I find it ironic that IT gets painted with the “‘80s sound” and “Phil takes over the band” brushes when in reality, it has almost none of the “Phil Collins drum sound” to speak of, and despite having a lot of electronic drums on it, the actual sound of the drums is quite restrained compared to the drum machines that dominated many other songs of the era. And though Tony had a Yamaha DX7 in his rack at the time, I don’t hear nearly the harshness in his employment of digital synthesizers as the worst perpetrators. That may sound like I am damning with faint praise, which maybe I am concerning the sonics; I much prefer the sonics of s/t and welcomed the return of acoustic drums on WCD (but Tony’s Korg infatuation on that album is a different story). But there is a lot to like on this album. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is a tour de force (and as unlikely a hit single as Mama). Domino is a worthy addition to the “long song” canon. Anything She Does, to echo the sentiments of others, is for me the only real dud here, and even then I still don’t mind it. The title track deserved to be a number one hit single, is studio marvel, but the pop perfection they achieved with the track meant it could never be played as well live. The change to a lower key in the live version sucks all the life out of it. I remember during the American Music Awards, they cut to a Genesis show (in Cleveland?) for Invisible Touch and it left me so disappointed. In addition to the flaccid key, Phil sounded like he was out of breath the whole time.
Catching up here. The solo albums - I don't have any of them. I was a big Genesis fan in the day, so not sure why. Probably a little Phil and Mechanics overload on the radio, and neither did much for me. I became a big fan of the band starting the summer of 1982 as a teen, and by the time of IT I owned everything in the catalog. While I had thought Genesis/Shapes had some weaknesses, I liked it in general and it did not deter me from the band. IT was a different story, unfortunately. There is not a single song on IT that I truly, deeply like. Land of Confusion was fine for a bit, but it got old and overplayed, and I never liked the video/puppets. I still appreciate Domino, but I don't reach for it. The Brazilian is kinda cool, but it has never really moved me. Tonight x3 was always bland to me, and too long for what it was. Anything She Does was fun the first 5 listens and then got grating. Title track - meh. Right now to my ears, Throwing it all Away is not bad ... that's about all I will really say for the album, though maybe I will chime in as this rolls along. By the way, but for a few tracks, I really liked the next album, We Can't Dance
I would not call "clay animation" and "stop motion" cutting edge techniques. The video is based on those two techniques. Clay-animated films were produced in the United States as early as 1908!
"Sledgehammer" is a sophisticated and highly subversive and witty piece of pop; nothing on Invisible Touch (or really any big Genesis hit) comes close to it from that standpoint.
Invisible Touch To make a start, this was MY gateway drug to Genesis. At age fifteen, I bought the '86 V/C CD of this album and I immediately loved it. Prior to that, I had Land of Confusion stuck in my head for days and I needed to get the album. As we all know, things had changed for Genesis since the release of their prior album, the self-titled. In the three years inbetween, Phil's solo career had totally took off, his songs being played everywhere around the globe, his videos in MTV's heavy rotation. No Jacket Required set the bar for the sound of pop music in 1985 and the high standards it set were hard to better (even Phil himself couldn't do it with his following albums, in my opinion... but that's another story). Mike also had gained a certain momentum with Mike & The Mechanics, a group that were sure to deliver classy, if a bit predictable MOR-AC kind of music. Tony had done two soundtrack albums and a solo album, and while singles like "This Is Love" failed to do much in the charts, they served as a precursor for things to come within Genesis. Accessibility would be key on their next album - even more so than on the enormously successful self-titled effort. The recording sessions seem to have taken place in the same friendly and constructive manner that had made their previous effort such a joy to create. The first single from the upcoming album, Invisible Touch, must have been a shock for the prog audience. A catchy synth line, lots of plastic in sound, lyrics about being entangled (ha-ha ) by some strange kind of woman (I'll stop, I promise!)? Perfect for the radio stations of the day, the song proved to be a massive hit in the UK, stateside and in continental europe - no wonder it's still a radio regular almost 33 years later. This was the first Genesis song I had heard and I really dig it - sure, it's very pop, but it's high-class pop to me and works wonderfully as such. The same is true for Land of Confusion, my favorite pop song by Genesis, a fantastic single full of rich lyrical ideas, toyful music and, again, that bass line from Sussudio respectively Prince's 1999 - it's the song that sounds the most like a straight Phil solo track, along with the rather schmaltzy In Too Deep. I've come to accept In Too Deep - I once used the song for a crucial scene in a self-penned play that got staged for a school event, so that connection is really positive for me. It's by no means a highlight, but it's alright - good to relax, I suppose. We also have two very proggy pieces on here. The first one being Tonight Tonight Tonight, a very moody 9-minute piece dominated by the idea of a fateful turning point in somebody's life within one single night. This is an idea Phil has come back to quite a few times (Why Can't It Wait 'Til Morning?; One More Night; In The Air Tonight) and this time it's worked into a full-front Genesis piece, with a strong instrumental section that builds up to a nice climax. Sounds like a song for a dramatic Miami Vice season finale, it's that good. The other long track is Domino, my favorite song on the album. The beginning with the flute and the vocals coming in afterwards sounds reminds the careful listener of the extremely moody transition album "...and then there were three" (especially the piece "Undertow"). The song starts to build up, exploding into an angry prog fest after about six minutes - there may be 'proggier' Genesis tracks, but Domino remains one of personal favorites by the band for sure. The