Roger Hodgson
Open The Door

Charles Roger Hodgson, born in 1950, is one of the greatest pop music authors and performers: about ten of his compositions (all belonging to his youthful period with Supertramp, between the mid-seventies and early eighties) are in the empyrean of perfect songs in this field. Some of his chord progressions contained within them have the exquisiteness and effectiveness of a symphony.

The peculiarity (though at the risk of becoming cloying) of his very high voice, commendably cared for and conserved over the years, distinguishes him instantly from any other colleague. His highly personal approach to his two favored compositional and performing instruments, namely the piano (preferably electric, often played by beating eighth notes in a driving and communicative style) and the guitar (not rarely a twelve-string, almost always played with text-book arpeggios) further strengthens his distinction from any other "singer-songwriter" on the scene.

His further abilities and creativity in arrangement (his involvement in the music goes down to the single cymbal crash and to the last bass note), and the inspiration in his lyric writing (at the risk of mysticism, and therefore again of cloyingness for many), make him a multifaceted and complete musician: he plays, sings, writes, arranges, produces; in short, he has a comprehensive, self-sufficient vision of his art.

However, Hodgson's repertoire is also open to criticism. Quite a few of his compositions are (in my opinion) whiny, drawn out, with a progressive element that dilutes the effectiveness of his finest, straightforwardly pop inspiration. But the most realistic issue this artist has been grappling with for almost thirty years now is the relentless comparison of his solo output with the Supertramp catalog: there's simply no comparison.

Much of the magic of that group was due to the beneficial antagonism of Roger with the other singer and composer, the keyboardist Rick Davies, a character entirely different from him, in vocal timber and in the blues and jazz basis of his training. A classic example of perfect artistic collaboration, it was precisely the continual interplay between Hodgson's mystical and tenor inspiration with Davies's earthy and baritone inventiveness that infused variety and completeness into Supertramp’s pop-rock offering.

Thus, this work can certainly not be considered a masterpiece. Class flows copiously, the silver and perfectly curated sounds are a constant but epochal melodies are lacking, only a couple of tracks ("The More I Look" and "Love Is A Thousand Times") possess the standout melodic flair of adult pop mastery.

Perhaps out of humility, a desire for family life, or rather due to an idiosyncrasy towards the music industry and its crude rules, Mr. Hodgson refrained from releasing a more substantial and qualitative number of songs after his departure from the Supertramp bandwagon: this work, dating back to 2000, is in fact only the fourth to bear his name; and thus far also the last from this modern minstrel who had, among other things, the courage in 1990 to refuse the role of frontman in Yes, then left vacant by Jon Anderson!