With your 1st stop being SHEET MUSIC, your 2nd stop being The Original Soundtrack, you should now have arrived at stop no.3, "How Dare You". Can you hear it yet? Can you hear how influential 10cc were on 7o's music, and what was to come in the 8o's? By this time, even ABBA & The Carpenters started to sound like them, whether that made 10cc happy or not no one knows.

Unfortunately the partnership of Creme/Godley/Stewart/Gouldman came to a close on this album. This is a frustrating thing. What could have come after this album no one knows, but something tells me it would have absolutely put 10cc through the roof. But alas it was not to be. So what you get is 10cc in "change mode". Of the three albums mentioned, "How Dare You!" is the weakest. This does not mean that 10cc forgot how to write great songs. It just means there focus grew a little wavery, and the split between the two creative forces Godley/Creme and Stewart/Gouldman became a little more defined on HDY!.

But what you will find are some absolutely gorgeous pieces of music on this album. "I'm Mandy Fly Me" should have convinced you by now that Eric Stewart has one of the nicest voices you've ever heard, and that in 4.00 many things can happen in a song. The beautiful "Lazy Ways" goes further along this point. I find "I Wanna Rule The World" absolutely hilarious and a definite precursor to acts like They Might Be Giants. "Iceberg" is absolutely demented, and fun, and a whole load of other things you wouldn't associate with schizophrenia. "Don't Hang Up" takes you on the wedding night, the honeymoon, the fallout with no reconciliation all in 6 minutes. "Art For Art's Sake" - why it hasn't been used in a rap song I don't know, the opening into the main riff is absolutely classic.
10cc albums should be given the DVD treatment. They should be in total surround sound, so you actually "feel" how visual there songs were, and how much thought they put into them.

3rd stop --- How Dare You! (1976)

I first bought this as a cassette tape in the mid-70's as a result of hearing their songs, "I'm Not in Love" and "Art for Art's Sake." I immediately fell in love with the tape even though I didn't quite know how to take it. The songs could be funny, sentimental, bitingly satirical, great Rock and Roll or out-and-out farcical. Sometimes within one song! I'm Mandy Fly Me, for example, is at once affecting and completely ridiculous - and one of my favorite songs of all time.

Some of the songs deal with twisted mental states (Iceberg, I Wanna Rule the World, and Don't Hang Up) and exhibit perfectly fitting changes in key, tempo, and meter. Others (Lazy Ways, Rock and Roll Lullaby) keep grooving throughout more subtle changes. But despite the terrain covered, they are always consistent with intelligent lyrics, great hooks, luscious vocals, deceptively complex tonal movement, and excellent arranging and execution.

This remains one of my favorite releases of all time.

Reading a couple of these reviews reminds me of a comment the Emperor of Austria once made about Mozart, "too many notes." Well we don't know if that's exactly what he said (although how ironic if he had). History has demonstrated that the Emperor was wrong about Mozart. Sure the guy had his musical flaws but inventiveness wasn't one of them. We do know, however, that some folks consider this talented quartet to be too clever by half with too many notes for their liking. Personally, I'd take the criticism as a compliment.

Perhaps they are too clever. How boring the world would be without the daring shown here on their last album as a four piece. Lazy Ways and I'm Mandy Fly Me feature melodies filled to the brim with wit and as rich as anything the Beatles or Beach Boys dreamed up. I Wanna Rule The World reminds you why these guys were held in such high esteem by their peers (like the late Frank Zappa, John Lennon and still breathing Paul McCartney); it's a twisted turn down paranoia street that manages to entertain as it informs.

The second part of the CD (or what used to be side 2 on vinyl) beings with the strong track Art for Art's Sake. It was originally written around the time of their previous album The Original Soundtrack but unrecorded. AFAS manages to satirize the art world in the same fashion as the band's Worst Band in The World (from Sheet Music) did the music biz. The songs that follow AFAS prevents this fine album from taking on any water and sinking beneath the waves of mediocrity. Don't Hang Up plays like a mini rock opera (much the same as One Night in Paris) in the tradition of the Who's A Quick One While He's Away. Kevin Godley's angelic voice provides an ironic counterpoint to the possesiveness that clearly drives the character singing the song.