lyrics also help, as they touch the topic of politicians making bad decisions in a more stream-of-consciousness kind of way - almost like being inspired by Umberto Eco, to name an instance. It's clearly Tony's lyric, wonderfully executed by a dramatic sounding Phil who truly delivers the emotions. That 'In silence and darkness...' section before the second part kicks off gives me the shivers. Really fantastic! Anything She Does is a weak point - a chaotic track that doesn't do much for the rest of the album. Could've remained a single. Throwing It All Away is another ballad that sounds like it was written for the self-titled album - it's in the same vein as "It's Gonna Get Better". A nice little ditty that would also suit No Jacket Required, for instance. The Brazilian is another rather experimental piece, a lengthy instrumental that is really brooding (almost like a song from Peter's "Security") and which shows that Genesis, even at their poppiest moment, still had a prog heart beating. Really fantastic and a great way to end this album. Overall, I really, really like Invisible Touch. It was my gateway to Genesis and remains a regular listen around here - the fantastic production also helps. A very enjoyable late effort by Genesis, in my opinion better than the self-titled and MUCH better than We Can't Dance. One of the more interesting big releases of 1986. Also, contrary to what many people say about this period of Genesis, Invisible Touch is audibly an album by the whole band. Two tracks sound like Phil solo, the rest is deliberately Genesis, combining elements from the solo projects and the band's rich past into a very enjoyable, entertaining, rich-layered studio album.
Invisible Touch Single by Genesis from the album Invisible Touch B-side "The Last Domino" Released 19 May 1986 Format 7", 12" Recorded 1985–86 at The Farm(Chiddingfold, Surrey, England) Genre Dance-rock, synthrock Length 3:27 Label Charisma, Virgin, Atlantic, Vertigo Songwriter(s) Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford Producer(s) Genesis, Hugh Padgham "Invisible Touch" is the title track and first single from the 1986 album of the same name by the English rock band Genesis. The song is a group composition which featured lyrics written by drummer and singer Phil Collins.[1] It was their first and only No. 1 single in the United States; the song additionally spent three consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart during summer 1986 until it was surpassed by Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love". The song was the first of five consecutive U.S. Top Five singles from the album of the same name.[2][3] It also reached No. 4 in Canada and No. 15 in the United Kingdom.[4] Its B-side is the second part of "Domino", titled "The Last Domino". (The album includes both parts of "Domino" combined together.) Genesis members Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford have both spoken highly of the song in retrospect. Collins has called it his "favourite Genesis song" and Rutherford has called it "a wonderful song: upbeat, fun to play, always a strong moment in any gig".[1] As the band's only Billboard Hot 100 number one, the song is included in Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era.[5] In 2017, ShortList's Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history". [6] "Invisible Touch" came about during a jam session, Rutherford playing a guitar riff while Collins improvised the line "She seems to have an invisible touch". Collins has said he heard the influence of Prince and Sheila E. in the drum machine and his lyrics were inspired by a few people he had known who had got under his skin. Despite liking the song himself, and despite the band's previous success, he has claimed he wasn't certain the song would be a hit.[1] In summer 1986, "Invisible Touch" was succeeded in the No. 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 by the multi-Grammy nominated "Sledgehammer", performed by Genesis' former lead singer, Peter Gabriel. Collins later jested about the occurrence in a 2014 interview, stating, "I read recently that Peter Gabriel knocked us off the No. 1 spot with 'Sledgehammer'. We weren’t aware of that at the time. If we had been, we’d probably have sent him a telegram saying: 'Congratulations – bastard.'"[1] The single also reached No. 1 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. ---------------------------------------- This song was hugely successful and is still incredibly popular, of course serious music people aren't allowed to like that .... it makes them seem less serious and important. This is the lighthearted song of the album. Essentially this track is the Harold The Barrel/Robbery Assault and Battery/Illegal Alien of this album. It is slightly less overly comedic/sarcastic, but is a light piece of fun on an album that is much more lyrically intense than we are used to from Genesis, for the most part. In spite of the panning it is going to receive here this is quite an achievement of a song. It has that fun and light feel and sound, and also works as a love song that describes how we can be easily drawn to members of the opposite sex by things that we can't quite put our fingers on. We have an upbeat piece of music that has a good riff and a good chord pattern. The band as they had been for the last few albums is experimenting with sounds and textures. Some folks say they find the album harsh in its sound, and I guess that is understandable, but the song has some great production that really makes this song pop. The guitar has that memorable riff and also a great percussive quality that runs through the song. We have the electric drums, but as previously stated Collins being a drummer managed to get them to sound less electronic than a lot of bands at this point in time. We need to remember that most bands were using electric drums at this point in time .. and for those of us that grew up with real drums, it was really something that we needed to adapt to, and often couldn't. Thankfully the drawbacks of these type of drums was seen by most and the music community grew up and realised that drum machines as useful as they were, couldn't completely remove real drums from the picture. Anyhow, this is a great pop/rock song, and yes it got overplayed, but that is hardly the bands fault. Since the eighties, this would be the second time I have heard the song, and I think it holds up quite well. Certainly not my favourite Genesis song, but also, not as dire as I fear most are going to actually paint it here.
