And Then There Were Three: Genesis

5 star epic.....Genesis kept delivering again and again. There is a paradox to the album, cold and warm. Tightly woven, perfect production. True compressed sound on a vinyl, umm songwriting magic. Down and Out and Deep In The Motherlode standouts but I can still groove to Scene's from a Night's Dream

bloodnarfer wrote: Ok, I'll be that guy. The album seems to have a very mushy quality that I'm just not crazy about.  It's easy for it to fall into the background and sometimes I lose track of where one song ends and the next begins. It's still undeniably a good album, but I haven't been able to enjoy more than a surface-level appreciation of it.

Except for The Lady Lies and The Ballad of Big, this is forgettable.

I don't believe it was a departure from prog unless you are a stickler for prog albums that must have tracks that are at least 8 minutes. If so then Gentle Giant need to be cleared off the site immediately and Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is 'pop'. I just think they were hedging their bets a bit as they also did on Duke until the punk storm blew over and they could concentrate on doing exactly what they wanted to do - pop. Genesis To Revelation is something else altogether -'sixties pop'. I can't see much connection between those albums at all.

"Forgettable" is my review of ATTWT. "Down and Out" starts out strong and mighty, "Follow You, Follow Me" is a good ending. Everything in the middle, I just cannot get into. 

I think ATTW3 is good, if perhaps a bit patchy. I prefer both it's chronological predecessor (Wind and Wuthering) and successor (Duke) as album statements.

Favorite tracks:
Undertow
Ballad of Big
Deep in the Motherlode
The Lady Lies

...ever since this thread started, "Burning Rope" has turned into my brainworm!!  

Nov wrote: I assume that you are just talking about the lyrics on the Lamb (which Peter wrote most of)? Because I am sure you must know that everyone except Peter wrote most of the music for The Lamb, except for Carpet Crawl and The Chamber of 32 Doors. You seemed to be perpetuating the myth that Peter wrote all the lyrics AND music for The Lamb which he obviously didn't.

I don't understand all the hate this album gets either especially by those who say they love W&W and ATOTT. For me it's just a continuation of those two but in a shorter song format. The dreamy lush keyboard sound is still there. I think where they dropped the ball is Abacab which has some awkward sounding tracks mixed in with a few really good ones but still probably the most inconsistent album they put out up to that point. ATTWT on the hand is very consistent and I like every track on it(of course some more than others).

I ignored this album when it was first released. Other than Follow You Follow Me, I never heard anything from the album played on radio. A few months ago, I went back and started listening to it. First impression is the noticeable absence of Steve Hackett's guitar riffs. Once I got past that, I started to like most of the songs. It is still Genesis but a bit thinner than previous issues. After a few months in my usual listening rotation, this album has risen in stature considerably in my eyes.