Roger Hodgson - Eye of the Storm

I still recall hearing "Had a Dream (Sleeping with the Enemy)" on the radio a lot back in the fall of '84. This wasn't the radio edit, it was the full song and thankfully FM radio was still a thing of wonder back in the day. Considering much of 1983 was spent with Supertramp on their farewell tour I wonder where Roger found the time to write and record the album.

It's a strange thing going back now and realizing the guys in Supertramp were still young men when they were saying their good-byes. Roger was in his early thirties and was still pretty much in his prime. The notching of decades in music is a weird phenomena. You can't really feel it in real time, although you get the sense changes are often afoot. The transition out of the '70s was pretty pronounced but there was still that fuzzy time where things were the same but they weren't.

Supertramp were at their biggest until suddenly they weren't anymore. You knew the writing was on the wall when their '82 release ...Famous Last Words... was a let down after the dizzying heights attained with their previous studio release.

Who knows what constraints Roger felt he was under during those last days with the band. I did like the album for all that, but it was a short lived infatuation, and the single "It's Raining Again" was insipid and for me was actually a detriment to the album - then again, I have the same reaction to "Dreamer" both versions that managed to be hits, so somewhere I'm the guy writing the dissent opinion. Apparently just saying "It sucks" counts as an opinion. So I'm sticking with it.

Regardless, when Roger dropped his first solo effort it truly caught me by surprise. Now, I'll be the first to say I was at best a casual Supertramp fan. Sure were a lot of songs I really liked, and I was partial to his big songs, "Fool's Overture" is fantastic. Then there's "Give a Little Bit" from the first time I heard it is one of my favourite songs ... EVER.

So here was his solo effort, and he really worked at it being a solo effort where he did as much as he could himself. He wisely chose to have Michael Shrieve play drums on the album, while I'm not against machines or programming there's something about a real hitter that cannot be replicated. From the opening track "Had a Dream (Sleeping with the Enemy)" Roger seems to be releasing a lot of pent up energy. Which is strange as on the the last Supertramp album I read it was Roger who was writing the pop songs and it was Rick who wanted more progressive rock and an edge. Regardless, freed from any constraints Roger released an album where there was no wasted space.

I have mentioned the no man's land between the decades before, and Roger happened to hit that sweet spot where an album that was steeped in '70s roots found a home in the early '80s. Of course this is probably just how I feel. I have no idea how well the album did in the US but here in Canada it seemed like the album was a pretty big deal. It was a pretty big deal to me at any rate.

Roger's solo output would be pretty sporadic though. I did pick up Hai Hai when it came out, but by that time I had more or less moved on. I would play the album a couple of times, and I do remember "Desert Love" as being a pretty good song, but by then the echoes of the '70s just felt old and out of touch and I filed it and haven't really listened to it again. Although I'll likely give it a listen now that I've reacquainted myself with Eye of the Storm.

However, when this one dropped there was something special about this album. Roger was unfettered and it just felt right.