35 years ago Supertramp Released ''Breakfast In America''

Breakfast in America

Breakfast in America is the sixth album by British rock band Supertramp, released on 29 March 1979 by A&M Records. It was recorded in 1978 at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. It featured four U.S. Billboard hit singles: "The Logical Song" (No. 6), "Goodbye Stranger" (No. 15), "Take the Long Way Home" (No. 10), and "Breakfast in America" (No. 62). In the UK, "The Logical Song" and the title track were both top 10 hits, the only two the group had in their native country. Breakfast in America won two Grammy Awards in 1980, and holds an RIAA certification of quadruple platinum.

In France, the album is the biggest-selling English language album of all time, and the third biggest seller overall.

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The album's front cover resembles an overlook of New York City through an aeroplane window. It was designed by Mike Doud and depicted Kate Murtagh, dressed as a waitress named "Libby" from a diner, as a Statue of Liberty figure holding up a glass of orange juice on a small plate in one hand (in place of the torch on the Statue), and a foldable restaurant menu in the other hand, on which "Breakfast In America" is written. The background featured a city made from a cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery (for the wharfs), eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles, all spraypainted white. The twin World Trade Center towers appear as two stacks of boxes and the plate of breakfast represents Battery Park, the departure point for the Staten Island Ferry. The back cover photo, depicting the band members having breakfast while reading their respective hometown newspapers, was taken at a diner called Bert's Mad House.

Breakfast In America won the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package, beating out albums by Talking Heads and Led Zeppelin, among others.

In a positive review for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Stephen Holden viewed Breakfast in America as an improvement over the "swatches of meandering, Genesis-like esoterica" on Supertramp's previous albums and called it "a textbook-perfect album of post-Beatles, keyboard-centered English art rock that strikes the shrewdest possible balance between quasi-symphonic classicism and rock & roll ... the songs here are extraordinarily melodic and concisely structured, reflecting these musicians' saturation in American pop since their move to Los Angeles in 1977." In a mixed review, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice said that the "hooky album" evokes "random grunts of pleasure", but lacks emotional substance because of "glib" lyrics and no "vocal personality (as opposed to accurate singing) and rhythmic thrust (as opposed to a beat)".

Breakfast in America topped the US Billboard 200 for six weeks and became Supertramp's biggest selling album, while producing four hit singles—"The Logical Song, "Goodbye Stranger", "Take the Long Way Home", and the title track.