ABACAB

Abacab is the worst Genesis album.

. . .

Ok, so I should probably add a bit more, huh?

On Abacab, there are a grand total of nine songs, three of which are great, two are above average, three are pretty bad and one is so awful that it accounts for the loss of a star all in it's self.

The highlights include Dodo/Lurker which is just about the only prog related bit they do on the entire CD and the best song on the album. It's seven and a half minutes of funky prog about extinction and love. The last two minutes, the Lurker part of the song, is a wonderful groove with one of Tony Banks more memorable licks beautified by his selection of a nice fat analog saw tooth wa- sorry, beautified by a great keyboard sound.

"Keep it Dark" is an upbeat pop song addressing human paranoia, misery and aliens with a somewhat untraditional song structure. "Me and Sarah Jane" is another great wandering song with a slightly progressive structure.

Those were the three great songs, "Abacab", the song, is a decent rocker featuring a Tony Banks solo that is longer than it is interesting, "Another Record" is soft and pleasant enough to listen to. 'No Reply' is full of horns, "Man on the Corner" is long and "Like it or Not" is also on included on this album.

Which leaves one shining example of audio left. Here's my take on Who Dunnit. Tony Banks got a new keyboard and started showing all of the cool effects that it can do to the rest of the band. Unbeknownst to everyone, the recorder was on. A couple of weeks later, they turned the album into the record execs, they said 'What's this, you can't release a 44 minute album?' Being as the guys were up against a deadline and had gotten schlonkered at the pub before visiting the execs they decided to use the three and a half minutes of Tony's keyboard cause that sounded like a 'smashing idea' at the time. The word 'brilliant' was used repeatedly as well. The next morning they work up with a hangover and a suspicious chunk of time missing.

A month later, the album was released and all three of them collectively smacked themselves on the forehead.

Two stars, three if they had released the album in it's original, 'unwhudunnitted' form.

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