❉ 10cc – ‘Sheet Music’ was originally released on UK records (No: UKAL 1007. “Our best album” wrote Gouldman (the only original member who still plays live with 10cc to this day), “epitomising what 10cc was all about. And Sheet Music managed the fine line between ingenuity and modesty that their succeeding records failed to balance. A band with no fixed frontman (Creme had the closest personality to the wild men of the seventies with his long, lucid hair and Stewart was certainly the best looking, though neither nominated themselves as anything more than artists and musicians), the band’s legacy depended on its songwriting ability.
The album’s greatest service was in its songwriting prowess.
Sheet Music proved a worthwhile addition to the ever-growing palette of musical styles thrown at the time. The Worst Band in The World is one of the finest pieces of tongue in cheek art, ersatz to the extreme, incorporating a melange of styles, pop, rock, even baroque – a song of the worst band in the world played by one of the best bands in the world. Understandably, such differing factions led to a break-up two years later, Godley and Creme turning their cinematic artistic sensibilities into filming music videos for Sting, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Duran Duran, while the other two bravely ventured on as 10cc, earning a worthwhile no.1 in 1978 with inspired reggae track Dreadlock Holiday.īut never where they better than as a four piece, The Sacro Lilliac one of the finer examples of a ska-beat by English musicians, Gouldman and Godley bouncing and harmonising well off each other, Oh Effendi as perfect to Caribbean brilliance as any are likely to hear sung by Godley, he had the strongest voice of the four, something which Creme and Gouldman have re-iterated throughout the years.
Nor were they afraid to swap writing partners, Silly Love a fine piece combining Stewart’s ear for guitar melodies and Creme’s accomplished use of wordplay – “you take the beauty out of beautiful/You play the strings of my heart/Oh babe, you take the wonder out of wonderful/Oh my, oh my, and my, if you were mine”, making for one of the more idiosyncratic pieces of the seventies. Their John Lennon counterparts, second guitarist Lol Creme and drummer Kevin Godley, threw esoteric lyrics and avant garde sensibilities into their songs, though perhaps going further left of that direction than Lennon ever did – Clockwork Creep gave a perspective of a bomb, from the mindset of the bomb itself – even Gainsbourg didn’t do that! No George Martin was needed, each a competent producer, Stewart’s technical know-how served him well as resident engineer at Strawberry Recording Studios.įurthering The Beatles analogy, 10cc had one McCartney songwriting partnership brimming with pop melodies and wonderful tunes, guitarist Eric Stewart and bassist Graham Gouldman, giving the album its most obvious hit, The Wall Street Shuffle (prior to joining 10cc, Gouldman had written beloved sixties hits for The Yardbirds and The Hollies as a songwriter for hire). Starr): four accomplished songwriters and singers, each brimming with ideas, each capable of turning an odd idea into a great hit. Hailed as the Beatles of the seventies, 10cc had something not even The Beatles had (my apologies to Mr. Among all that, Northern English rockers 10cc threw in their sophomore record, an astute combination of pop invention and recommendation, Sheet Music. On The Beach showed Neil Young baring his soul, following Bob Dylan’s footsteps a year prior. Queen released their finest work, an amalgamation of white and black theatrics. Roxy Music had an album graced by two naked German beauties. Sparks were fronted by an effeminate bohemian and a keyboard player with a Hitler moustache. Starr): four accomplished songwriters and singers, each brimming with ideas, each capable of turning an odd idea into a great hit.”ġ974 proved one of the more eclectic years in pop music. “Hailed as the Beatles of the seventies, 10cc had something not even The Beatles had (my apologies to Mr. ❉ We Are Cult’s Eoghan Lyng waxes lyrical about Stockport’s finest and the esoteric, inventive pop of their never-bettered second album.
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