abacab

uh

keep it dark

No Reply, or maybe dodo/lurker or sarah Jane. Or Keep It Dark. There are one or two good b sides from the era.

imo they're all gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKlQC2Vcz88

ANYBODY LISTENING

Title track for me.

when you wake in the morning
wake and find you're covered in cellophane

WAS IT YOU OR WAS IT ME?
OR WAS IT HE OR SHE?

the affection i've developed for "who dunnit" is really unfortunate

*endless gif of phil yelling "it's supposed to be a post-punk song you horrible dicks"*

A very good friend calls me 'abacab' after this album + my first name. I should really give it more listens.

it's a pretty odd, asymmetrical art pop album, clearly transitional between duke and the s/t but the prog/pop tension is never more rewarding than it is here

All the singles got lots of album rock airplay when I listened in the eighties and nineties, even "Man on the Corner" and the Three Sides Live throwaway "Paperlate."

Marcello's review: http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2013/03/genesis-abacab.html

"paperlate" rules

it's just like a slightly less good "no reply at all"

It is a difficult album to appreciate, let alone love, because it seems so deadset on not telling us things.

otm, and precisely why i love it

Abacrab?

Phil's pronunciation of "Dodo ugly! so dodo must die!" has haunted me since childhood

let us praise the song 'abacab'

^^^kinda surprised i hadn't drunkenly bumped that more often

BTW, love "Paperlate," and also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsV-1FDLTW0

"No Reply At All" is such a tight arrangement.

I've never listened to this! Giving it a shot now.

I still recall the substantial emotional drop from my anticipating to finally hearing this record when it first dropped. I have more tolerance for it now but still find it to be lackluster and think the versions on Three Sides Live are superior. I also prefer most of the studio cuts on 3SL to abacab.

Want to say "Abacab" was also historic for how loud/high the drums were mixed, really setting the stage for the '80s.

plus that one bit is perfect air drumming

you know the one i mean

I love this album. Voted "me and sarah jane" but it could have been almost anything else; I really like Keep it Dark!

paperlate isn't a throwaway either...it's as good as anything else on this record.

Voted Keep it Dark but really could have chosen anything here. Except maybe Dodo/Lurker, which is half awesome and half ridiculous-in-a-bad-way.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Terrible album.

pfft

"another record" deserved a vote

oh damn i started this thread, good job me

anyway i was listening to abacab today and thinking "wow, this record is amazing"

hi Brad

Some days I don't even mind "Who Dunnit?" as a sort of pallet cleanser.

"who dunnit" is fun imo

"like it or not" and "another record" still deserved more votes than it

Feel better, Phil
https://peopledotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/phil-collins2.jpg

I fucking love this record

one of my favorite records ever, how did i miss this thread when it happened! i thought i was the only one who liked "keep it dark"

This guy is the best, I love all his videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmX1QbYEnTU

Keep It Dark really whups my behind with a belt

said this before on another Genesis thread, but I find it hard to believe that Mike R came up with the "No Reply" bassline. Not a genesis super-stan, so grain of salt when I say that I have never heard him play anything like that before or after…it sounds like they got Percy Jones to play fretted or Verdine White or someone… I'm sure MR could learn it and play it no sweat, but it doesn't seem like anything he did any other time…same for D Stuermer…

I agree. The dude in that video suspects the same. While Rutherford can totally play it, the EWF force is strong with this one.

It's hard to imagine Rutherford as bassist yet he was in the Hackett years

He's not much of a guitarist, honestly.

For that matter, in the early days Tony Banks often contributed classical guitar.

I love this record inordinately, and agree with the near-certainty that neither Rutherford nor Stuermer would have come up with that line. Musta been a session d00d.

Phil's love of R&B was such that he probably just said "yeah, er, Mike, we're just gonna bring in some outside players to do some horn-stab overdubs. You can go out for tea if you like." And they smuggled a killer bassist in amongst the horn section. By the time it was mixed everyone knew what had happened but no one cared.

Even Rutherford could tell it was made of awesome, so he made not a peep. He just bought another pastel-colored linen suit and thought wistfully about major-seventh arpeggios.

