10CC : they really *were* that good weren't they ?

every so often i find myself with an overwhelming desire to listen to 10cc. and every time i find myself thinking, jesus, they *really fucking were* that good. walking up the street earlier, blasting "rubber bullets" into my ear, was a moment of utter joy.

as with so, so many bands, i need to get more of their albums.

also: WTF with whoever it was above who doesn't understand/get/whatever "i'm mandy"? that song ROCKS my SOUL.

("dreadlock holiday" is kinda blowsome, though.)

Oh no! I suddenly have a yearning to track down and hear "Consequences" by Godley and Creme!

Things We Do for Love. Fuck me.

I bought the Best Of for 4 quid in HMV on Saturday, to replace a dusty cassette of Changing Faces. It's ninja.

Can I say "it's ninja"?

yes.

i was a kid when this was a hit and my mother and i used to sing it together when it would come on the radio. that song is still totally classic!

The National Guard, The National Guard
The exercise yard, the exercise yard

Jonathan King may be a child molester, but I am still thankful for the fact that he discovered two of my all-time favourite bands.

Just listened to "I'm Not in Love" on repeat. What a brilliant track. This song must have been a balearic hit, fits perfectly within that sound.

have you heard their other song like this, Godley & Creme's "Cry"?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B1Z8pSXCNFI freaky video

wow that track is nice. i have a couple of their lps from the 70's which are really good, but beyond that i never investigated their later stuff. i am going to now.

10cc were the British Steely Dan. I say it is so, so it is so.

Not sure about this. I'm sure I'll be crucified for this (bring it, bitches), but Steely Dan never wrote anything as sublime as "I'm Not In Love".

Erol Alkan has been halting intense electro sets at 2 a.m. in vast warehouses before thousands of people by playing I'M NOT IN LOVE. IN FULL!

10cc were the British Steely Dan. I say it is so, so it is so.

If you regard the fact that 10cc were indeed very typically English whereas Steely Dan were very typically American (at least in an East Coast way), then this may well be a very good way to see it.

That makes me LOL so hard.

If the name had been deliberately chosen for the reasons cited, it would have been a misnomer: The average male ejaculation actually contains only about 3cc of semen.

Wasn't 9CC supposed to be the max male ejaculation rather than the average?

props to lol creme for his incredible name

how have i never heard about this group

i get the feeling theyre more of a singles band, right?

and maybe not so much of a "any american has heard them" band

besides xhuxk of course

'im not in love' was surely a big hit stateside

ive only heard the album 'bloody tourists' (dreadlock holiday was on it) and it was dissapointing. i might pick up their greatest hits sometime if i see it for cheap.

god, i heard i'm not in love all the time when i was a kid. i certainly knew who they were in the 70's in the u.s. that and the things we do for love were huge on the radio.

i wonder what kind of station would have played 10cc. they don't seem like they really fit. i was born in 1974 and the earliest thing i ever remember hearing on the radio was eddie rabbit.

"i wanna rule the world" is like.. ambient techno ambient highway 61 style queen or something.

Amazing BBC doc online here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kn4q5/The_Record_Producers_10cc_6_Music_Producers_Cut/

Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart provided the entire package. Not only were they great musicians but they also wrote all their hits in various group combinations, produced their own recordings and, in Eric Stewart, had a built-in engineer. They also owned their own recording studio which made them a highly productive self-contained unit.

Featuring new interviews with all four band members and exclusive access to the original multi-track recordings of Donna, Wall Street Shuffle and I'm Not In Love.

This extended 6 Music Producer's Cut includes additional 10cc tracks and related music. Broadcast on:BBC 6 Music, 9:00pm Saturday 9th May 2009
Duration: 120 minutes

No, they were much better.

"Please install Real Player".

Fuck that noise.

maybe not so much of a "any american has heard them" band

Most Americans above a certain age have probably heard their two huge sellout hits "I'm Not In Love" and "The Things We Do For Love." Beyond that pair (and among younger Americans), maybe not, though.

(Ha ha, just looked up their chart positions and found out their third biggest U.S. hit -- only went to #40 -- was something called "People In Love." I can't even think of how that goes. And like their two top fives, it has the word "love" in its title.)

Actually, "Cry" would be their third biggest U.S. hit if it counts, and "Neanderthal Man" their fourth biggest.

I mean, that's Stewart's account, so it makes sense he'd remember it that way.

10cc manager Harvey Lisberg confirmed in an interview for the Consequences podcast (about 18 minutes in) that Eric Stewart was summoned to Manchester and told that Godley, Creme and Gouldman didn't want to work with him any more. Godley and Creme were unhappy not only that the group's music was becoming blander, but also with Stewart's dictatorial approach to studio production and engineering.

They resented the fact that their work was being produced in a certain way. They wanted the freedom to do it their way, instead of having to argue every minute. So, obviously, they pinpointed Eric - from their point of view, they wanted to get away from that. Graham was stuck in the middle of the deep blue sea, and I think... Graham was in an impossible position, because Kev and Lol definitely wanted to leave, and the question was "Do they carry on as 10cc with the three of them? How does it work?" But the reality was Kev and Lol wanted to do their thing, they wanted to do Consequences, and they wanted to be free.

Lisberg also suggested that, if Gouldman had stayed on the Consequences project, he "would have also been controlling them (Godley and Creme) to a degree, probably in deciding whether they would have done a single album", as opposed to the triple LP that emerged.

in the bbc doc lol (lol) describes consequences as a heaven's gate* project, and hints that here was a symptomatic ballooning that a better managing of band politics (by everyone) might have mitigated

*= the 5 and a half hour cimino western that destroyed united artists at the start of the 80s: i don't think you cite it as a comparison -- even as a joking drive-by -- to induce a positive response

Yeah, Gouldman and Godley both think now that they should have just put the band on hold for a year to allow Consequences to be recorded and then reconvene afterwards.

As for 10cc trying to continue as a trio after Stewart had been removed: Gouldman said in another interview on the Consequences podcast (about 1hr 17 minutes in) that he had not been 'part of the initial Consequences team,' as had been suggested in Godley and Stewart's books.

I don't think it was going to be a three-man team, I think Kevin and Lol just wanted me to play on the album. I remember doing some stuff right at the beginning. Their sessions would start at sort of 10 at night and go on until 6 in the morning. I didn't like that at all. And I just sort of eventually drifted away from it.

So at some point Gouldman must have gone back to Stewart, who he'd just co-ejected from 10cc, and suggested that they carry on with 10cc after Godley and Creme had formally left. Can't imagine how that conversation went, although Gouldman said that he and Stewart were both 'on a mission' with Deceptive Bends to prove that they could deliver as a duo.

Thanks for that info, it sounds like everyone has their own perspective on the break-up.

I was curious about the Frabjous Days compilation, although the Hotlegs album from 1971 doesn't encourage my hopes: it has a fair amount of decent music, but not a lot of 10cc's specific virtues (the lyrics, in particular, are vague or self-consciously dumb).

Seems like a lot of the songs on the Hotlegs album date from the Frabjous Days period.