Customer Reviews

Breakfast in America

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Supertramp practically *owned* 1979 with their mega-smash album from that year, "Breakfast In America." The British band had been making creative, irresistible pop/jazz/rock for nine years & five albums by this time, but "Breakfast," the sixth album, was The Big One for the group, a #1 smash on the album charts all over the world. Though certainly not a "concept" album, the theme for "Breakfast In America" came from bandleaders Roger Hodgson & Rick Davies, who, for this album, wanted to write songs about what it was like to be a British person living in the USA, which is what the whole band were doing by this time. Credit Hodgson & Davies for writing such wonderful songs, such as the hits "The Logical Song," "Goodbye Stranger," and "Take The Long Way Home." But even the non-hits are shimmering beauties, such as "Gone Hollywood," "Oh Darling" (not to be confused with the Beatles tune), "Lord Is It Mine," and the exuberant finale, "Child Of Vision," all played to perfection by Hodgson, Davies (who both do great vocal work as well), sax player John Halliwell, bassist Dougie Thomson, and drummer Bob Siebenberg. This new remastered edition of "Breakfast In America" sounds sensational, with greater boom & clarity than any CD version of "Breakfast" that I'd ever heard before (including the now-defunct gold disc version from Mobile Fidelity). Now you can enjoy Supertramp's all-time classic the way it was meant to be heard. Pick it up, and enjoy this delicious breakfast as only Supertramp can serve it. :-)

If I could give this album a "10", I would! Last year's Gap ad "Give A Little Bit" renewed my love of this extraordinary group. Starting life as a British progressive rock band, Supertramp shifted gears and became a real pop band. Supertramp was formed in England in 1969 by keyboardist/vocalist Roger Davies. 1974's "Crime Of The Century" became the band's first big smash, followed by "Crisis! What Crisis?" and "Even In The Quietest Moments". 1979's "Breakfast In America" was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, and is considered by most people to be the band's best album.

Why does "Breakfast In America" entrance me? Is it the lyrics, the melody, the moving background, yes, but most of all the voices that rise and fill the room with joy and the resounding emphasis on the music. "Take the Long Way Home" strikes a chord in my heart. I have sung the lyrics with my son while driving in the car, and it brings back the memories of our togetherness. I have told my family that at my funeral "Take the Long Way Home" will be one of the songs to send me on my way.

"Lord Is It Mine" has the old time feeling of longing and wanting. "Gone Hollywood" reveals what happens when a band makes it big, and "The Logical Song" tells us just that-the entire album has the feel sublime entertainment. The band has that certain "joie de vie" that we revere in a truly outstanding work of art.

My favorite band and album- you bet! Supertramp and "Breakfast In America" bring it all together- the feel of the 70's. The times they are a changing, and that was the period in my life that reflects what I think life is all about. Bring It On, Supertramp! prisrob

Soldiers get the latest in music almost as fast as teenagers, and they are the first to get state-of-the art stereo systems through the PX that would make a discount wholesaler wince. That was my introduction to "Breakfast in America." Sitting in my platoon's storage room one afternoon in 1979, I heard the sound of "Breakfast..." coming from the arms room. Normally, any music would have made me go to the offender and ask him to turn it down. This was different. It wasn't the cacaphony of noise I was unfortunately accustomed to hearing. I listened more intently to each selection, liking one as much as the other. I closed the field manual. It was no use. The music had taken over. I asked the armorer what he was playing, and he showed me the cassette. He added, with more pride in his taste for music rather than as an attempt to convince me: "Great tunes, h'uh, sir?"

After almost thirty years, it still has as much appeal as when I purchased it. Now on DVD, there are some weekend afternoons that I program my favorites, recall a time and place long ago, and the roads I travelled where the language and customs were different, always playing "Breakfast in America" in my head, where I would "take the long way home." (My favorite.)

Full of wit, cynicism and rich melodies, Breakfast In America was the band's last gasp; Famous Last Words was little more a whimper from a songwriting team that had delivered a basketful of great pop songs.

Starting life as a prog rock band with jazz leanings, Supertramp was on the road to nowhere fast after the release of their second album. Founding member Rick Davies with original member Roger Hodgson became the only two hold overs for Supertramp version 2. The band's third album was everything that previous albums were not;Incorporating rich, witty lyrics, sharp concise hooks and tasty melodies Supertramp V.2 produced Crime of the Century.

Suddenly, Supertramp found an appreciative audience. Breakfast in America was V.2's 4th album and, arguably their best. Hodgson's tendancy to write quirky, catchy pop songs meshed well with Davies' melodic invention. At turns darkly cynical and hopeful, Breakfast in America became their biggest hit.

