10 cc - Sheet Music - 1974 - 24/96 VINYL - UK Original Pressing - UKAL 1007

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10 cc - Sheet Music - 1974 - 24/96 VINYL - UK Original Pressing - UKAL 1007

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10 cc - Sheet Music - 1974 - 24/96 VINYL - UK Original Pressing - UKAL 1007

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Following 10cc's self-titled debut album, Sheet Music took a big step toward the sound that would become the group's trademark. The record typifies the eclecticism and breathless invention that characterized 10cc's earlier work – soft and fuzzed art-rock guitars, seamless harmonies, elements of spoof and parody, and shifts between musical genres (often within the same song).

Part of the album's strength lies in the fact that all four musicians (Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman, and Eric Stewart) were also songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. (Indeed, Gouldman wrote a string of major hits in the Sixties, including The Yardbirds' "For Your Love" and The Hollies' "Bus Stop.") With lyrics that are never less than sharp, and are frequently sarcastic ("The Worst Band In The World," a satire on musical mediocrity, may be the most ironic song ever), and a host of melodic twists and turns, 10cc created a piece of well-crafted, highly idiosyncratic pop.

The album evinces a passion for polished production, the narratives are bizarrely humorous – "Clockwork Creep" imagines a dialogue between a jumbo jet and a bomb, elsewhere there are references to voodoo – and the band seems just as comfortable with rockers such as "Silly Love" and hit single "The Wall Street Shuffle" (a UK No. 10) as with their bizarre creations of artsy pop and even reggae. On "The Sacro-Iliac," Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman ceate a new dance for nondancers, while "Old Wild Men" sees the introduction of Godley and Creme's "Gizmo," which could be placed on the bridge of a guitar to simulate a range of instruments.

In a word, inventive.

- George Durbalau, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, 2005.