How even an 816th review can be worthy

Hi,

It's not bad a review at all ... it's better than most ... but I do think that it is "slanted" and from a perspective that has a lot less to do with the creativity and world around Genesis and King Crimson at the time. And ... it is not even close on its pre-history. That part the review is completely missing and it makes an attempt to connect to something else (King Crimson) rather than open up the review into a more concise and complete study of this band's rather perceptive and original works.

There is very little connection between King Crimson and Genesis ... and the earlier Genesis was much more folk oriented than even close or genetically related to King Crimson.

What did happen is that the group that was getting fairly well defined as a group in its earlier days, actually "grew up" and became an adult (if you will ...) and created a beautiful album that had some very original and creative songs and sounds, and a lot of it is usually associated with Tony Banks keyboard alertness and ability to help synthesizer sounds illustrate our minds into seeing the lyrics that Peter Grabriel and the band had created ... which give us a very lively and entertaining appreciation of the music and artistic concept within it.

Genesis' previous albums, from their first one, FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION (69) to TRESPASS (70) to NURSERY CRYME (71) and then to FOXTROT (72)  ... showed that this band was starting to do something special with their music during this time. It was originally a folk oriented band, but the electrical side of the band had become more and more viable and visible, and when their original guitar player Anthony Phillips had to leave due to health and (apparently) some stage fright problems, he was replaced with Steve Hackett, and this changed helped the band become more "electric" in its development, and that changed the course of action in a major way.

During this time, there is one other thing that happened to this band, and it is probably owed to the very active and alive theater scene that London has always had.  More than one National Theater production, or Royal Shakespeare Company production had even engaged music done by a lot of the contemporariy musicians around London. Gryphon was one example, and many others followed. With examples like this in the bag, lead singer Peter Gabriel began using costumes and create some stage personnas that started giving this group its identity, and they thrived on it and improved it with their next 2 albums and it exploded with their last album with Peter Gabriel in 1974, when it could be said that the amount of changes and images was an overload.

But it got the point across.

Their 5th album, however, is often associated with being their best and often thought of as being "progressive" and a quintessential example of that style of music, if such a thing can be devised or defined. This new album was more "literal" and less acting ... and the funny thing, is that all of a sudden you could relate to a garden lawn mower ... and you could hum your way through the grass (... but you didn't at your house ... shame on you for doing Mick Jagger impressions instead!!!)
... and appreciate the music way more than before.

SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND (73) was an important album. From the start, the band displays a confidence in sound design and lyric that is impressive and this makes the album stronger and few people will every sit here and agree/disagree with the exceptional story telling in each and every song.

Its lyrics have been disected very well by the previous reviewer, with the astounding opening "Can You Tell Me Where My Country Lies?", which today is still as powerful a line as ever, questioning everything that you can think of from social to philosophical concerns ... and that at a time when the Irish problems were in the news with bombs, and VietNam was still a sore sight, and the Cold War is still visible on the other side of Berlin not that many miles away from London.

It's music still resonates well today. One of the few albums considered "prog" that has not aged and does not sound out of date, and that would be a nice compliment to the very well conceived and thought out work that these 5 musicians put forth. It's hard not to appreciate a good painting, or a good novel, and this album comes through just like it.

Over these several years, this band was given credit for creating a slew of bands that also undertook to try the story telling and "fantasy" oriented rock. There rarely is a mention in the rock press that this style is not exclusive to this band and neither is that original, Europe itself has a massive history of writing that borders on fantasy and story telling going back thousands of years, and this band simply made better use of its tools to illustrate to you and I, that this medium is as good for rock music as any other. By contrast, Germany had its Bertold Brechts/Kurt Weills, and France had its Jacques Brel and even Edith Piaf, who were known for being very strong "actors" with their singing, rather than "singers" ... and even in the rock world, the French band ANGE had already done something like it with "CARICATURES" (70), a 20 minute opus about just that ... caricatures in theater and stories.

But it is hard to not give Peter Gabriel and this group the proper credit it deserves in presenting a theatrical performance that helped a rock'n'roll audience get more for their music than otherwise, and that is a very important improvement for the world of rock music in those days, where a lot of it was still dictated by the popular radio avenues and the hits of the time. In many ways this is a natural extension of the age of the psychedelia, but instead of being weird, it is being artistic and theatrical which always was the best place for the psychedelic conceived stuff, were it not that America does not have the patience for theater or the arts ... it always demands "action" ... and as such, bands like GENESIS would find a very supporting audience and appreciative response by an audience that aspires to higher and better musical appreciation in rock music.

The line-ups for the band in the early years:

1967 Gabriel, Banks, Phillips, Rutherford, Stewart
1968 Gabriel, Banks, Phillips, Rutherford, Silver
1969 Gabriel, Banks, Phillips, Rutherford, Mayhew 1
1970 Gabriel, Banks, Collins, Hackett, Rutherford 

Note: Most information taken from memory, with the exception of the lineups taken from Wikipedia.
(c) Pedro Sena 2009 for the review part and allowed to be shown on ProgArchives with my permission.