Year of release: 1980 Mercury 9109 630 (released by Phonogram, at the end of March), 1980 A&M Records (released in USA, April 15th)
Re-release: never released on cd
Tracklist: Go for it + Underwater fantasy + Away from it all + Born to lose + Kit mambo + Z.O.O. + Love's not for me (Rene's song) + With you I can run forever + Bionic boar + We've made it to the top
Composer: Graham Gouldman
Recorded at: Strawberry Studios North and South, Manchester, England and A&M Records, Los Angeles
Recording engineers: Tony Spath, Larry Faulkner, Chris Nagle and Alan Barson
Orchestral arrangements: Jimmy Haskell
Concertmaster in L.A. Sid Sharp
Produced by: Graham Gouldman
Musicians: Graham Gouldman (lead vocals, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals); Rick Fenn (lead guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, fretless bass, backing vocals); Duncan Mackay (Yamaha CS80, organ, clavinet, electric piano, backing vocals); Paul Burgess (drums, percussion); Stuart Tosh (backing vocals); Mike Timony (accordion)
Sleeve: S. Chorney
Lyrics: Go
for it - Underwater fantasy -Born to lose - Away from it all
Love's
not for me - With you I can run forever - We've made it to the top
Scanned from the original inner sleeve, with images from the movie 'Animalympics'
Personal comment:
Although not recognised as a solo album by Graham Gouldman himself - he
considers it to be only the motion picture soundtrack which it is intended
to be - Animalympics shows Graham Gouldman in a very good shape as an individual
singer/songwriter. You could also regard Animalympics as a 10cc-album without
the interference of Gouldman's counterpart Eric Stewart, for the backing
musicians on the record were involved with the band 10cc at that time.
The strong point of the album maybe IS that there is no involvement from
Eric Stewart here. Stewart was having trouble getting back on his high
level as writer and sound engineer after a serious car accident. The inferior
production of 10cc's 'Look Hear'-album and the less than average artistic
qualities of his solo-album (or 'motion picture soundtrack') Girls are
signs of his crisis at that time. Graham Gouldman, on the contrary, maybe
was at his best at the time of Animalympics. Some months before he had
shown his quality as three-minute-songsmith again with the single 'Sunburn',
written for the Farah Fawcett Majors-movie with the same name. On the bright
and vivid Animalympics there are songs that can stand up easily to Gouldman's
early work from the sixties. Like 'Love's not for me', 'Born to lose' and
'With you I can run forever' . Its a pity there has not been a cd-rerelease
of this album yet. (John Bruinsma, March 2001)
More about the movie on this page
