genesis (abacab)

I love this album, i personally find that this is the most listened to post-Hackett album by me. I love the title song, Me and Sarah Jane, and Dodo (and the long version with submarine and Naminau). However, it has one of their absolute worst songs which is Who Dunnit, I really don't get it. But overall I think the material was a good change up from their other material with catchy, fresh, original stuff.

I find Abacab hard to appreciate. The title track sounds unfinished on this album (the Three Sides Live version is how it should be). Me and Sarah Jane is decent, but somehow it sounds to my ears as if it just misses the point. Who Dunnit: ultimate crap. Keep it Dark and, to a lesser extent, Another Record are quite OK and Dodo/Lurker is one of the best post-Hackett Genesis tracks. The other songs are to be classified as forgettable filler.

Edited by someone_else - September 15 2017 at 16:27

Abacab is a strange album. When it is good, it is very good. I love the extended title track, Dod/Lurker is a great suite, Keep it Dark is menacing, and I adore Me and Sarah Jane. However, the horns had no place on a Genesis album, and some of the more commercial short tracks strike me as being somewhat bland in retrospect.

It is still, though, a good album, and one I enjoy revisiting every now and then.

richardh wrote: ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!

Ballad of Big, Snowbound, and Deep In the Motherlode? Outside of those, it's a fine album in its own right. Just love The Day The Light Went Out too.

Although Abacab might be an average Genesis' record, I personally couldn't live without Abacab and Like It Or Not. Besides, it's Genesis, man!

H'm - I might suggest that anybody who has already spun 'Abacab' and has any amount of 'proper' prog - to go at, why on earth would they bother with such atrocious 80's garbage?

richardh wrote: ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!

Cristi wrote: lostrom wrote: Cristi wrote: lostrom wrote: Abacab is their best post Hacket album. better than ATTW3 and Duke?  Yes. ok, feel like I'm pulling teeth.  Care to explain?

Almost anything is better than ATTW3. Their limpest and least interesting til Shapes. At this point, the band was basically the Tony Show and sadly he was just in a slump, both composition-wise and in his sound design choices. The album is grey. Just grey grey grey and flaccid and dull.

https://youtu.be/H4hTXOZKq0M

"The Waters of Lethe" should have been the centerpiece of the album -- its "One for the Vine" -- the Tony masterpiece of staggering genius that single-handedly redeems all of the album's weaker moments. But instead we're stuck with "Undertow" and "Burning Rope". Blah.

The *sole* stand-out on the album for me is the sprightly and delightful "Scene from a Night's Dream". Just a magic track. But 3 minutes of bliss is simply not enough. (And while "Down and Out" is acceptable, come on guys ... we've scaled this Volcano before.)

BUT... ABACAB better than *Duke*? Nonsense. Duke is mighty. ABACAB has some excellent tracks, but Duke has something ABACAB will never have: a balanced tracklist and thematic cohesion.

Edited by hegelec - September 08 2017 at 17:10

I nearly wept when it came it out. My only similar reaction to any other album release by any other artist was ELP's In The Hot Seat. It's that feeling of 'where has my band gone'. Over the years I've softened a bit on it when I realised that I really liked Dodo/Lurker (I'm actually happy with the edited version) and Keep It Dark. The title track also worked well played live with the extended run off. The rest though I still don't care for. From Abacab onwards there is just about enough decent Genesis material to have made a good (4 star) album methinks. 

The drop from Naminamu into Dodo is f**king massssssive. It would have slayed live.