The album was produced by 10cc, engineered and mixed by Eric Stewart. It is notable to include all the writing duos between Stewart, Gouldman, Godley and Creme which the band utilized to experiment and explore new creativity while making the album. In a 2006 interview, ex-drummer Kevin Godley said: "We'd really started to explode creatively and didn't recognise any boundaries. We were buzzing on each other and exploring our joint and individual capabilities. Lots of excitement and energy at those sessions and, more important, an innocence that was open to anything." While 10cc were recording their album during the day, Paul McCartney was using the Strawberry Studios in the evenings to produce his brother Mike's album McGear. Graham Gouldman remarked how the band used Paul's drum kit for their album, and how Paul's influence was certainly felt while making the record. The subject of the song "Clockwork Creep", which ends side one of the album, is a bomb aboard a jumbo jet describing the final minute in its countdown to detonation.
Release
Three singles were taken from the album, all of them released in 1974. "The Worst Band in the World" failed to chart, while "The Wall Street Shuffle" made #10 in the UK and number 1 in the Netherlands. "Silly Love" made #24 in the UK. The album was reissued several times with different b-sides from the 10cc and Sheet Music singles as bonus tracks. The most recent version is 2007 UK reissue which combines only Sheet Music related bonus tracks. The album in its entirety—including all of the bonus cuts from the 1993 release and the 2007 release—appears, along with 10cc's first album 10cc and all its released bonus cuts, on 10cc - The Complete UK Recordings on Varèse Sarabande Records.
Reception
Charley Walters in his 1974 Rolling Stone review felt that the band had "concocted standard pop into their own inventive, even sophisticated, art", and that while not typical pop music it would be popular with AM-oriented DJs and their listeners. Billboard felt the band had a "certain zany feeling", but that "their songs are far from silly when carefully listened to" and they had "some of the most innovative vocal techniques and instrumental arrangements around".
Legacy
, in a summary of the album for Allmusic, felt that it had staying power and that it was "perhaps the most widely adventurous album of what would become a wildly adventurous year". George Durbalau in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die felt it was "a piece of well-crafted, highly idiosyncratic pop" and was "in a word, inventive". Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart have subsequently referred to Sheet Music as 10cc's zenith throughout their career. Graham Gouldman performed the album live in its entirety in 2015 with 10cc touring band.
