Genesis in the Seventies: the Worst Of....

I don't think Tony Banks was the appeasing sort so I don't buy that. Besides the album and tour design was in place before Gabriel made his final decision to leave. So the band bought into the concept, did most of the music and agreed to how it should be presented as a unit. Read the reviews of the tour and you'll see that hindsight plays no part in how it was received. It was a critical success on the road - more so that the album was which got mixed reviews. But when you consider how little time those critics had to assess its true quality that shouldn't come as a surprise. Collins so far as I know has only ever reported the same 4 or 5 stories on the Lamb Live and he said he had a great time. Banks has dissed the story and said the slides never worked 100%. It was ambitious certainly but I believe they delivered a brilliantly innovative show under very difficult circumstances. Same with the recording of the album actually. Imagine the same five guys doing that today in a few short months.

 

Well as far as how often/how many songs usually get skipped when listening is concerned SEBTP wins the prize among Hackett-era Genesis albums for me (perhaps tied with Wind & Wuthering - in both cases 2 songs are pretty much always skipped and a third song is usually skipped - or to put it another way in both cases roughly 1/3 of each album - running time wise - gets skipped on a regular basis). Both records are just far too uneven/varied in quality. Top notch brilliant on one extreme and near crap on the other extreme as well as a pretty wide spectrum of quality in between.

OTOH every other Hackett era Genesis album can be listened to fairly easily from beginning to end without feeling much need to reach for the remote's skip button.

 

STEVE: I was an innocent bystander on “The Lamb.” It happened despite me, not with me. All the things that I’d managed to hold back on “Selling England By The”Pound” seemed to come back in full force here. The nightmarishly long sides - everything linked to everything else. I really felt it was very indulgent. I couldn’t quite get to grips with it or contribute something great in a guitar sense. I don’t think Tony’s done a finer album. But I did feel the amount of stuff I was managing to put across was painfully small. My marriage, at this point, was on the rocks.

 

I thought I've seen it all... A negative thread about Genesis' classic period.

Yeah, I understand. I shouldn't have clicked on the link...

Besides the fairly silly lyrics I can't think of anything negative to say pre or post-Whodunnit, even if I do think with Invisible Touch they strayed a bit too far from their initial m.o.

 

I don't get the massive hate for ATTWT either. A solemn, wintery affair that always grabs me. A great transition between the moody W&W and the grand Duke.

 

Follow You Follow Me

 

There's a lot on Lamb that returns in one way or another. There's a chord progression in Lilywhite Lilith, for instance, that returns in Riding The Scree.

 

Your Own Special Way - (yuk)
All in a Mouses's night (I would have replaced these tracks with something off Spot the Pigeon EP such as Inside and Out)

A Trick of the Tail and Robbery, Assault and Battery ( though big fan of the 2 albums they produced after Gabriel left)

Never quite understood the love for The Giant Hogweed

But overall, from Trespass to Duke - the band made very few mistakes and numerous great albums (IMHO)

 

There is no worst. From Trespass to Duke, they did no wrong to me. It's with Abacab where I start to dislike some songs they did.

 

There must be a reason why they never made it 'big ' when Prog was 'big'until TOTT. Whilst there's something to like on all the albums they didn't make anything truly memorable until 'Supper's Ready' but even the album it's from is patchy!
They where still playing the college circuit in SEBTP! Why didn't they connect with the masses like their peers?

 

The only tracks wot I always skip:

- Wot Gorilla
- Ballad Of Big
- Scenes From A Night's Dream

--Geoff

 

"Foxtrot".
"Patchy".
W.H.A.T.????

 

For one they weren't on a major label. Charisma was a small British independent label and was distributed in the states by a small US independent label called Buddah.

Atlantic (or actually I think it was Atco - a less prestigious at the time subsidiary label to Atlantic) picked them up in the states for SEBTP which became their first album to chart in the US at #70 followed by the Lamb which made US #41 - contrast that with their first charting album in the UK which was Foxtrot at #12 followed by SEBTP at #3 - not to mention the UK hit single 'I Know What I Like'

OTOH - Yes, ELP and King Crimson were all on Atlantic (or one of its subsidiaries) in the US on their debut albums, so obviously they had a leg up.

 

Just what I thought.
You're just a bit too polite, I would've used one less capital.

 

Well, that's actually down to the language barrier

 

In The Rapids concludes the album's narrative, so it needs to be there. I like both that one and It, although I do think the latter does feel a bit tagged on at the end of Lamb.

 

More Fool Me
It's hardly even a song

 

Side 3&4 of Lamb - never, ever managed to really like this album after "Counting Out Time" - I love mostly anything else they did during that time, although "Epping Forest" could've used less words and more music

 

I have to admit that everything up until "Apocalypse in 9/8" in "Supper's Ready" just doesn't do it for me. It's either too twee or it doesn't really go anywhere. From "Apocalypse in 9/8" onwards are some of my favorite moments in music EVER. But the first half of the song sort of kills it for me.

 

Last week I noticed that the melody of Hairless Heart returns at the end of The Lamb Dies Down. The album seems to be full of these reprises, but it's a lot more subtle than on, f.i., Tommy.