Rolling through them one by one mate. Nursery Cryme post was the intro. It's cool, your breakdown of Musical Box will be a great addition. I'll be roll the the Music Box out in the morning
I'm not complaining, mind you, but this does seem more like a song by song thread than it does album by album. But I'm just goin' with the flow.
I just meant overall "weird" / "complex" tunings. But, yeah, I see what you mean by several guitars playing the same chords but in different inversions. I could have sworn that there were tunings (such as on a 12 string) that certain strings were not used to being octave - compliant. Perhaps I am wrong in this assessment. Sorry!
The layered 12 string guitars of Banks, Hackett and Rutherford are a thing of amazement and beauty especially on NC to SEBTP.
Yeah, I get familiar vibes between NC and Foxtrot so I also consider them sister albums. I could almost see an alternate universe where NC and Foxtrot are combined to form a double album - with Supper's Ready as the grand finale. This fantasy falls apart a little because Nursery Cryme has a common theme running throughout its pieces whereas Foxtrot does not, and musically there are other subtle differences, but it is an interesting thought.
You are correct. Cinema Show is an example of that. But I will stop here as to not endure the wrath of the OP.
Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot both were the last Genesis albums I got into of the Gabriel period - this one particularly, I always think that by far, aside from The Lamb that is, Cryme is their hardest record to really get into. I think I was about 2 years into being into the band that The Musical Box clicked and it eventually led me to truly appreciating Supper's Ready the more I listened to live bootlegs. Anthony Phillips on the intro of The Musical Box - recorded before Trespass
I will wait until then to post further about The Musical Box. Lots of stuff going on that I failed to mention.
First time I heard that. You can really hear the unusual tuning on that clip with the F# drone on the 4th string.
The Musical Box This 10-minute epic is a Victorian fairy tale about two small children in a country house. The song touches on themes of death, reincarnation and lust, and is based on a 1969 demo by Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford called "F Sharp." Phillips has never received credit for his part in writing the song. It became one of Genesis' signature tunes from their progressive rock-era and was a staple of their live performances for many years. In an interview with Mojo magazine April 2010, former Genesis lead singer Peter Gabriel cited as influences on Nursery Cryme the Dickens novel Great Expectations and the Henry James novella, The Turn of The Screw, which was filmed as The Innocents and also adapted by Benjamin Britten into an opera. Said Gabriel: "One of the influences on Nursery Cryme was the dark childhood of The Turn of The Screw. Also Great Expectations. These are very English and evocative. One of the reasons, I think, that films and programs about school are of interest to people is because that is when so much of your interface with the world gets formed." Though credited solely to Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford, "The Musical Box" began as an instrumental piece written by Anthony Phillips[2] called "F#" (later released as "Manipulation" on the Box Set remaster). The lyrics are based on a Victorian fairy story written by Gabriel, about two children in a country house. The girl, Cynthia, kills the boy, Henry, by cleaving his head off with a croquetmallet. She later discovers Henry's musical box. When she opens it, "Old King Cole" plays, and Henry returns as a spirit, but starts aging very quickly. This causes him to experience a lifetime's sexual desire in a few moments, and he tries to persuade Cynthia to have sexual intercourse with him. However, the noise causes his nurse to arrive, and she throws the musical box at him, destroying them both. The album cover shows Cynthia holding a croquet mallet, with a few heads lying on the ground.[3] Collins unusually uses mallets on his drums during the flute solo and Gabriel also plays oboe during the 'Old King Cole' section. Hackett, Banks and Rutherford all play 12-string acoustic guitars. Mick Barnard added guitar parts towards the end of the song during his brief tenure with the band when they would rehearse it that the band liked. Hackett kept both the guitar parts from Phillips and Barnard, while adding his own pieces to the song as well. In live performances, Peter Gabriel would wear an "old man" mask for the final verse and unzip the chest part of his black jumpsuit. Dramatic lighting would be used each time he shouted "NOW!". "The Musical Box" was featured in their live repertoire right up to Phil Collins' departure after the We Can't Dance tour in 1992, albeit with only the closing section being included as part of a medley. The song was played live during the Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Wind & Wuthering, Genesis (1984 dates only), and We Can't Dance (as a medley) tours. ----------------------------------------------------- To me there is a Renaissance kind of feel here. It seems a minor impossibility to run through this song the way I usually would . This song has more going on than a Haight Street party in 1968. There is some incredible use of dynamics. There is fantastic guitar. Sensational drums. Great vocals. Great keys. This song is the whole dog's breakfast and frankly if Genesis had never done anything else, their existence is justified by this song alone. This is a masterful piece of work, that deserves any attention that it gets. See @Rose River Bear 's breakdown here Genesis - The Album by Album Thread ... with more to come I believe
Man, it’s super late over here in Indy, so I will post my album review tomorrow (unless you want me to wait until we’re through each of the songs). Until then, here’s some great live shows from the era: First up, we have what’s probably my personal favorite, perhaps tied with the Piper Club gig, the Lugo Di Romagna gig from a few days earlier. It has an identical setlist, and while the sound quality isn’t fantastic, it’s listenable, and the performances are fantastic! This contains an excellent rendition of The Knife, amongst many other great performances, including the ever rare and fantastic final version of Going Out to Get You! I tried listening to the 1969 demo again and forgot how much it pales in comparison (it seriously sucks) to this amazing 1971/1972 version. Anyway, here’s the link:
In addition to the Lugo di Romagna show, we have (one of) the later Watford shows, including the second ever performance of Watcher of the Skies. This would rank among my favorite shows of the tour if it weren’t for the speed issues on this particular version of the recording. If you can look past that, however, you’re in for a treat: Genesis - 1972/06/28 - Live in Watford, England {Full Concert}
Quick correction that The Musical Box closing section was played during the Wind and Wuthering and Genesis tour, the entire song was last played in full on the The Lamb tour as an encore. It was also played in medley form with Dancing With The Moonlit Knight during the ATTWT tour on October, 13th 1978 and there's a great recording of this show. I still think the guitar/keyboard battle in the mid section in the heaviest the band would ever get - only Hackett's solo material would get madder than that.
