"Cannonball" by Supertramp

Song#:  2335
Date:  05/25/1985
Debut:  75
Peak:  28
Weeks:  12
Genre:  Rock



Pop Bits:  Back in '82, Supertramp got their last significant hit on the Pop chart, the #11 "It's Raining Again," which was from their last Top 10 album ...Famous Last Words. Following the tour for that album, lead singer/songwriter Roger Hodgson took off for a solo career. That left the band's other main singer/songwriter, Rick Davies, to carry the burden of those tasks on his own. Deliberately going against the more pop-oriented sound that Hodgson had brought to the group, Davies reached back to the band's more prog-rock roots and came up with Brother Where You Bound. This first single was issued out and it did quite well at Rock getting to #4. While that result wasn't unexpected, the real surprise came with the track made it to #9 on the Dance chart. Yet despite doing well at those formats, the song didn't fully ignite on the Pop chart and it fizzled just inside the Top 30. It would end up being Supertramp's final single to reach the chart. The album managed to get to #21, but failed to reach gold-level sales. The band would record one more LP in '87 before deciding to go into a self-imposed limbo period. It would be a decade before they would regroup and record a new album.

ReduxReview:  I was never a big fan of Supertramp, however I usually enjoyed hearing their main hits. Most of them were written or co-written by Hodgson, so I tended to like his offerings more than Davies' compositions. With Hodgson out of the picture for this album, I really wasn't all that interested in the band and hearing this song didn't change my mind. It grooves along fine on a couple of chords, but the tune never goes anywhere. The shorter single version was a bit better as nearly three minutes of instrumental passages were cut. Still, it didn't keep my attention and I have a tendency to skip it when listening to their hits disc.

ReduxRating:  5/10

Trivia:   Although this song was the band's first to reach the Dance chart, it wasn't their last. When Supertramp reunited for the 1997 album Free as a Bird , they modernized their sound a bit with elements of dance-pop and synthpop. The LP's first single, "I'm Beggin' You," showcased their sleeker sound and it ended up reaching #1 on the Dance chart. Unfortunately, that's all the tune could do. It would fail to reach any other chart and in turn the album came and went to little notice.

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