A Year of Blind Spots: Sheet Music

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Sheet Music

10cc

1974

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Sheet Music by 10cc:

Following 10cc's self-titled debut album, Sheet Music took a big step toward the sound that would become the group's trademark. The record typifies the eclecticism and breathless invention that characterized 10cc's earlier work—soft and fuzzed art-rock guitars, seamless harmonies, elements of spoof and parody, and shifts between musical genres (often within the same song).

Part of the album's strength lies in the fact that all four musicians (Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman, and Eric Stewart) were also songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. (Indeed, Gouldman wrote a string of major hits in the Sixties, including the Yardbirds' "For Your Love" and the Hollies' "Bus Stop.") With lyrics that are never less than sharp and are frequently sarcastic ("The Worst Band in the World," a satire on musical mediocrity, may be the most ironic song ever), and a host of melodic twists and turns, 10cc created a piece of well-crafted, high idiosyncratic pop.

The album evinces a passion for polished production, the narratives are bizarrely humorous—"Clockwork Creep" imagines a dialogue between a jumbo jet and a bomb, elsewhere there are references to voodoo—and the band seems just as comfortable with rockers such as "Silly Love" and hit single "The Wall Street Shuffle" (a UK No. 10) as with their bizarre creations of artsy pop and even reggae. On the "The Sacro-Iliac," Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman create a new dance for nondancers, while "Old Wild Men" sees the introduction of Godley and Creme's "Gizmo," which could be placed on the bridge of a guitar to simulate a range of instruments.

In a word, inventive.

What Joe has to say about Sheet Music by 10cc:

This was a rough one. 1000 Albums undersells the idea of Sheet Music being parody music. That has to be the main point here, right? That's it's a parody? Because otherwise, if it's meant to be taken seriously, then it just reads as embarrassing. Too corny. I would just sleep better at night knowing that 10cc wasn't taking it seriously, that's all. (This is a sidenote, but this album convinced me that the Lemon Twigs were influenced most by 10cc, and that the reason Go to School is their only not-bad album is because it's the only one that you can make the case is a parody.)

Even if it is parody, I still dislike it, because the parody is limp and corny. That opening line of "The Worst Band in the World" that goes "It's one thing to know it, but another to admit / We're the worst band in the world, but we don't give a..." I cringe every time I hear this song. It's probably my least favorite song out of the 210+ albums I've heard in A Year of Blind Spots so far. What gutless fuckery, to leave the word "shit" hanging there. I hate it. (This is a sidenote, but the hook of this song is sample on J Dilla's Donuts, and I didn't have an issue with it then, so either Dilla was an alchemist, or my hatred really does hinge on that one non-"shit" line.)

Like, I'm just hanging onto the fact that 10cc could be self-aware, because at least you can call self-aware parody "art." If these jabronis think they made a straight rock album, then I would just feel bad. 1000 Albums tells you about "Clockwork Creep," but what they don't tell you is that this sounds like a lukewarm version of Queen, and I already hate Queen. A Night at the Opera didn't drop for another year, so it's not like I'm hear saying that there was theft involved in either direction. I'm simply stating an opinion that this corny-ass English pop-rock in the '70s is probably my least favorite take on rock 'n' roll. (This is a sidenote, but I think the reggae bullshit on here is just as bad, but it doesn't sound like Queen, so I won't go hard on it.)

In a word, inventive. In ten words: they invented a new form of rock that I hate.

I think it's similar to the Eve 6 situation a couple weeks ago. No wait, hear me out! Not sonically, but more in the way that band presents itself. Just how that sort of winking, "jokes on us" sarcasm requires a deft touch that not everyone has. Eve 6 leaned too far into the "we're an old band that no one likes!" shtick and it was a little uncomfortable. 10cc seems here to be making it a little too clear that they are a mediocre band, and underlining it by commenting on it, and allowing bad songs to make it onto the record under the guise of "it's a parody of rock music!" It just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe you'll like it though, say, if you're not as grumpy as I am today.