Been thinking about Phil a lot, a friend of mine finally tracked him down for an interview (out next week): http://www.thetrapset.net/bns-phil-collins-preview/

I agree that he is a genius drummer.

is the full interview out yet?

http://www.thetrapset.net/127-phil-collins-genesis-brand-x-phil-collins/

It seems strange to me that Keep It Dark got the most votes. It's probably my least fave track on the album. I'd have thought Dodo/Lurker would be the one most people would go for.
I might even have gone for one of those songs that ended up with no votes, I really like those. But I probably would have voted 'Me And Sarah Jane', although I prefer the live version on 'Three Sides Live'

I do love "Like It Or Not" and was sorry to see it get shut out here

That 1979-81 era when prog was incorporating new wave (Ultravox, Gary Numan, early Human League in some cases, other cases just The Police) was fun, I wish there was more.

Rush, U.K., Saga, Yes, Fripp/League of Gentlemen/King Crimson, Vangelis & Jon Anderson, John Wetton, Steve Hackett all did this to varying degrees of success, but this Genesis album is up near the top.

I consider Gentle Giant on Free Hand, Power & the Glory etc to be the pathbreakers of the prog new wave thing (a nice trick since new wave in the police/cars sense barely existed yet)

Wow, I'm revisiting "The Power and the Glory" and it sounds like XTC!

yeah!

WEEE KNOW WEEE KNOW WEEE KNOW WEEE KNOW WEEE KNOW

The album was probably my first exposure to abstract art at age 5 or whatever

This record is amazing and I wish more people were excited when I sing "No Reply At All" at karaoke

*album cover, that is. Mesmerized by the simplicity of it while I nibbled at the paper on the cassette sleeve

Pretty sure I saw that dude from the No Reply bass video at a Whole Foods in Chicago this afternoon

Comparing the album version to live videos, I tend to think Rutherford wrote that bass line on "No Reply" (listen to his playing on "Lamb Lies Down") but there are two bass players on the recording -- Mike can't do those finger-plucked sixteenth notes, but it's obviously his playing on the bridge.

Anyone that can do the fast tricky stuff on that song can do the simpler stuff. It's one bassist, and whether or not it's Rutherford we may never know, but even though I like his bass playing this track is anomalously tricky and fast. There's nothing he's ever done elsewhere that even comes close, not even on "Lamb."

if there are Mike R/No Reply truthers on ILM and not on the Hoff forum, we truly are through the looking glass

Show me the certificate that proves it was him and I will drop my claim.

His bassline is pretty snappy on Fountain of Salmacis (which this bass cover mangles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpqc6HGU9v4

Phil Manzanera did cool stuff like K-Scope and Primitive Guitars that kinda fits in the new wave prog banner

BEHOLD RUTHERFORD PLAYING. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisZ6qmNdbo .

He serves a few clams at the end, but makes it through. So now I think it's just him, and a lot of takes spliced together.

Better bass nerds than I - like, people who can actually play bass - can no doubt do better than I could at pointing out that is one dumbed down version of the studio bass take. It's missing half the notes!

It's not! (I am a better bass nerd than you.) There's vibrato toward the beginning of the studio track that doesn't sound like typical Rutherford, and there are some tasty grace notes that he tries and doesn't nail on the live track, but it's the same line until the last 45 seconds or so.

Huh, I am hearing missing notes, all those 16th notes.

Hmm, maybe it is mostly the same? It's definitely loose and sloppy, but that's probably the cocaine.

Yeah, the sixteenths are sloppy and Stuermer doubles them, but they're there. The coke would make him go for it and mess it up.

The coke would make him go for it and mess it up.

the thing that always freaks me out about corporate rock circa 78-83 is that these nerdball-ass lookin dudes w/shop teacher glasses all witnessed and participated in the most disgusting drug fueled excesses

aka Bob Welch

yeah i love the welch era FM but he's a supercreep

Jeff Porcaro of Toto is another one

I remember Billy Joel telling some story about how in some early 80s tour the drum riser would rise out of the stage and then beneath the roadies for a "prank" would have all these naked groupies lay down there to distract the band

Such a great album. Never fails to transports me back to the Summer of '81 listening to this on cassette ( from Columbia House!) on my trusty boombox - over and over.

err must've been Summer of '82. This didn't come out until late '81.

A weak follow-up to Duke and undoubtedly one of their weaker records overall - they managed to squeeze out 'Mama' and the prog-pop masterpiece Invisible Touch after this, but Abacab was pretty much the beginning of the end.

Dude you are the worst haha. But thanks

I'd go further than Turrican - Duke was the beginning of the end.

