https://www.discogs.com/release/20485414-Supertramp-Crime-Of-The-Century
Everything the previous entry didn’t have, this one has. It has energy and character. So much so, you hear it everywhere. Supertramp has become elevator music. And still it survives, keeping the energy.
Crime of the century is one of the first albums to suffer from the loudness war. The original was on vinyl of course, and the cd followed the same mastering I suppose. In 1997 and in 2002 A&M made two different re-masterings, done from the studio tape. The results were disastrous. It was made so loud, much of the recording was distorted at the peak levels. In 2014 they did the job right, so it might be interesting to compare that version with the original.
My version is from 1977. A Spanish re-release from the original from 1974. It has a weirdly badly readable text on the inner sleeve and all kind of copyright texts in Spanish on the label. This was coming from friends of my parents who didn’t use it anymore. They must have bought it in Spain.
All this attention to the sound and the audiophile value of Supertramp makes me realise that there might be some truth in the comparison with Pink Floyd. Maybe it attracts the same people?