‘Crisis? What Crisis?’: Supertramp’s Fan Favorite Fourth Album
Though recorded in haste, the follow-up to ‘Crime Of The Century’ was another huge success.
Supertramp’s acclaimed third album Crime Of The Century was a worldwide hit, but its success brought pressure to bear on the band. Indeed, the London quintet had barely completed the subsequent tour before A&M Records were demanding they return to the studio with producer Ken Scott to begin work on their next record Crisis? What Crisis?
“Crisis? What Crisis? came to mean more to us as a title than it did to other people, because it really was a crisis album,” vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Roger Hodgson confessed in an interview with U.K. rock weekly Sounds in 1977. “We learnt how not to make an album coming right off the road and going into the studio. We had a lot of bad luck in the studio. We really didn’t enjoy making it and in the end it was kind of a patch-up job.”
Hindsight, though, suggests Hodgson’s critique was unnecessarily harsh. Yes, Crisis? What Crisis? put Supertramp in the invidious position of creating a new album from scratch (give or take a couple of leftovers from Crime Of The Century), but as they also had two of the most dexterous and nuanced writers in 70s rock in Hodgson and vocalist-keyboardist Rick Davies, they had all the talent they needed.
Accordingly, while its songs may have been born from stress, the listener struggles to detect it, as Supertramp’s versatility and guile are stamped all over Crisis? What Crisis? Two of Hodgson’s best, the deceptively languid, George Harrison-esque “Easy Does It” and the happy-sad, woodwind-assisted “Sister Moonshine,” immediately set the bar high, but Davies ably responds with a pair of robust, blues-rock workouts in “Ain’t Nobody But Me” and the admirably funky “Another Man’s Woman.”
Elsewhere, the band showcases its collective skill in melding mainstream pop and progressive rock tropes on the epic six-minute “A Soapbox Opera” before breaking new ground on the jazz-inflected “Poor Boy” and signing off with one of Hodgson’s loveliest songs, “Two Of Us”: a gentle, stripped-back ode to endurance which makes for the perfect postscript to an adventurous record.
Despite Supertramp collectively feeling that corners were cut during the making of Crisis? What Crisis?, when the album was released in November 1975, fans happily accepted it as the fine follow-up to Crime Of The Century it always was.
Its sales fell a little short of its illustrious predecessor, but it still made the U.K. Top 20 and the Top 50 of the U.S. Billboard 200 — and it capped off a more than decent performance by rewarding Supertramp with a further flurry of gold discs. It’s cemented its reputation by remaining a fan favorite, with Supertramp’s own perception of their troubled creation even mellowing over time.
“Actually, Crisis? What Crisis? funnily enough is my favorite album,” Roger Hodgson enthused in a 2015 YouTube interview with Rock Antenne. “It didn’t do as well, because it didn’t have a hit single, but as a collection of songs I love it. It’s my favorite Supertramp album today.”