Yeah wrong wrong.... I like s/t almost as much as abacab but there is no way these pale next to Invisible Touché

Well, lemme see... Abacab has 'Who Dunnit?' on it and Genesis has 'Illegal Alien' and Invisible Touch has... no bad tracks on it!

Duke was such a fine blend of new wave and pop with their more progressive tendencies which could have been the blueprint for an exciting future, but rather than craft another masterpiece in the same vein, they muddled themselves through two records before they decided to make their version of a full-on pop record, which they did very successfully.

If I had voted it would be for "Keep It Dark", it has such a wonderfully muscular sound.

otm

def one of the more appropriate environments for an outrageous tony banks synth tone

It could change but at the moment this is my favourite Collins era Genesis album.

I would have voted for No Reply At All.

"Dodo / Lurker" also up there for me tho

'Keep It Dark' is a highlight of this record, I guess, but a minor moment in their catalogue as a whole. I find the idea of anyone choosing this record - riddled with flaws and full of minor material - over the amazingly written, produced, arranged and played likes of A Trick of the Tail and Duke or the pop smarts of Invisible Touch utterly bewildering. I can only assume they don't really get what makes this band great.

yeah but the great thing about genesis is that unlike some people they didn't simply sing the same song over and over again across multiple threads albums.

Indeed, which is why Foxtrot and Invisible Touch sound like - and actually are - the work of two completely different bands but are equally great in terms of the quality of material on offer. They feel like complete, unified, strong pieces of work.

Of course, trying something different didn't always work, which is why Abacab is a bit of a mess and a failed experiment. If you're going to go for a stark sound, then you have to give people something substantial to focus on - such as great material, which Abacab lacks.

Lol

Take the title track, for instance. The track is over 7 minutes long and it really doesn't deserve to be or need to be that long. There's not enough going on to justify the length. Sure, the chorus is hooky, and Collins lays down a nice sounding - if a little basic for him - groove, but Banks' keyboard sound is terrible and Rutherford isn't doing all that much. This is fine during the first part of the track where there's some singing to liven things up, but not during the outro which is overlong and painfully dull. And this one of the better tracks on the record.

Anyway guys I worked out what else sounds influenced by this - my beloved first Shy Child album!

ime when you reiterate your bad opinion enough times it becomes true

^ Spoken like a true specialist in such matters.

get out of my thread you weenie

In a way, this record is a curious thing. Unlike, say, Moving Pictures by Rush, which satisfies on numerous levels - it's a great Rush record, but it's also a great new wave record... this album isn't really satisfactory as a Genesis record, but nor does it cut the mustard as a new wave record. See 'No Reply At All', with its obnoxious, ill-fitting horns, or 'Who Dunnit?' which manages to be the worst attempt by a prog band at new wave that's not 'Remote Romance' by Camel.

I like progressive rock. I like Genesis. I like art rock. I like new wave. You'd think I would like Abacab, but the end result isn't successful and strikes me as being a record for folks that don't really like any of those things.

IT has 'anything she does' which, while not being as offensive lyrically as "illegal alien", is probably worse musically. I like 'whodunnit'. also, the rest of the album, even the high points, are bland compared to the high points of s/t and abacab. We Can't Dance is a better album.

I agree that 'Mama' is better than anything on Invisible Touch and, uh... no, that covers all the high points of those two records, thinking about it.

It's crazy that You Might Recall didn't make the album. It should have been a hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsV-1FDLTW0

all of the abacab b-sides are great

I love Abacab but the 3 Sides Live version of the title track is, for me, more exciting than the studio version. It does more, as much as I love the studio version's Kraut-y blankness.

everything on s/t is better than everything in invisible touch, except for 'illegal alien'.

i had forgotten about the bridge to "no reply at all", so great

everything on s/t is better than everything in invisible touch, except for 'illegal alien'.

― akm, Monday, July 17, 2017 7:40 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nope!

...let an opinion of taste reside. akm is not wrong, you just don't agree with his viewpoint. This is yet another reason why debates on music can be so divisive; entrenchment and the inability to keep more than one idea in your head at the same time.

I also enjoy s/t far more than IT, and your "Nope" does nothing to add to the conversation.

