Customer Reviews

Classics 9

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A Wonderful retrospective from one of the most talented and clever bands. Great selections from those classic albums of theirs but there is one question. Why are the tracks from their biggest seller Breakfast in America much shorter whereas the others aren't? "Goodbye Stranger", "The Logical Song" and "Take the Long Way Home" aren't the same unless they are heard in their entirety. If you buy this album, I highly suggest you go out and pick up the Breakfast In America album where you can experience the uncut versions of those wonderful songs.

"Classic" Supertramp was released in 1987 when it was still common to cut a minute or two off of songs and master the CD from a 10th generation master that happened to be available. As a result, several of the songs on "Classics" have the guitar solors chopped and the poorly remastered sound quality similar to an eight track tape.

It is shameful that Amazon.com would be selling this 1987 product in 2011 when the FAR better "The Very Best of Supertramp" has the same songs in their full length versions remastered from high quality master tapes. "Very Best" has sound quality that makes it seem that you are in the studio with the band.

Yeah, the GOOD version costs $2 more...less than the cost of a hamburger to get the REAL Supertramp.

Unlike most practicioners of so-called "art rock" (bands such as Yes, Pink Floyd and King Crimson), Supertramp actually aspired to be a singles band. And for the most part they succeeded as their singles were ofthen far better than their albums. They achieved worldwide superstardom in 1979 with their "Breakfast in America" album that is represented here by "Goodbye Stranger," "The Logical Song," the title track and "Take the Long Way Home." Not surprising, since the band did not before or after "Breakfast" release an album nearly as good. The remaining highlights are "Dreamer," "Give a Little Bit" and "Bloody Well Right." The worst track is "Cannonball," which was released on the only album recorded after falsetto lead vocalist Roger Hodgson had departed for a solo career.

Overall, this is a decent anthology for the casual fan, which probably characterizes the overwhelming majority of people who listen to Supertramp.

I'm a huge Supertramp fan, but I was crushed upon purchasing this collection. I picked it up just before closing time and hurried home to make a cassette copy (this was the late 80's,) only to find that they'd shortened several of the songs, Goodbye Stranger in particular. I was sitting there, singing along with the stereo, and when the whistling solo was supposed to start, I started whistling right alongside, only I found myself whistling alone. CD's like this one are the kind of things that give record companies a bad name. They might be okay for the casual fan, but if you're serious about a particular group, I'd steer clear of the A&M Classics releases.

I am forced to give this collection five stars. Though it omits some great songs, and includes some not so great ones, it introduced me to the absolute wonders of the music of Supertramp. It brought me such enjoyable songs as "Goodbye Stranger", light tunes like "Dreamer", darker tunes like "Crime of the Century", love songs like "Hide in Your Shell", and two masterpeices: "Logical Song" and "Take the Long Way Home". Sure, its old material. Who cares? This is progressive rock at its best.

I have read several reviews on here complaining about this particular supertramp collection. As someone with quite a lot of appreciation for this band's "middle ages" I can say that this album, with a couple of qualifications, doesn't dissappoint. A couple of the songs are the "radio" versions, which are slightly shorter, but if you're like most people, this is the version you actually recognize.

I would like to address the statement by one person that the audio quality wasn't up to par. I have to completely disagree. I'm listening to this album right now (the reason I'm writing the review), and the packaging states that the album is mastered "aad" which means they went from the original analog masters up until the final conversion to CD. This is appropriate for a band like Supertramp, who spent so much effort on their audio fidelity back in the 70s. I've got several thousand dollars of audio equipment and well over 1000 CDs copied to my computer in lossless format to preserve the complete fidelity of the recording, and let me tell you that short of a DVD-A or SACD (Please!) version, it's not going to get better than this. There is absolutely no dynamic compression being applied on this disc, which means you get all the subtle and dramatic changes in volume that should be there but are missing from many of the other Supertramp "greatest hits" collections. Modern engineers are compressing the heck out of audio to make it more "loud" because market research shows that loud music gets more attention on the radio. I could care less. Listen to "Rudy" or "Hide in Your Shell" or "Give a Little Bit" on this compilation and then put the popular "Autobiography" version in the drive and it will sound like someone turned up the volume. That's bad. Common today, but bad. Part of what made supertramp so great was the recording quality. Despite the lack of special packaging treatment, this version is the closest I've heard to the original LP versions, which is the highest compliment I can think to give.

The only weaknesses on this album are the couple of later, dud songs that were included...Nobody wants to listen to "Cannonball." It's not good.

If you're going to buy a greatest hits album, supertramp is the band to buy, because they were a "singles" band more than an album band. Aside from Crime of the Century, which is excellent, most of the albums are filler songs wrapped around the singles. Really big fans know this already and don't care. Or maybe they like the obscure album tracks. That's fine. Those people don't want a compilation anyway. A Bob Dylan greatest hits, or a Pink Floyd greatest hits, not really the way to go. Supertramp? Greatest hits is almost the only way to go.

Long a favorite band of mine, I've had various Supertramp albums over the years but not every single song was worth a listen. I was glad when this collection was issued, with just enough of their songs to play over & over again. Roger Hodgson & the band made brilliant music, it's a shame they didn't stay together for long. Highly recommended, especially for fans of great British rock.

This is great music from Supertramp. Although most of the tracks were released in the late 70s, I imagine most people actually heard them on the air during the very early 80s. This is one of the great groups from that era and this album is a very good "greatest hits" compilation. If I had to compare it to classical music, I would say it is Gershwin made modern. Good stuff!

Many people will recognize the (mostly) upbeat catchy tunes "Logical Song", "Breakfast in America", "Take the Long Way Home", "Dreamer" and even "Bloody Well Right" and an always-look-up "It's Raining Again". The laid back song "Hide in Your Shell" is a sleeper that should not be skipped over.

The last two ("It's Raining Again" and "Cannonball") are actually almost another era of the group's work, and it shows. For popularity, it may have been necessary to add "It's Raining Again", but it might have been much better to remove "Cannonball" from the lineup.

Overall, a good collection of songs from an impressive group, and at a price that you cannot beat.

First off, "Goodbye Stranger" is shorter than another version I have. I have a version where you can here the killer guitar solor in its entirety (unlike the version on this CD). Maybe the group released a shorter version for radio play? I also am not a big fan of these A&M Classic CDs since the CD in-lays are cheaply done with short and boring information about the band's history. You'd probably be better off finding a different version of their greatest hits (after all, this CD is out of print) -- but check the song length of "Goodbye Stranger" before buying.

Supertramp's volume in A&M's "Classics" series is a thorough selection of the band's best-known tunes from their albums. It has the biggest hits from "Breakfast in America," (which is what most people probably want anyway,) and some songs that charted and did well earlier in the 70s, like "Dreamer," and "Give A Little Bit." Some songs may seem unnecessarily long, but all-in-all, most of the tracks on this CD are pure classics. For someone wanting to become familiar with Supertramp,this is the CD to get.