Lyrically, all of the songs on Crime of the Century are built off of the anger and alienation that come from being a confused, angsty young man.
“Do as they tell you to/ Don't want the devil to/ Come and pull out your eyes” It wasn't like Roger Waters' constant blaming of everyone but himself for his unhappiness like in Pink Floyd's The Wall nor was it the unabashed rage and animalistic spirit championed in Alice Cooper songs like Eighteen or Schools Out, Crime of the Century had a universal element to it that made it easy to relate to and more personal than the other albums of the like. Supertramp had managed to capture the confusion, rebellion, and angst of being a teenager better than any of the other albums that I began to obsess over. The album remained on that turntable for a good two weeks before I put anything else on. After a few more minutes of taking it all in, I put the album on. The depiction of a man trapped behind prison bars instantly struck a chord. I remember just staring at it for a few minutes. At the bottom of one of the boxes was Supertramp's Crime of the Century. The first things that grabbed my attention were albums that I had known all my life by the likes of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Who, but as I went through the boxes I began to see albums for bands I knew very little about or not at all. I dusted it off, plugged it in, and then began my search through my dad's old records. One day when I was about fourteen or so I stumbled across my Dad's record player in a box in the garage. At the time I had no idea what a monumental gift this was, but something changed when I became a teenager. On the day that my father moved out he gave me one of the greatest gifts I have received even to this day, his record collection. A few years before my teen years began, my parents were involved in a somewhat lengthly and bitter divorce. Review Summary: Crime of the Century is one of the better albums to be fished out of the sea that is 70's progressive music and is Supertramp's best work.īeing a teenager can be a hard and sometimes confusing time.