I've changed my mind about the bonus track. After the involved closer, Get it While You Can manages to close the album on a simple and elegant note. It actually sums up most of the themes on the album well and provides perfect closure to a fine album.

How Dare You is flawed but those flaws don't undermind this compelling, funny and melodic rock album. It's also clear listening to it that from here the original quartet didn't have any place else to go so it made sense for Godley & Creme to leave the band. Stewart and Gouldman continued to develop the 10cc sound and add more accomplishments to their achievements.

By the time they recorded this album it was clear that the democracy wouldn't work as well as before. How Dare You! allowed the original line up to perform a fine encore and take a bow before the final curtain dropped.

This album was conceived, written, performed, produced, and engineered by four of the best musicians to ever record pop music (after the Beatles, obviously, but even they didn't produce their best work). This album is a gold mine of pop hooks, melodies, clever lyrics, and good music in the British tongue-in-cheek tradition. This was the culmination of 6-7 years work between these four, Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Lol Creme, and Kevin Godley, and it is a fine recording that, if you enjoy quality pop music, you must add to your collection. Everything here from the wistful to the bizarre, and I can't think of a better representation of '70s art rock (save maybe The Tubes 'Remote Control') available. One of my top ten favorite records of all time, all styles.

At first, I didn't think this album had much to offer. I'm Mandy, and Art For Art's Sake were all I loved. Later when going to visit my parents on a four and a half hour drive, I listened to this and Original Soundtrack (AMAZING ALBUM) over and over, and the variable charms of the songs make themselves apparent, and the album is not only one of 10cc's most serious, layered, and mature albums, it's also one of their best, and a great way for Godley and Creme to exit.

The title track instrumental kind of gets things off to a strange start. It's not really all that interesting in some ways: it has a lot of strange instrumentation and ideas, but I don't think it is very cohesive. However, using the melody from the next track, in a piano arrangment, was a great idea.

Because Lazy Days is a wonderful track! It really lacks the strange, sometimes jarring, genre cuts of earlier material: the instrumentation is mostly pretty normal, and the lyrics are good, but not haha funny. But it's absolutely a beauty of a song, especially the "never get up if you don't get up, always be down if you sit around" section. No comedy, no goofiness, no overt experimentation: just crafting an immaculate song.

I Wanna Rule The World follows and it was another that just passed me by at first. It is a very odd collection of riffs, musical ideas, and strange chanting, ranting, and childlike blathering. The ideas musically are STILL brilliant, even if it has no cohesion really, and the singing is funny enough to give it a thumbs up.

I'm Mandy is brilliant, but obviously not what Godley and Creme were interested in. THe melody, the arrangements, the lyrics, the singing, even sampling one of their old songs: all of this helps create one of their most amazing songs, though words barely do it justice.

Next is Iceberg, which is more typical of their older material. An all over the map collage of ideas, barely held together sometimes (could be on Sheet Music!) with strange lyrics that seem not to relate to anything. It is a strong track, pretty in parts, strange in others.

Art For Art's Sake has one of those "so simple and perfect why wasn't it written before" riffs, and lyrics that are BIT transparent, but it also has that beautiful ambient section at the beginning and the middle. Genius in a way I can't describe.

Rock'N Roll Lullaby is a bit of a drag, I'll admit. It's okay, but I don't really understand the point of the song. It doesn't really do anything lyrically or musically, even if it is solid. Oops!

Head Room is a strange blues like excursion with a slightly dumb play on words "just give me some head.........room" blah... it's okay, but another of the weakest tracks.

Don't Hang Up is one of the most heart breaking, brilliant songs the band, or any band, ever recorded. Hard to explain, it has to be experienced.

All in all, a great album hampered by a few tracks that while good just aren't that WOW as the rest. Definitely a buy! Especially if you can get the version i have which has Original Soundtrack on the same cd!