I first heard my brother's copy of Nursery Cryme in late Summer 1974, it was their third album I that had become familiar with in 6 months, following on the heels of Genesis Live (mine) and Selling England By the Pound (his). Now realising that The Musical Box predated Genesis Live by about 18 months, the one thing that took me ages to work out was the absence of applause on Genesis Live ahead of Gabriel's announcement of The Musical Box, a song that would have been known by the audience very well. Eventually when I listened on headphones you can just hear the final clap from someone in the crowd which made me realise that it had been edited out! I still don't understand why they edited it out though.... But anyway back to Nursery Cryme - it didn't take more than 1 play of this album to confirm it to be a really interesting album full of strange tales spanning thousands of years and I played it until I knew every note and every word. Once my brother left home I had to replace dozens of favourite albums that he had bought and which I had come to rely on having, and the first copy of Nursery Cryme I owned was the Polydor double pack of Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot (which happened to be newly out when I was on my first overseas holiday, June/July 1979, in Buffalo, NY). That album neatly filled 2 gaps in one go, but of course as I got older and had more cash in hand, I bought a copy with the proper artwork. In fact several copies of different pressings, including a Pink Scroll copy for about £12 as I recall in the late 90s at a Record Fair. My personal favourite copy of the album is the one contained within the Genesis Collection Vol. I - which I often saw when newly out in 1975 but couldn't justify buying since my brother had already got Nursery Cryme and the idea of buying a 2 album box set just to get Trespass and a poster seemed daft and was probably out of my grasp financially anyhow, but how I wish I had had the money back then to get both, brand new, boxes.... Eventually - around 2007 I bought a very clean copy of the Box Set from eBay and its a set that I treasure to this day. So what of the album today? I still rate The Musical Box as the album's stand out track and everything else lies in its shadow for me. Seven Stones I like a lot and Harlequin is another favourite for its close harmony work and delightful melody. Hogweed I don't care that much for on NC, mainly down to Gabriel's almost unrecognisable vocal delivery. The version on Genesis Live is far stronger by my reckoning. Fountain of Salmacis is another good effort although it sounds a bit dated these days. Harold the Barrel is still good fun, if a little busy in the mix, and For Absent Friends is probably my least favourite, it being not much of a song at around 100 seconds, but as an early showcase for Collins on vocals its a nice departure.
It's the Genesis Album By Album (featuring Song By Song) Thread in limited edition blue vinyl. Also Danish and Scandinavian books - see everything.
Nursery Cryme is, with the lone exception of From Genesis to Revelation, my least favorite of the Gabriel Genesis albums. I'm not really sure why, but it just never has stuck with me for any length of time. "The Musical Box" is a masterpiece, and would land in my top 5 all-time tracks by the band. I also very much enjoy the acoustic "For Absent Friends", with the first Phil lead vocal. After those first two tracks, however, the rest of the album quickly becomes a slog for me. I'm not a fan of the sound of the mellotron, which is present on much of the album, and the sonics of the album are a murky mess to my ears, far more so than was the case with the first two LPs. I'm not much of a fan of the other two lengthy set-piece tracks ("Hogweed", which I find lyrically ridiculous, and "The Fountain of Salmacis") and while the remaining three cuts have their charms, they don't match up to virtually any of the songs on Trespass in my estimation. The cover is great, and getting Phil into the band was obviously a massive improvement. I've never disliked Steve as a guitarist, but I think I prefer Anthony Phillips' work in that role, simply based on the sound of Trespass. Overall, I probably consider Nursery Cryme to be a bit of a placeholder, being neither the huge leap forward that Trespass was, nor the masterwork that would come next with Foxtrot. I originally bought the LP on the Charisma label (an import in the US) in the early 1980s when I was filling in my Genesis collection. I was only familiar with "The Musical Box" at the time as it had been the sole cut from the album that was included on a 2-LP Japanese compilation (titled The Story of Genesis) I had purchased at a record swap meet. I've since replaced that copy with the first remastered CD from the 1990s. I have not yet heard the Davis remix or the 5.1 mix, but plan to pick that up on the early years box set as soon as I can find one of the SACD hybrid versions for a decent price.
I've never been one to equate quantity ( in this case total time ) over quality. 38 minutes is perfectly acceptable for an album as strong in content as Nursery Cryme. IMHO.
I agree for the most part. It doesn't bother me as such, there are no laws on how long an album should be but in this instance, the length was something that just stood out when I saw it.
