Happy Half-Birthday to ME!

Today is what I call my “Half-Birthday”.

I’ve considered it that since sometime in my childhood, when I was aware of the calendar and how it worked. I know it’s not “exactly” necessarily the mid-point between one birthday and the next, it’s just the 6-month exact numbered day later date, which works out just find and dandy for me. 😉

Last night I was able to purchase:
Supertramp’s “ Retrospectacle  The Supertramp Anthology “, on sale at Sam Goody’s for $16.99, list price there was 23-something or other.

Retrospectacle Supertramp Anthology at Sam Goody online is $19.95.

Retrospectacle Supertramp Anthology at Barnes and Noble online is $19.98, or $17.98 for members.

I never had purchased any LP’s of Supertramp’s in my younger days. I was very aware of them, as I was a child in the 70’s, as the name of a Group, but for some reason hadn’t connected their music to their name then, and not until I started listening to 97.1 The River, which I posted about a few days ago.

I chalk that up to maybe not understanding their music in the 70’s and that whenever I heard them in the 80’s on the radio I knew the songs, but not the Group, and that the DJ’s mustn’t have much ever talked about the song just played when it was them, and often didn’t talk about many of the titles and groups, and today they still are like that, aren’t they? I seem to think so. I find it useful today when a station makes use of the INFO they can attatch to their radio signal. Few do it. If they do, most just broadcast their station letters or “nickname”, and fewer actually broadcast the content. A very few do, and so if you have a radio in your vehicle, it’s very likely if it’s a “newer” model that it picks up the INFO and displays it on the digital readout (only if it has this feature, of course) I forget it’s exact feature name, it’s not important though. Besided that though, many or most stations probably have websites now, and accessing the website you can see what they just played, or what is currently playing, and maybe have other data as well.

97.1 doesn’t have the INFO stuff attached to their radio broadcast, just the name “97.1” which is really :rolleyes:

They do have a good setup on their website though, you can search the past 48 hours to see what was played, search artist or song title. You can display the “played list” via choosing the hours available to view as well. i.e. from “6pm yesterday to 12am today” or whatever other hours using “yesterday” and/or “today” only.

It’s because of this that I became aware of “Supertramp’s songs” in attaching their mystical (in my mind) name to the songs that I’ve loved to hear again and remember oh, so well, like “Bloody Well Right”, “Take the Long Way Home”, and “The Logical Song”, though that last one I knew the song but not it’s name. Just another ground proving fact for the pathetic way radio does/did things in not identifying everything well enough. (I mean this because I am a music junkie and can match sounds and songs and people usually).

I say this also because I’ve listened to 97.1 The River at home while watching the Play List on my computer. The list doesn’t show the “currently playing” usually until after 30 or more seconds of a new track playing. I’ve heard some old songs and ID’d them immediately, things I hadn’t heard since my earlier childhood, things that were good in the 70’s but didn’t last on most any radio station in the 80’s, where I lived then at least. I was in S. Florida for the 80’s and the stations there were pretty pathetic.

So about the Supertramp Anthology. It’s pretty nice. A 2-CD set with a decent booklet which has an article spanning Supertramps career, and a listing of the songs on separate pages dedicated to which album they came from, and a small thumbprint picture of the particular album cover on those respective pages. LARGER artwork would have been nice. PHOTOS of the group would have been NICER. There are none. Oh Well.

It’s great to get crystal clear brilliant versions of the Supertramp songs I love, better than the radio ones I’ve snagged via my computer. Also I have to note that there are other songs on the set that are very familiar just not totally familiar. It’s notable to mention that I’ve loved Supertramp all along, sideways, without knowing it. I love Roger Hogson’s voice and really prefer the Supertramp of 1983 and previous, but the later material has value still. I’m enjoying the music en-total and value the fact that they’ve showed up on my last.fm music profile, and are climbing my personal chart fast, which is possible due to a lovely 32-track Anthology. 🙂