pieces; aside on these 2 unloved groups of the progeux because having passed on the radio... ah the poor, if they had known they would have acclaimed them rather than thus letting punk and other derivatives come on this same radio; boom boom, the chorus with vilons, bells, just to remind us that creation already existed at that remote time, what are you talking to me about now, good OK; final with a hardos solo guitar, the notes spurt, the voices of Roger and Richard in osmosis, hello. 5. Dreamer give me a more meaningful intro than this, give me a 3 min track that seems like 10... yes the 'Good Vibrations' I grant you, but still it's good. .. the stereo for the voice and the choirs, maybe that also made me dream, like THE BEATLES of yesteryear even more with this sound that fills the room; that's it, it goes, it hits everywhere, dreaming you hear it, when the musical oxymoron is set up by proposing unmentionable things. 6. Rudy sic piano arpeggio, jazzy variation where you're alone at the bar, hold a whiskey I need a pick-me-up; well it's cool this title ah well he starts to shout, well the piano keeps the atmosphere; boy a second another yes that one with the thread, it must be an old Ardmore I guess, just peated as it should be; but it's really not bad this piano, it reminds me a little of the 'Fool's' that I will listen to a few years later, the intro ... progressive with the megaphone; no thank you no third, we need moderation otherwise Méta will still look for us nouases (baffles... but shhh don't spread the word otherwise we'll be censored, ah damn it's over I hear people leaving; this end worthy of a melodrama of the 30s what can I still like it now; Rudy I have you under my skin and it's not that dram, oh yes two I forgot thank you for following me, 7. If Everyone Was Listening ballad for 'And we schemed' which I translated as 'and a whiskey' as everything has a link; ballad, flute, restful nursery rhyme, clarinet, remember the cellos and other trumpets of today integrated into pieces ... of now are not avant-garde; the violins hurt my heart ah ok it's a coded message instead of 'The long sobs of the violins of autumn hurt my heart...' come on let's attack 8. Crime of the Century for the title everyone knows there; for this attack... again... of pads, of voices, of this intoxicating rhythm; this hard voice, this accordion, but where are we going? the solo that comes, yes, the one we all know, it's one of the most beautiful for me, more moving, more more; oh yes the piano cover too, the pad massacred too; you will have understood it, one of the most striking progressive titles of the last 50 years, I don't really need much, the violins twirling around reassure me... if I still like it, it must be damn good!

Good 5 for CRIME of course!

Report this review (#2923532)
Posted Tuesday, May 9, 2023 | Review Permalink

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