It's also one of the band's most successful concept albums. Using America as a template for examining the excess of the world (among many other things), BIA is loaded to the gills with the band's catchies material. The arrangements sparkle with witty musical touches. Although neither Hodgson nor Davies are the most gifted of vocalist, both have pleasant voices that work well with the material.

Usually when companies reissue albums it's to reinvigorate the sales of an artist's back catalog. In other words, they want to [pull] fans into purchasing the same thing twice. BIA is as bare bones as they come as a reissue; there are no liner notes, no interviews or comments about the making of the album. The only way to tell the difference between this edition and the earlier one put out by A&M, is the sound quality. Bill Levenson and his crew have done a great job of transfering BIA. It hasn't sounded this vital on a mainstream release in years.

The MFS version issued a decade ago was a marked improvement over the original CD. In terms of clarity and sharpness it is still the "gold" standard. The newly reissued BIA holds up quite well in comparison although I do prefer the MFS on certain tracks vs. the newly remastered edition. It's all a matter of personal preference I suppose.

Now that they've finally gotten around to improving the Supertramp albums, perhaps A&M can turn their attention to Roger Hodgson's two terrific solo albums.

Breakfast In America is one of the greatest melodic pop/rock albums of the seventies.Along with ELOs Out Of The Blue and Fleetwood Macs Rumours it is an album i can always listen to again and again without fail. I was introduced to Supertramp by a good friend of mine who shares similiar tastes in music to me, and he let me borrow his vinyl copies of Breakfast In America, as well as Crime Of The Century and Even In The Quietest Moments. Althogh most of the songs on the album are rock radio staples, there are other lesser known numbers such as Gone Hollywood and Oh Darling which are as equal to the more well known songs such as the title track, Logical Song and Take The Long Way Home. Whenever I hear these songs on the radio, they always make me sing along as the lyrics are not complicated, and Roger Hodgson has one of the greatest voices in rock. This was probably the last great album Supertramp ever did before Hodgson decided to go his own way after 1982s Famous Last Words album, and it is regularly played on my stereo.

To make a long story short, if you want a great sounding version of this, seek out the Mofi Gold version. That version sounds absolutely incredible with a super-smooth high-end, punchy bass, and incredible dynamics. This version has a very harsh high-end, muddy bass, and is compressed beyond belief. Use the title track and compare both versions above; you will not believe how lame this remaster is. The EITQM remaster is even worse! (Strangely, the "Crisis? What Crisis?" remaster was acutally very well done!) If you like recordings whose dynamics have been chopped off at the knees or will solely be playing it through a boom box, by all means order this CD. Audiophiles need not apply...

The content of Breakfast in America is excellent. This is one of only a few albums I enjoy listening to all the way through. I remember The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger, and Take the Long Way Home from when I was a kid, and I much prefer this music to much of what's out today. I would give this album a rating of 5 except that I'm disappointed with the sound quality of the re-mastered CD. As one other reviewer notes, if you play the re-master on a decent system and crank up the volume, you'll notice distortion. I own both the re-mastered CD and the "original" CD, and although I prefer the packaging of the remastered version, the sound quality of the "orginal" CD is better.

I had heard of Supertramp before "Breakfast...". I had heard "Bloody Well Right" from "Crime Of The Century" and "Give A Little Bit" from "Even In The Quietest Moments" from the radio. What I hadn't done, was take Supertramp seriously enough to buy an album. That changed with "Breakfast In America". "The Logical Song", "Goodbye Stranger" and "Take The Long Way Home" made me a Supertramp fan. I now own several Supertramp CD(s), "Breakfast...", "Crime..." and "Paris" among them. "Breakfast..." may or may not be the all-time Supertramp recording, but it did get my attention. I love this CD. I think I love "Paris" even more, which was recorded from the "Breakfast" tour. Geddy Lee and Rush don't have anything over Supertramp. Rush was just more serious. Supertramp was just plain fun. Kind of like the comparison between Pearl Jam (Serious) and The Stone Temple Pilots (Silly). Who says music has to be serious anyway? At the time, 1979, I was a high school senior. Everybody from my parents to my school teachers, counselors, principals and maybe even the old farts who patroned the bar next door to our house wanted me to GET SERIOUS. Enter "Breakfast..." and "The Logical Song". Again, maybe, maybe not their best work - but it helped shape "who I am" today. As it turned out, "Breakfast..." made me get serious about buying Supertramp albums, and also made me understand it was OK to forget getting serious about life at 18 years old. For the record, I ended up being a Systems Engineer for a railroad and mass transit signal systems supplier, as well as being a devoted husband and father of three children. SUPERTRAMP ROCKS. Buy them all.

