one side - side one, actually - of how dare you

So I have really only listened to one side of How Dare You which is I think the fourth 10CC album so they were probably (whether they knew/acknowledged it or not) trying to get over the hurdle of having the massive fuck off hit of 'I'm Not In Love' and stay true to Christ knows what they thought they were doing. I don't wish to sound derogatory. I'm super impressed by the bits but it's so-o-o disjointed! (Maybe I shouldn't say 'but'). It's described in various places as 'art rock', obviously most art rockers would not expect to sell a million albums particularly with a selection of sweetly played deconstructed hooks like this. 'I'm Mandy Fly Me' is so much not single material, it's a fucking mess, silly histrionic George Harrisonesque guitar (Todd Rundgren has this problem on some of his 70s material too, it's gross) and a really basic tune and words that... look, maybe it's just that the world has moved on in the last 45 years and so it should have. Of course, what do I know - I wasn't in one of the biggest selling, best-known bands of the 70s - I guess they were doing it right. I'm still amazed at how bitty the album is, it's like a freaky scrapbook.

As per the first album, there are bits of songs which I can't get out of my head they're just so catchy and so good, but most songs are a shamble with a strong presence of indigestible, fibrous, matty crap in there that make it hard to listen all the way through with pleasure. So, 'I Wanna Rule the World' for instance has a brilliant opening, an amazing section (the slightly ska 'watcha gonna do...' bit) and then sort of ridiculous chanting and silly theatrics... then the ghastly 'child vocal' section... who are these people!? It's like they are trying to make something new, but they only have these limited, archaic tools at their disposal. That track is more like a radio play than a song, and it's not much like a song - ! Then you know 'Icebergs' - what was it with the 70s and their obsession with the 30s? I blame it on Paul McCartney, but I guess stars like 10CC were entering their 30s in the 70s so their own parents were in their 50s/60s and had the 30s as their reference points... they're engaging a bit with their parents' culture (and I guess their parents' culture was what they saw as 'adult'). 

Exhausting! Can't wait to play side 2 (although I have waited 44 years). 

(Later: I watched the 2015 BBC documentary on 10CC tonight, whoever uploaded it has inserted some completely bizarre material towards the end with captions across the screen justifying scenes from soap operas etc as being thematically related to 'I'm not in Love'. I had to stop watching.)

10CC

I grabbed this album last weekend I think when Laura and I went to Goldmine in North Fitzroy - it's a blast. Of the records I bought that day, I would have to say this is the current favourite. I read a bit about 10CC and their precedents in Paul Hanley's book about ten Manchester songs,* and of course not having a strong Manchester connection of my own the finer points of it - the pride in it I guess - passed me by a bit but I found the story of 10CC as a supergroup pretty fascinating. This is actually the self-titled 10CC album but someone has decided to title it by the best-known song on it, but it's not the best song at all (I think that would probably be 'The Dean and I'.) But you know what really intrigues me about 10CC at this early (1973) stage is why they are so into doowop/50s (at a pinch early 60s maybe) American kitsch? So this is the same kind of thing that Ol' 55 (gosh, now I come to think of it if you half close your eyes and get a bit drunk and forget the difference between letters and numbers, Ol' 55 and 10CC are pretty similar names) were doing, it's also not a million miles removed from what Daddy Cool were doing a little earlier - like, the enthusiastic embrace of 50s pop but with a bit of extra greasy 'realism' on top of it, and then they will do more contemporary stuff on their albums - 'hey, we love the 50s and we can pastiche that shit till the cows come home, but we also play real music'. Ol' 55 had one main songwriter, so did Daddy Cool most of the time or at least in their heyday, but 10CC for some weird reason had four, like Queen, everyone was competing to bring songs. I wonder if they had fun together or they were all gritting their teeth 'four songs on the album is not fuckin' enough'. Anyway, it's a much better album than I expected and it also sounds pretty great, particularly the drums - I imagine, perhaps I read this, that a lot of the tracks were built up from drum sounds and beats, rather than some 'I have a riff, you play along' kind of thing. The fact that they owned their studio and spend a lot of time there obviously helped them. I mean that is partly what the Hanley book is about. 

*Leave the Capital (2017)