THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY

This is a very polarizing (double) album. For some, it's the pinnacle of progressive rock, the perfect melding of story and music, sweeping and epic. For others, it's a cautionary tale of hubris and excess. Me? I think it's .. okay.

I've listened to this record countless times, read the lyrics, read interpretations of the story, and I won't rehash that here. And for some reason, it just doesn't connect with me. I get what they were going for, and I enjoy some of the music. But the overarching concept doesn't feel very connected to me. It's a patchwork of musical ideas that that make more of a collage than a coherent whole piece.

The songs themselves are a mixed bag for me, too. The more popular songs, like the title track and "Carpet Crawlers," I just don't get that excited about. It doesn't help that Peter Gabriel's "cheeky naughty boy" schtick takes center stage on songs like "Counting out Time" and "Slippermen." There are some highlights for me though .. "Back in NYC" is a fun romp with a rockin 7/8 beat and badass attitude that leads into the gentle "Hairless Heart." "Anyway" and "Lamia" are lovely piano-driven numbers that recall the better parts of "Foxtrot" and the like. Throughout, Phil Collins's drumming is always an enjoyable groove. Unfortunately, there's a lot of filler material padding out large swaths of disc two.

All in all, it's not an okay listen, but it's also one that I rarely reach for. Every once in a while I'll get the urge to revisit it to see if it "clicks" with me, but it never does. It deserves its "classic" status for its sheer audacity, but my experience with it is somewhere between the "transcendent masterpiece" and "bloated pretentious crap" extremes of opinion.