It could not be said that art-poppers
10cc are slacking for compilations: forget simple hits collections, the group has had two hefty box sets in the decade prior to the 2024 release of
20 Years: 1972-1992. What this release has over either
Tenology or
Before During After: The Story of 10cc is volume. This isn't a mere career overview, it's a clearinghouse containing everything
10cc recorded between 1972 -- when they released their excessive eccentric debut -- and 1992, when
Eric Stewart and
Graham Gouldman briefly reunited with original members
Kevin Godley and
Lol Creme for
¿Meanwhile. The
10cc story extends before and after this period -- they were a group before they gave themselves a name, cutting weird bubblegum at their Strawberry Studios, then
Stewart and
Gouldman said farewell in 1995 with
Mirror Mirror -- but the records collected on
20 Years are at the heart of their legacy. Those ten studio albums -- along with 1977's concert album
Live and Let Live and two discs of rarities, B-sides, single edits, and other ephemera -- are given sterling remasters on this 14-disc box set. The weight of the set guarantees that this is something for the devoted, but the thing about
10cc is that an immersion in their catalog, like this box provides, can convert the curious: there are few bands who simultaneously excel at song and studiocraft while also seeking to subvert their own professionalism. Those quirks reveal themselves not in the hits but over the course of a career, which is precisely what
20 Years: 1972-1992 presents here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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