Free as a Bird (album)

For the single, see Free as a Bird (Supertramp song).

Free as a Bird
Studio album by
Supertramp
Released23 October 1987[1]
Recorded1987
Studio
GenrePop, dance-pop, synthpop, pop rock
Length44:17
LabelA&M
ProducerRick Davies, Tom Lord-Alge, Supertramp
Supertramp chronology
The Autobiography of Supertramp
(1986) 		Free as a Bird
(1987) 		Live '88
(1988)
Singles from Free as a Bird
  1. "I'm Beggin' You"
    Released: October 1987[2]
  2. "Free as a Bird"
    Released: December 1987 (US)[3]
  3. "It's Alright"
    Released: 1988 (Europe)

Free as a Bird is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Supertramp, released in October 1987, and their last album of new music for A&M Records.

The album was a turn of direction of sorts, with most of the songs stepping back from their progressive rock sound, employing synthesised dance beats and rhythms. Chief songwriter Rick Davies later recalled, "Free as a Bird was an experiment to try and be modern and build it up with computers and drum machines and have people come in one by one, which makes you lose the band spirit a little bit."[4] In the liner notes to the 2005 compilation Retrospectacle, Davies said, "Each time we went in, we would try to give it something a bit different. Free as a Bird was a lot more machine-based than anything we'd done before. That was good and bad, but it had some interesting songs on it."[5]

  1. ^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 46.
  2. ^ "Supertramp singles".
  3. ^ "Supertramp singles".
  4. ^ Bollenberg, John "Bobo" (26 June 2000). Interview with Rick Davies, John Helliwell, Jack Douglass, and Georges Ohayon, ProgressiveWorld.net.
  5. ^ Schinder, Scott (2005). Supertramp – Retrospectacle (The Supertramp Anthology) (2005, CD).