Slow Motion

So I finally got ahold of the last Tramp album, Slow Motion and have been listening to it for the last few days. I find it interesting, but I'm not sure if it's good or bad. There's a certain sluggishness in the sound and the drums are pretty leaden. The songs aren't all bad though. I think Over You is a nice depressed version of My Kind Of Lady, Broken Hearted is a nice little boogie woogie number that reminds me of stuff from Indelibly Stamped, Goldrush is another really fun catchy number, and Tenth Avenue Breakdown is a way more gripping epic than it seems at first. In fact, in TAB, the little jazz breakdown sections are fantastic. Definitely the best instrumental section on the album.

Overall though, I'm kind of disappointed. Seems a very grey way to go out. It has a fantastic album cover though, and I'd rate put it third to Crisis What Crisis and Breakfast In America's in terms of Supertramp album covers.

I recognize I dind't bought it when it came out for the first time.

Recently, I've tried to listen via Spotify but it's not available (don't know why).

I only listened to the single "Slow Motion" on the radio, and some other songs via YouTube.

I think it's not correct to define an album as "good" or "bad". Rick Davies has a huge background and expertise as a musician, and it's almost impossible he does anything "bad".

But I think it's not very "fresh" or "surprising".

All of us tend to feel nostalgia and to think that every piece of music or anything was better than what's done at the present.

I've "suffered" this "last-album-syndrome" a lot of times and try to be honest with myself.

I think I reasonably achieve it, so I must recognize I don't like very much this last album of Supertramp, as I didn't like the last Yes album (which is one of my favourite bands also). But I liked "Some things never change" the first time I listened to it, and I liked "Fly from here" of Yes the first time also, so it's not the "last-album-syndrome", It's probably they weren't as inspired as the rest.

Or maybe we're older and not "as fresh" as before.

Probably a mix of both reasons.

Yeah you're right that Slow Motion isn't a bad album per se. I myself am one of the few who actually prefers Rick Davies songwriting to Roger (I love them both) so I guess I was a bit disappointed how everything didn't sound fresh like you said.

I recently got into Yes and that John Davison album is definitely one that causes controversy among fans. I'm lukewarm on that one too but there is one song on it that I find absolutely beautiful (It Was All We Knew)