This albumn is a prog/pop super albumn, one of the best of the 70's in that category in my opinion. That is, it has enough ear candy pop for mass appeal, and enough prog to please the more discerning listener. So as not to sound condescending, it may be better to say that it bears repeated listenings even by the most critical music fans. It is an almost perfect creation, balancing the many musical components in a heady swirling mix to a 5+ star effect, but I can only give it four because of the remastering. The music 50% is a five, and the mastering 50% is a three. If you've no interest in the technical analysis, then skip to 'BUT ANYWAY' at the bottom. I know that it has been out a while, and I admit my analysis is a little late, but I only just tried this version. I compared it with the previous edition, and found some interesting, but not unexpected results that I would like to share. I didn't compare cut for cut, but after a couple I decided to cut it short because of an obvious trend. I used a cheap everyday radio shack sound level meter using C weighting, slow response speed, just like one would use to balance a surround set up. I checked the peak, and average spl of the louder portions of the tracks, and found that at the same volume setting the remaster was 4 to 8 dbs louder. Supposedly it takes a 3 db difference to be detectable to the human ear. Just in case, I also compared a couple of the quietest passages in an effort to eliminate any possiblity of an increase in dynamic range that could account for the difference. I found that those passages showed the same results, 4 to 8 dbs higher on the new one. It is accepted wisdom that people will usually say that the louder recording sounds better. Now about the sound fidelity. I could not find , and this is just to my ear, any significant difference in the fidelty of the sound between the two recordings. The remaster may have a slight edge in spots, but it seems fairly miniscule at best. However, some other reviewers disagree, and their opinions should be considered too. I'm NOT an expert, BUT if you are interested in investigating this phenomenon a little closer, then you will find a fairly lively debate about whether current digital mastering techniques are better or worse for bringing out the full potential fidelity of music recordings. {Kind of like the argument that you videophiles are having about modern film editing techniques. They're too much for me!} Of course it isn't really about fidelity so much, but about the emotional impact that music has when listened to via the different possible media through which it is presented. All recorded music is compressed to some degree or other, usually substantually. Often it is deliberately further compressed if possible, and the loudness also boosted, as presented by radio stations for example. (Didn't we get promised full dynamic range with the introduction of CD? Does anyone remember?) Any old head audiophile has had a dynamic range expander or two. In this case it seems that the compression hasn't been tampered with. BUT ANYWAY, if you don't have this albumn, then buy the remastered one. If you're looking to jump from the old one to this new one, then I would advise you to get a listen first, if there is any possible way. Great albumn either way!

If there is any kind of formula to Supertramp's music, it's that it combines rich and detailed musicianship with being friendly and accessable to the listener. "Breakfast In America" is the finest example of this formula because Supertramp executes it superbly on this album. It is, quite simply, Supertramp's masterpiece.

Every song on the album is a winner. The standouts are, of course "The Logical Song," which finds John Anthony Helliwell (woodwind instruments) giving one of the greatest saxophone solos in recorded history, as well as the near anthemic "Take the Long Way Home" and the fun rocker "Goodbye Stranger." Even the title track, with it's quirky "old world" charm and feel, never dulls or becomes tiresome after several listens. Drummer Bob C. Benberg is absolutely brilliant in the way he provides a solid foundation for each song, yet is smart enough to hold back and punctuate when it is needed.

However, it's "Breakfast In America's" bookend tracks, "Gone Hollywood" and "Child Of Vision" that provide the album with its epic tone from start to finish. Supertramp's great bassist Dougie Thomson shines brightly on "Child Of Vision," particularly during the song's second verse. Also notable are guitarist/keyboardist Roger Hodgson's clear-as-a-bell lead vocal throughout and keyboardist Rick Davies' impeccable piano solo at the song's end.

When listening to "Breakfast In America," it's no wonder it was a mega hit for the band. This album finds the band at it's most cohesive musically, and the lyrics are delivered with a wink and a smile. The yin and yang trade off of Roger Hodgson's high lead vocals and Rick Davies' lower lead vocals compliment each other beautifully when they're brought together to form their tightly layered harmonies.

"Breakfast In America" is my all time favorite album - period. I've gone through the original LP, two cassette versions and two CD versions and it still sounds as fresh as it did when it was played on my sisters' record player back in 1979. It is the album I point to when I introduce Supertramp to a future fan of the band.

What's also fun to know: "Breakfast In America" won a Grammy award for best album cover design in 1979.

Though it's hard to see on the CD cover, the waitress' name tag on the front cover says "Libby," which is appropriate because she is depicted as the Statue of Liberty as seen out of an airplane window.

The band has a sense of humor too. In the photo on the album's back cover, Rick Davies is shown pouring sugar in his coffee, but the newspaper he's reading is blocking it from going into his coffee cup.