My Amazon Reviews: 10cc "Sheet Music"

Bedside Manner
4 Out Of 5 Stars

That 10cc started out as a houseband for a bubblegum production studio was obvious on their debut album, where each song was a parodic tribute to a style of pop that was produced so accurately that the thin line between satire and the real thing was all but invisible. By the time they got to their second album, 1974's "Sheet Music," they'd jumped the parody shark and landed on an entirely different animal. They weren't quite progressive rock, they weren't quite poptunes, and they still hadn't got the Monty Python out of their system. In other words, 10cc was a quintessentially British band with a wicked sense of humor mining their often brilliant songs.

Case in point are the album's opening salvos. "Wall Street Shuffle" came off as an album oriented rock song with a killer hook, big guitar riff and semi-serious lyric about the money hustling big shots. It's then followed by "The Worst Band In The World," which takes said band looking at itself from outside the fishbowl and unable to believe that they've conned the world into buying "a little piece of plastic with a whole." Or the faux reggae on "Hotel" that serves up an All-American Menu filled with "all American Men." Or the terrorist arms dealer at the end of the album during "Oh Effendi," who suddenly finds himself on the run when the goodies run out. As "Sheet Music" plays on, it's hard to decipher when the band is playing it straight or jamming their tongue into the collective cheek.

That's what makes 10cc so hard to pigeonhole here. Just when you start to tire of the jokes, you get struck by the beautiful "Old Wild Men" or the plane's-eye-view of an upcoming crash on "Clockwork Creep." (Which eventually grew up to become "I'm Mandy Fly Me" on "How Dare You.") Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were still working as a unit (they would ultimately break into factions of Stewart/Gouldman and Godley/Creme), and they were willing to leave no stone unturned when it came to pop styles. "Sheet Music" may not be 10cc's best album, but it is far and away their most adventurous.