ALBUMS: 100cc 10cc (1975); Original Soundtrack (1975); How Dare You (1976); Bloody Tourists (1978)
MVC Rating: 100cc 4.5/$$$$; Original 4.0/$$$; How 4.0/$$$$/ Bloody 4.0/$$$
I’ve got 10cc in a previous post as one of my top underrated bands. I’ve had conversations with ‘friends’ that think 10cc is not underrated –but shouldn’t be rated at all because they are so bad!
This attitude comes from several things, namely two Top 40 hits. One, ‘I’m Not in Love” was a song off of the Original Soundtrack album that was a big radio hit that people either loved or hated. It has syrupy strings and slow tempo. But as I’ve pointed out in my arguments, it is satire, like a lot of 10cc. They are clever and very good musicians and songwriters:
In that song: ‘I keep your picture on the wall/it hides a nasty stain that’s lying there … I’m not in love.’
The song ends in a whisper spoken refrain: Be quiet, big boys don’t cry, big boys don’t cry.
So, if you are entering the 10cc universe with that one song on the radio, you would miss out on some interesting music.
The other ‘success’ that I think hurt them a little was a song several years later that was a sappy, big radio pop song, ‘The Things we Do for Love’ — their most successful song but I think it hurt their credibility a bit.
‘The things we do for love, like walking in the rain and the snow and there’s nowhere to go ...’
No satire to save this one as it did for ‘I’m Not in Love.”
Fortunately I entered in through their 1975 compilation album of early British hits. Or, another way to describe that would be early U.S. flops.
This really is an album of near misses. ‘Rubber Bullets,’ ‘Wall Street Shuffle,’ The Worst Band in the World,’ and ‘Silly Love,’ (Not to be confused with Paul McCartney’s sappy ‘Silly Love Songs.’ Or their own ‘Things We Do For Love.) 10cc’s ‘Silly Love’ opens with riffing power chords. .’
‘Rubber Bullets’ satirizes a couple of jailhouse songs that were popular on the 1950s including ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and Riot on Cell Block No. 9. In the song, the warden is calling guards to ‘Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets.’
Then it got out of hand as the music do-wops along:
Well we don’t understand
Why you called in the National Guard (national guard, national guard)
When Uncle Sam is the one
Who belongs in the exercise yard (exercise yard, exersise yard
We all got balls and brains
But some’s got balls and chains
At the local dance at the local county jail
100cc is a great place to start although there pleasures and treasures to be found in the others, including ‘Art for Art’s Sake,’ off of the ‘How Dare You,’ album, ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ (I don’t like cricket, I love it).’
If I had to describe their music, it would be Frank Zappa (without the overt weirdness) and Queen with its emphasis on sound production and structure.