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‘The Original Soundtrack’: 10cc Settle The Score

The band’s third album contained ‘Life Is A Minestrone’ and ‘I’m Not In Love’ as part of an ambitious and sophisticated soundscape.

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10cc 'The Original Soundtrack' artwork - Courtesy: UMG
10cc 'The Original Soundtrack' artwork - Courtesy: UMG

The rare and estimable ability to create both catchy, bitesize singles that sounded great on the radio, and sophisticated, ambitious album content, was never better illustrated than in the hands of 10cc. By the time they reached their third long player, The Original Soundtrack, that skill had become second nature to these four innovative British musicians. The album made its UK chart debut on March 22, 1975.

Self-produced as usual, the record soon had the calling card of a typically amusing, irreverent hit single. Within a few weeks of “Life Is A Minestrone” reaching No.7 in the UK, clamour for “I’m Not In Love” to be released as a swift follow-up led to that extraordinary ballad racing to No.1.

The album itself showed 10cc in their most confident and expansive form to date. It opened with the episodic Kevin Godley and Lol Crème composition “Une Nuit A Paris,” all eight minutes and 40 seconds long. For all of the band’s pop sensibilities, The Original Soundtrack contained some dark lyrical themes. Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart addressed the pornography trade on “Blackmail” and the drug trafficking industry on “Flying Junk.”

A 40-week soundtrack

Soundtrack debuted on the British album survey at No.6 and spent its first ten weeks inside the Top 10. It peaked at No.3 in the ninth of those, in May. The album stayed in the Top 40 all the way into October and reappeared intermittently until well over a year after its release. The LP’s aggregate of 40 chart weeks remained the best tally of 10cc’s career.

Life Is A Minestrone

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Listen to the best of 10cc on Apple Music and Spotify.

The NME’s notoriously acerbic Charles Shaar Murray was fulsome in his praise. He marvelled at 10cc’s creative autonomy on The Original Soundtrack. “Once they scuttle into Strawberry Studios,” wrote Murray, “and get stuck into their composing, arranging, producing, engineering, overdubbing, compressing, mixing and so on and so forth, they mess your mind around a treat.”

Buy or stream The Original Soundtrack.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Carmine Conti

    March 23, 2015 at 12:29 pm

    this and several other 10cc songs or albums were and still the most influential musical works of four musicians who not only wrote and performed defining music of a pop world, but later on developed gear or engineered techniques that later helped define innovative styles ne instrumentation still reveered today…!!!! Hopefully they will re-release this in Vinyl…!!!
    Congrats on 40 years…!!!

  2. Kathy Lynne

    March 23, 2015 at 12:49 pm

    Loved this as a teen! Still Do! So happy to know this reunion is happening. Simply Joyful!
    Congratulations on 40 Years!
    God bless,
    Kindly,
    Kathy Lynne

  3. harold

    March 23, 2015 at 2:09 pm

    bought this when it first came out. ‘i’m not in love’ never really did it for me, but there are some great moments, like eric’s savage, searing steel guitar on ‘blackmail’. great lp, but i always felt ‘sheet music’ was a bit more cohesive

  4. Brian Spain

    March 23, 2015 at 3:03 pm

    First record i ever bought at age 11. Rubber Bullets. Wicked.

  5. Alison Healey

    March 23, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    “The seat of learning and the flush of success relieves the constipated mind” – Life is a Minestrone – one of the best lines ever written!

  6. John turner

    March 23, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    Brilliant album 22 when i bought it still plays like new

  7. duane duckworth

    March 24, 2015 at 10:01 am

    these guys are some of the best lyricist of their time…studied “not in love” and the simple but honest lines that are overwhelmingly relate-table remind me of songs like the Beatle’s “Yesterday” or Kansas’s “Dust in the Wind”…

  8. Paul

    March 29, 2015 at 10:52 pm

    Just toured with ‘sheet music’ saw them in Manchester, fantastic, so let’s hope will celebrate this album by getting back on the road soon…!!! have always sounded great and best lyrics by any band in a generation…

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