Sheet Music (album)

Production

The album was produced by 10cc, engineered and mixed by Eric Stewart. In a 2006 interview ex-drummer Kevin Godley said: "We’d really started to explode creatively and didn’t recognise any boundaries. We were buzzing on each other and exploring our joint and individual capabilities. Lots of excitement and energy at those sessions and, more important, an innocence that was open to anything."

While 10cc were recording the album during the day, Paul McCartney was using the studio in the evenings to produce his brother Mike's album, McGear. Graham Gouldman remarked how the band used Paul's drum kit for their album, and how Paul's influence was certainly felt while making the record.

In the short and quirky "Clockwork Creep", which ends side one of the album, the subject of the song is a bomb describing its final minute in its countdown to detonation aboard a jumbo jet.

Reception

Charley Walters in his 1974 Rolling Stone review felt that the band had "concocted standard pop into their own inventive, even sophisticated, art", and that while not typical pop music it would be popular with AM-oriented DJs and their listeners. Billboard felt the band had a "certain zany feeling", but that "their songs are far from silly when carefully listened to" and they had "some of the most innovative vocal techniques and instrumental arrangements around".

Singles

Three singles were taken from the album and were all released in 1974. "The Worst Band in the World" failed to chart, while "The Wall Street Shuffle" made number 10 in the UK and number 1 in the Netherlands. "Silly Love" made number 24 in the UK.

Legacy

Dave Thompson in a summary of the album for Allmusic felt that it had staying power and that it was "perhaps the most widely adventurous album of what would become a wildly adventurous year". George Durbalau in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die felt it was "a piece of well-crafted, highly idiosyncratic pop" and was "in a word, inventive".

Side One

1. "The Wall Street Shuffle" (Stewart, Gouldman) – 3:54
2. Lead vocal, lead guitar, piano, organ, mellotron by Eric Stewart
3. "The Worst Band in the World" (Gouldman, Creme) – 2:49
4. Lead vocal, guitar, piano by Lol Creme
5. Lead guitar by Eric Stewart
6. "Hotel" (Godley, Creme) – 4:54
7. Lead vocal by Kevin Godley
8. First lead guitar, synthesiser by Lol Creme
9. Second lead guitar by Eric Stewart
10. "Old Wild Men" (Godley, Creme) – 3:21
11. First lead vocal, lead guitar, slide guitar by Eric Stewart
12. Second lead vocal by Kevin Godley
13. Guitar, Gizmotron, synthesisers by Lol Creme
14. Tambourine, autoharp by Graham Gouldman
15. "Clockwork Creep" (Godley, Creme) – 2:46
16. Lead vocal, piano by Lol Creme
17. Second lead vocal by Kevin Godley
18. Third lead vocal by Eric Stewart

Side Two

1. "Silly Love" (Stewart, Creme) – 4:01
2. Lead vocal, guitar by Lol Creme
3. Lead guitar, piano, vocal by Eric Stewart
4. "Somewhere in Hollywood" (Godley, Creme) – 6:39
5. Lead vocal by Kevin Godley
6. Lead guitar, piano, synthesisers, vocal by Lol Creme
7. Slide guitar by Eric Stewart
8. "Baron Samedi" (Stewart, Gouldman) – 3:46
9. Lead vocal, lead guitar, electric piano, marimba by Eric Stewart
10. Second lead guitar, grand piano, mellotron, vocal by Lol Creme
11. Congas, bongos, vocal by Kevin Godley
12. "The Sacro-Iliac" (Godley, Gouldman) – 2:33
13. Lead vocal by Graham Gouldman
14. Harmony vocal by Kevin Godley
15. Piano by Lol Creme
16. Guitar by Eric Stewart
17. "Oh Effendi" (Stewart, Godley) – 2:49
18. Lead vocal by Kevin Godley
19. Second lead vocal, lead guitar by Eric Stewart

1993 CD release bonus track

1. "Waterfall" (Creme, Godley, Gouldman, Stewart) – 3:43

2007 CD release bonus tracks

1. "18 Carat Man of Means" – 3:27
2. "Gismo My Way" (Instrumental) – 3:43
3. "The Worst Band in the World" (Radio Version) – 2:49

Personnel