Monday, August 12, 2013

Selling England by the Pound by Genesis (1973, Charisma Records)




WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM
  • My older brother Roderick was into Genesis in early 1980s during their “trio” phase, after guitarist Steve Hackett's 1978 departure from the band – which was three years after original vocalist Peter Gabriel left the group – leaving them with the lineup of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. All I really knew of Genesis were the hits I heard as a kid on Toronto's classic rock radio station Q107, from 1978's ...And Then There Were Three (“Follow You, Follow Me”), 1980's Duke (“Turn it On” and “Misunderstanding”), 1981's Abacab (“Abacab”), and their self-titled 1983 release (“Mama”, “That's All” and “Illegal Alien”). I had thought Genesis was this vanilla band from England who wrote some catchy tunes. 

  • In grade six or so, I started listening to Q107's Psychedelic Psunday, a weekely event every Sunday where the programming consisted entirely of music from the 1965-1975 era. This is when I started hearing “old” Genesis material, including Selling England by the Pound, released in 1973. As much as I could tolerate Genesis' pop songs, I could not bring myself to listen to Genesis because, as it turns out, they were this vanilla band from England that wrote too many wanky tunes.

  • I never really got into prog-rock. I would lump Genesis in a category with bands like Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson Lake and Palmer – three bands I heard a lot of from Roderick and Q107 – which, to me, meant they were self-indulgent music snobs playing 19-minute epic songs about science fiction or fantasy.
WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT
  • It was Genesis' breakthrough album, as far as being considered a progressive-rock powerhouse.
  • Almost every music nerd and record collector I know likes this album: Humphrey Koraag, Stephen Winkley, the Slacks, and Vid Cousins just to name a few.
AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM
  • While I was deciding the list of records for this project, there were few albums I was more hesitant about spending seven days with than Selling England by the Pound. The mere thought of a week listening to this Robin Hood music was enough to render me physically ill for a few days (hence the lateness of this blog entry). But I must say I was pleasantly surprised. 

  • The fact that I am such a big fan of Peter Gabriel and his solo material (the first rock show that I ever saw was Gabriel at the Montreal Forum in the summer of 1987 when I was 15 years old), helped me handle the wordy vocal performances on Selling England by the Pound. Otherwise, I think I may have turned the record off after the first listen and never turned it back on again.

  • With the later-Genesis radio hits, I never really paid attention to the great musicianship of the band members. But with Selling England by the Pound, it's all I focused on. Collins' drumming is fantastic, exemplified on the latter half of “The Cinema Show” (starting at the 6:00 mark). And what about Rutherford's monster bass playing in “I Know What I Like”? Or Hackett channelling Mick Ronson on “Dancing With the Moonlight Knight”. Or Banks' epic keyboard playing on “Firth of Fifth”? I find the unifying track on the album is “The Battle Epping Forest”, where all the members, including Gabriel, absolutely kill it.

  • After years of trying to get me into Genesis, Dwayne Slack would be happy to hear that I actually have begun listening to Selling England by the Pound's follow-up album, the very ambitious Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974). All I can promise is that I will listen to it. The jury's still out on whether I will like it.

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1 comment:

  1. UnknownSeptember 17, 2014 at 7:49 PM

    I bought that album, probably in 1974! I still might have it somewhere, but alas no phono, Let's talk about it at school.

    David

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