Paris
	Produced by Peter Henderson and Russel Pope
	Released on September 1980
	UK CHART POSITION #7 . . . US CHART POSITION #8 . . . GOLD RECORD (12/10/80)
	Find it at GEMM
SP-6702 cover [high resolution photo]

S o what are we doing in Paris so soon? An international tour was a fait accompli after the success of Breakfast In America, but releasing a double-album of live music only pointed new converts back to the past. You can understand the economics behind it; a greatest hits album would have been contained to a single record while a live release could be profitably swelled to two. What the labels failed to understand was that listeners didn’t want to hear Breakfast In America performed live so much as they wanted new music from the band. As a sampler of past glories, I can only imagine that songs like “School” and “Hide In Your Shell” sounded better in the studio (I know “Bloody Well Right” did). The Breakfast cuts are as warm as the originals, the remaining selections sound a little thin on stage. In fact, I didn’t really identify anything among the older, unknown (to me) tracks that piqued my curiosity except maybe “Ain’t Nobody But Me.” The trouble may be the band’s current lineup, which featured three keyboardists at times alongside a bass player and a drummer. Not exactly a recipe for an inferno of expression, as multiple keyboards tend to overstate things. In the studio, the instrumental chores broke down better so that the keyboards and shrill vocals and saxophone didn’t gang up on a song and overpower it. Defenders of the Tramp may argue that Paris went gold, hardly an indication of commercial indifference, except that anything with Supertramp’s name on it was likely to sell half a million copies at this juncture in their career. If they’d stuck strictly to songs from their last album, kept it to one disc and called it Breakfast In Paris, you’d have a nice curio for fans. Instead, Paris is something of a bore. Maybe, if “A Soapbox Opera” changed your world when you first heard it, then some of this could give you chills. After all, one man’s Parsippany is another man’s Paris.

SP-6702 inner gatefold	SP-6702 picture sleeve

TRACK LISTING

record one

1. SCHOOL    5:20
2. AIN'T NOBODY BUT ME    4:53
3. THE LOGICAL SONG    3:41
4. BLOODY WELL RIGHT    6:11
5. BREAKFAST IN AMERICA    2:36
6. YOU STARTED LAUGHING    3:50
7. HIDE IN YOUR SHELL    6:36
8. FROM NOW ON    6:44
   
   record two
   
1. DREAMER    3:15
2. RUDY    6:51
3. A SOAPBOX OPERA    4:33
4. ASYLUM    6:41
5. TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME    4:35
6. FOOL'S OVERTURE    10:14
7. TWO OF US    1:23
8. CRIME OF THE CENTURY    6:14
   
   All selections written by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson

CREDITS

BOB C. BENBERG --
RICK DAVIES --
JOHN ANTHONY HELLIWELL --
ROGER HODGSON --
DOUGIE THOMSON --
Peter Henderson -- engineer
Russel Pope -- engineer
Mike Doud -- art direction
Cindy Marsh -- cover illustrations
Mike Fink -- design
Mark Hanauer -- inside photo
Reed Hutchinson and Steve Smith -- additional photos

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