10cc’s Tenology Boxes Up the Hits, the Misses and the Misunderstood

Tenology (4 CD; 1 DVD Box Set)

10cc

November, 2012

Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Crème , collectively known as 10cc, defy easy classification.  Like many rock bands from the 70s, 10cc had four members and for the most part worked within the standard bass, drum, guitars, keyboards and vocals line up.  What made them hard to get your arms around, however, was their democratic approach to recording.  There was no identifiable leader.  No cocksure lead vocalist.  No Stratocaster wielding guitar hero.  Each of them was a multi-instrumentalist.  They all wrote, collaborating in random combinations and they could all sing.  So it’s no surprise that none of them ever really emerged as a star and I doubt many people remember their individual names.

Native Englishmen who did well at home, 10cc  didn’t have many hits in the U.S. (I’m Not in Love, The Things We Do for Love, possibly Wall Street Shuffle).  When it was all said and done, the band logged a lot of airtime on album rock radio, sold a boatload of records and made their mark with more than a decade’s worth of  smart, catchy songs.  But they always were a strange little band.  Let’s start with the name, derived from the average amount of spunk a dude dispenses upon climax. Funny? A little. Clever?  Maybe. Clinical?  I’d say so.  Juvenile?  No question.  Interestingly enough, those four adjectives do a decent job of summing up the band’s music.  Could that have been intentional?

Clearly influenced by the Beatles and the Beach Boys, you’d be forgiven for calling 10cc a pop act, but that doesn’t quite hit it.  For one, their music often veered into arty, experimental and progressive structures.  They could also rock pretty hard when they felt like it.  But it’s the humor that most often separates 10cc from what most people would have considered mainstream 70s pop.

Want some examples?  The protagonist in The Hospital Song “gets off” on medical care and fantasizes about “pissing like April showers” when his or her nurse brings the bed pan.  In their song, The Worst Band in The World, the leader of said group exposes their plan when he says, “up yours, up mine, up everybody’s…. that takes time…but we’re working on it!”  I’m Mandy, Fly Me, satirizes a sexist National Airlines ad campaign featuring hot stewardesses.  I hope I’m not spoiling the ending by telling you that this beautiful, lengthy, complex track resolves with the titular Mandy sacrificing herself for the life of a passenger and swimming with sharks.  I don’t think she makes it.  Good Morning Judge features a series of amicable exchanges between a career criminal admitting his crimes and the courthouse judge who’s about to lock him up one more time.

And then there’s Un Nuit en Paris, (One Night in Paris) an early rock operetta, comprising a mash-up of song fragments, gorgeous melodies, orchestral arrangements, lush multi tracked harmonies and the occasional foreign accent.   One night in Paris is like loving every woman indeed!  The song is said to have inspired Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and could have paved the way for other songs like Billy Joel’s Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light.  And these are just the tip….of the proverbial iceberg.

They were too smart, funny and weird to ever become superstars, but this five disk collection, makes a strong case for taking them a little more seriously.  You get one disk of singles, although only a few of them could be called hits.  You get two disks of album tracks, hand-picked by the band.  Inexplicably, 10cc chose to put later period album tracks on disk 2 and the early album tracks on Disk 3.   Disk 3, culled from the 10cc, Sheet Music, The Original Soundtrack, How Dare You and Deceptive Bends albums is the better of the two.  By the time the material on Disk 2 was recorded, Godley and Creme had left the band to record the epic, three LP set, Consequences, featuring of all things, the Gizmo, an invention that attached to an electric guitar to produce orchestral string effects.  The songs on Disk 2 are slick, well written recordings that deserve your attention, including standout tracks like Dreadlock Holiday, For You and I, and Woman in Love, but Godley and Creme are missed.  The fourth Disk collects unreleased tracks and rarities for hardcore fans only.  You also get a DVD with live performances and promo videos.

This generous $65 limited edition box set is probably overkill for the average listener.  There are certainly  less expensive collections available, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys diving into an artist’s work and hearing it evolve over the years, there’s more than enough dazzling music and histroy here to justify the cost.  To quote the band’s biggest song, “I’m Not in Love,” but I’m pretty damned infatuated.

If you want to be notified of new posts, like my Facebook page at Just Riffin’ or follow me on twitter @JiminyPage.  Thanks!