SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

I should probably start off by remarking that I am a big fan of early Genesis, and not someone with an axe to grind. However, this is probably (with the exception of "Genesis to Revelation") my least favourite album up until Steve Hackett left. In the process of asking myself why this is, I came to the conclusion that, on a technical and structural level, it highlights a couple of the key latent shortcomings of Prog in general - and that's why I felt moved to put my feelings into words.

Before I get to the tracks themselves, I'll give a short rundown of my conclusions:

1) Sonically speaking, when the rock element of prog rock is toned down, there is a tendency for the ambitious structures of the music to lose groundedness - like a marvellous machine partly-disengaged from its drive mechanism, or a wonderfully-engineered car losing traction because the tires don't have enough grip.

2) Lyrically speaking, in the absence of a darker, more sombre element to the lyrics, prog can have a tendency to whimsy - which is not a Bad Thing in itself, but usually sits uncomfortably with weighty and ambitious musical structures.

3) "Prog" music in general - except when supremely well-done (and quite often the key factors here are unplannable) - can have a tendency to sacrifice musical coherency and totalising structure, in favour of diversity and complexity.

OK, let me flesh out what I mean in terms of Genesis, and Selling England.

Compared with an album like Nursery Cryme, say, it's clear that Genesis' sound became gradually less heavy as the Phil Collins influence increased - culminating in the band's guitarist (startlingly, for any "rock" group, prog or otherwise) actually not being replaced when he left. However, regardless of whether you like the poppier kind of music in question - and for myself, I don't, particularly - it IS noticeable that the lighter, keyboards-based sound suits the (poppier, shortened, simplified) context of the later albums. Musically, it "works".

For me, Selling England is an example of an album which doesn't quite "work", because the ambitious structures don't have enough weight - sonically or lyrically - to anchor them properly. It is, for considerable stretches of the album, almost what I would call Prog Pop - and in my view, that's not often a happy combination. OK, enough with the abstractions, let's look at the tracks.

Moonlit Knight - This starts wonderfully, with a very strong folk-rooted melody beautifully delivered by Gabriel. Develops very well too, as the keys, then guitar, then piano come in. Top notch so far. But after one minute twenty of this, this excellent build- up drops back down (presumably to give it somewhere to rise to for the chorus). The chorus itself works well, but from here on it's noticeable that the sections with vocals seem to sit uneasily with the overall rhythm. Basically, the "song" (perhaps because of its folk roots) works beautifully without the drums, but never seems quite to hit rhythm or tempo bang-on once the drums have entered. And the instrumental sections don't seem to relate strongly enough to the song itself, resulting in a slightly disconnected general feel. But overall, if not a classic, still a very good track.

I Know What I Like ("and this isn't it") - Apart from the lawnmower noise and the flangey guitar riff, I never did really get into this song. Sounds almost too much like a Phil ballad - but with rather more surreal lyrics. However I do love "Me, I'm just a lawnmower, you can tell me by the way I walk", so at this point I'll wink and move on...

Firth of Fifth - Wise programme choice here: we need something to split up the two Phil-type tracks, so let's slot in the best track on the album. No gripes with this one at all - it's musically strong, feels structurally coherent despite the variety in tone-colour of the different sections, and has a couple of moments of magic - "a waterfall / his madrigal / an inland sea / his symphony". And a great, emotionally-engaging guitar solo. FoF has - in spades - a gravitas that is missing on most of the rest of the album. Five star track.

More Fool Me - Heh... yes, I'll resist the temptation for sarcastic comment on the track title. Suffice to say that, for my money, this is not really a GENESIS song. So let's turn to something much more interesting...

Battle of Epping Forest - This track, for me, sums up what I was getting at in my earlier general criticisms: in that it somehow lacks the gravity to hold its structures together. Lyrics too plentiful, and too lightweight & pun-tastic - so that when the Shakespearian conclusion (everyone dead) finally arrives, it feels strangely trite, rather than ironic and moving as it might have been. Musically, there is not enough grit and substance here to anchor the flyaway tendencies of the song, and the digressions of the instrumental structures - and let's face it, if there's anything a track about a pitched battle between London gangs SHOULDN'T be, it's flyaway.

After the Ordeal - Pleasing enough - if slightly insubstantial - instrumental. In fact, placed in a context between two heavyweight- champ album tracks, this might have been exactly what was needed, and I might have been raving about it hitting just the right tone. But in reality, it has the (bitty) Epping Forest on one side, and on the other side it has...

Cinema Show - Now the first time I listened to the album, I had high hopes for this track: I think one of my friends had told me it was a bit of a winner. For some reason - from the title and the Gabriel-context - I had imagined it as being a dark masterpiece about some eerie cinematic halfworld, symbolically pointing up the insubstantial nature of our own reality. Ahem. In fact, it turns out to be a sweet wee song about a bloke taking his burd to the pictures. OK, it throws in a bit of Greek mythology in the form of the Tiresias myth, but there's nothing here that really inspires me. Once again, it lacks that certain "gravitas" for which Prog is sometimes criticised, but without which it tends to unravel and dissipate itself.

And finally - Aisle of Plenty - OK, reprise of the Moonlit Knight to end - and the moody echoey ambience and explicitly bleak outlook on consumer society makes it feel and sound surprisingly modern. In fact it could probably be released today and not seem dated. Good end to a decent album, but one which - for me - has never inspired in the way that Foxtrot or Nursery Cryme do.

However, when I say that Selling England is my least-favourite album of the seven that Genesis produced between 1970 and 1977, the most striking thing this tells us is just how splendid Genesis were during this period

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