I love the "proper" ending this song gets live - I think it really makes the song better, Phil's improvised final line "anything she wants, it's hers" followed by the hard ending really help lift the track - it's a far better song live, works great in a concert environment. The 12" remix is far superior to the standard version as well. The video is fun even if it's a bit throw away - this was my Genesis, cheeky chappy Phil, grumpy Tony and slightly goofy Mike, the prog rock Monkees! Seriously though it's a song that brings a smile to my face 30 years hence, is it a great Genesis song? Probably not. But it's a cracking pop track.
I'm going to quote my own post from earlier in the thread here! So though I am a hardcore Gabriel era fan, I also love IT very much - I think it is the best think they did as a 3 piece and is one of the best pop albums of the 80s. Comparing this sonically to SEBTP it is astonishing how one sounds pretty much 'natural' and the other completely synthetic, but I think the songs are very well written on IT. This to me is the culmination of them trying to write pop songs yet still managing to integrate proggy bits into them - 'Tonight, tonight, tonight' has that great middle section which is instrumental, plus 'Domino' and 'The Brazilian' offer great Banksian chord changes. Also, the melodies are consistently great over the whole album, the arrangements are stellar and tight, there is no flab, no filler like on Abacab and S/T and no dreary ballads. There's five mega hit singles on this album and deservedly so. It could be that some of my love for IT is down to rose-tinted nostaglia, but even if that weren't the case, I still think it's a great album!
Invisibamal Touch ... I got this album on the day of release; I had a big exam the next day, but I just had to waste precious time going to the record store, coming home, and playing it; and man, what a let down after waiting three years from the previous album. So ... bland. The new Peter Gabriel album (which I might have bought on the same day, I can't recall) was so much better. In retrospect I like about half of the songs on this album: Land Of Confusion, the ballads, Domino, Brazilian. Invisabamal Touch (the song) has the hooks but I really loathe "She seems to have ..." type lyrics ... just lazy. Tonight3 is a decent idea but I don't like the chorus ("tonight tonight tonight ooooooooohhhhhh x one million) and how it is kinda similar to Phil's Take Me Home. And Anything She Does is my candidate for Worst. Genesis. Song. Ever. The sound though ... my opinion hasn't changed. Bland. --Geoff
Great pop song yes but subversive? Am I missing something? Tonight Tonight Tonight and Domino have pretty sophisticated lyrics. To a certain extent there is a popularity contest here, Peter was cool, Phil, Mike and Tony weren’t. So Gabriel gets away with his cheesier, more earnest stuff of that era.
Sledgehammer is a song that essentially says "I want to have sex with you" .... not overly sure what is subversive or original about that ... probably my least favourite Gabriel song lol
The single “IT” dropped a few weeks before the album. I heard it, and rolled my eyes so hard it hurt my head. I figured the album itself could not be as bad as the single. It kinda was. A dorm-mate of mine had an extra ticket to see an IT show at Oakland. At first I said “no way, I hate that album.” But he knew I was a huge Genesis fan, more than him, and he convinced me to go with a free ticket. Phil’s voice was getting shot, so the show was shortened, starting with “Confusion” and skipping “Mama” and “Abacab” altogether. I did properly lose my mind with 9/8 and Eggs, though.
