Programming note: This week, I’m handing the car keys over to some special guests whose music tastes and opinions I respect enormously. I asked each of them to share an album they’ve had in heavy rotation this year. New release, hidden gem, genre classic, the choice was theirs. I hope you have as much fun reading these as I did. Stay tuned for more fun weekly themes to close out the calendar year. I’ll be back with fresh music picks on January 8.
Enjoy!
Hello! 😊👋
Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!
Today’s music pick comes courtesy of guest writer MJ Hiemstra, a talented storyteller and photographer with exquisite musical taste. He covers a genuine smash from one of the 70s best-known supergroups. Bask in the beauty of his online portfolio before or after reading this post—you know best.
Genre: Rock, Pop
Label: A&M
Release Date: March 16, 1979
Vibe: 🍳
If you've ever listened to a classic rock station on FM radio for even one day, chances are very good you've heard at least one song from Supertramp's Breakfast in America. A band that perhaps can best be described as 'prog-rock made fun,' Supertramp had already seen global success, with this album vaulting them to the kind of superstardom one only achieves through becoming the world’s last great supergroup. Breakfast is a symphonic rock masterpiece, with the band eschewing the more serious topics and progressive, ambitious meanderings of their previous offerings to reach a wider audience. The songs are lighthearted, playful, easily digestible, formidably dulcet, and frustratingly ear-wormable.
The lyrical, vocal, and keyboard interplay between Rodger Hodgson and Rick Davies sets the stage. Hodgson tends to hold down the melody while Davies twists his lines around Hodgson’s like a snake around the staff of Aesculapius. Dougie Thomson on bass and Bob Siebenberg (who was credited as Bob C. Benberg to avoid UK immigration from figuring out he'd overstayed his visa—a ploy that somehow actually worked) on drums provide an effortlessly comforting rhythmic foundation, like a heated concrete floor in a cold basement. Hodgson also supplies guitar work on the album, ranging from understated licks to face-melting, melodic solos. You’ll find girl-group-esque background vocals in the driving, desperate, yet carefree moments of “Goodbye Stranger.” The titular track takes off with a loping, bohemian rhythm reminiscent of Berthold Brecht with klezmer undertones before it resolves into a vocal symphony. Closer “Child of Vision” shows that Supertramp has not forgotten their prog-rock roots, its dramatic, syncopated arpeggios evolving into a dissonant yet harmonic piano solo that leaves enough space for the listener to fill in the blanks.
45 years later, the songs from Breakfast in America are like the food you get from hot dog stands in New York: ubiquitous, deeply satisfying, and likely to stay with you for the rest of the day.
👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