Invisible Touch (The Album) I was in my mid teens when this was released - this was the first Genesis album I got. Songs off this album were everywhere - and I liked them so I took the plunge. As I've said before - as I dug into the back catalog I lost interest in their 80's work and this stayed on the shelf for years. I finally dug it out one day when I was feeling nostalgic for the 80's and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. It gets played every so often - and I like it. Yesterday I gave it a listen for this thread, and then another one. Sure, the band's style of writing to a drum machine shows - gone is some of the complexity of earlier works. But these are still good songs and just about perfect for their time. It doesn't sound as organic as their classic works and it does have a plastic sound typical of much 80's music. Is that a surprise? All of the albums reflect what was going on at the time - mellotrons and analog synths on earlier albums were just as much a product of their time as the instrumentation on this one. (Though, I do like the mellotron much more!)
Invisible Touch – This is the third Genesis album that I owned (the previous two being Self Titled and Abacab) and the first that I bought at the time of release. Moreso than previous two, this album is indelibly seared into my brain as a product of my youth, and as an experience that included not just the album itself, but videos on MTV and the general superstardom of Phil Collins and Genesis as a band. I played it a lot, I heard the songs from the album on the radio a lot, and unlike my experience with the other two, this album was part of the zeitgeist of the time (1986-1987) in the US that was possibly only out-done by Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Madonna. It was that big. So no matter what I think of it now – even if I hated it – it would be impossible for me to look upon it only as just another album, and impossible for me to play it without being transported back to a happy time. It’s just inextricably linked. That said, once the moment passed and after I had acquired all of the other Genesis albums, I came to look at Invisible Touch in a different light. First of all, it’s pure product. Phil Collins having established himself as a mega-star with his No Jacket Required album, the band did not waste the opportunity to parlay this into greater commercial success for themselves: at least half of Invisible Touch sounds indistinguishable from Phil Collins’ solo music. The songs are monochromatic in a very dated, “’80s” sort of way: the electronic drums and grinding synths give the album the character of having been made by a machine. Which is kind of what Genesis had become by this juncture. I’ve never minded Genesis’ transformation from one of the pillars of progressive rock to something more pop-oriented. In fact, I think some this kind of music represents the best of Genesis. But I just don’t think much of that is to be found on Invisible Touch. For me the album highlights are the Domino songs and Tonight (x3), where the most is made from the processed electronic sounds. But there’s still nothing really great about them; the moderate positivity I feel about these songs would be how I would react to the 2nd-tier stuff from earlier albums. I do still find the title track to be catchy, but not particularly good. The video to Land of Confusion is really good and the song itself isn’t terrible. The Brazilian will never be remembered as one of Genesis finer instrumentals, but I think it’s OK; considering the lyrical content of most of these songs, it’s nice to hear one that just kept them out. The other stuff… Throwing it All Away and Anything She Does are bland pop songs, IMO. In Too Deep is an adult contemporary love ballad and I just don’t listen to that kind of music. I have no idea why they kept Feeding the Fire off this album – it would probably be my favorite song on the album had it been there. My overall assessment is that this is a mediocre album, and one of the weakest in the band’s catalog. Not because it’s “pop Genesis,” but because I just don’t think this had enough strong material in that vein. They were kind of spent at this point and, when I look at it objectively, they just weren't that good at making this kind of music. However, like I said above, I will probably always be able to play it for nostalgic purposes and get enjoyment from the experience.
It's a good enough album. I can sit through the entire thing without skipping a song. That cannot be said about We Can't Dance - too many bad songs, needed 1xLP instead.
Invisible Touch is a catchy track with fun lyrics and great interlocking instrumental parts - particularly the bass line. I like the vocal counter melody in the final chorus. However, I hate the cold clinical mechanical way this track sounds. Played with a Hammond and Clavinet, real drums and a guitar that sounded like a guitar - I could enjoy this song and arrangement. The 12" version is better because of the way it makes the bass the lead instrument. Some of the instrumental break downs are cool, but when the synthetic drums come to the forefront in one of these, it is even worse than the LP version.
In no universe that I inhabit is "tonight, tonight, tonight" a prog song. There's a reason it was sold off to be a beer commercial. It's only useful purpose for me was allowing me to wait on a long line at the men's room to take a piss and miss "nothing". But I thank the band for this album because it's saved me much money in future Genesis concert tickets as this was the last tour I saw. And I was so turned off by most of this album that I never looked back and felt no loss in doing so.
The only nice thing I have to say about the title track is - the quirky bass line. It took me about 20 years to get past the 5-second mark of the song, that's why onlöy recently I noticed it.
The lyrics are a series of sly references to a certain physical act. Done subtly and intelligently with a level of wit and style that elevates it far above the banality of most top 40 material.