Neither does rockism and juvenile namecalling, tbf.

i had forgotten about the bridge to "no reply at all", so great

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, July 17, 2017 7:47 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's a great moment - but the track sticks out like a sore thumb on what apparently is meant to be a "new wave" record, and it could do without the horns. Strangely, it sounds more like something that would fit snugly on a Phil Collins solo record than anything on Invisible Touch as a result.

if you wiped the piano track

everything on s/t is better than everything in invisible touch, except for 'illegal alien'.

― akm

Agree with this. I'd put an instrumental version Illegal Alien above everything on Invisible Touch too.

'Mama' is the only track on Genesis that's Invisible Touch levels of quality.

^^^ he has a built-in ability to endlessly disagree

Well, it's true. 'Mama' is incredible - the vocal, the atmosphere, the way the acoustic drums pound against the thudding electronic percussion and Collins' demon laugh. It's superb.

However, the rest of the record pales in comparison. 'That's All' is far lighter, breezier, poppier and has less bollocks than anything on Invisible Touch ... even 'In Too Deep' has more weight. The 'Home by the Sea'/'Second Home by the Sea' medley gets some points for attempting to retain the prog, but then gets all points revoked by not being very engaging - this is something that couldn't be possibly levelled at, say, 'Domino' ... 'Illegal Alien' is a complete embarrassment, 'Just a Job to Do' is a woeful attempt at funk, and 'Taking It All Too Hard' as a ballad is nowhere near as good or as memorable as 'Throwing It All Away' or 'In Too Deep' ... 'Silver Rainbow' could have been decent, but it's let down by its corny chorus, and I can't remember anything about 'It's Gonna Get Better' aside from that it reminded me of The Style Council circa The Cost of Loving, which is not a good thing at all.

..so pertinent to discuss records that this thread is not about... more irrelevance from your hand.. Turd police, signing out.

^ This guy is 49 years old. Apparently.

but then gets all points revoked

does it get to earn them back? how long will that take, I am concerned about this record not having sufficient pointage when all is said and done

man I love dodo/lurker

Meanwhile lurking by a stone in the mud
Two eyes looked to see what I was and
Then something spoke and this is what
It said to me.......

first few bars of dodo start off like something off king crimson's red. and then it turns into this odd skank prog bologna

wondering if any dance records have looped the goofy lurker riff

if not why not

not really thought aboput this before but elements of dodo sound a lot like the police's behind my camel which obv came out on zenyatta mondatta one year earlier

Omg at "skank prog bologna"

Green would approve, though probably not of Genesis.

thank u nickb for "skank prog bologna"

does it get to earn them back? how long will that take, I am concerned about this record not having sufficient pointage when all is said and done

― Hadrian VIII, Tuesday, July 18, 2017 5:06 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It does, but it never does.

I don't know. even the prog attempts on IT strike me as hollow and unengaging. There are bits of Domino that are interesting, and the Brazillian, but they seem very rote to me, and there is no heart in them. The songs sound thin, sonically, and compositionally: they don't sound like they spent very much time writing them. Maybe it's just because I spent more time with s/t than that album since s/t I got when it was released; but the pop songs on there are fantastic, interesting, engaging; and In Too Deep just sounds like easy listening pap to me.

Collins' singing is full of heart on 'Domino'!

akm otm

Well, I couldn't possibly agree with Invisible Touch being hollow and unengaging - absolutely not. If anything, it's an inviting and relatable record that's easy to connect with as the songs deal woith real human emotions, rather than fall back on wacky fantasy nonsense. The songs don't sound "thin" at all, rather they've pruned away anything that doesn't need to be there - all meat, no fat.

This is another failure of Abacab: it's meant to be a more urgent, stark, direct record, but the epics on here are anything but, and thus ultimately tedious. Invisible Touch doesn't have this problem.

this thread is forcing me to look deep inside and reexamine some longstanding core principles

Phil Collins would have made a great guest on The Muppet Show.

the songs deal woith real human emotions, rather than fall back on wacky fantasy nonsense

i already regret engaging but, which songs on abacab do this beyond "dodo"

The title track.

I want to see Phil drum battle against Animal.

The title track.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:40 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i must not be reading it right

^^^ he has a built-in ability to endlessly disagree

― Tim F, Monday, July 17, 2017 8:12 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is hilarious btw tim

Well, maybe just the heartbreaking second half of the title track.

"Phil Collins would have made a great guest on The Muppet Show."

well his spitting image puppet would have made a great guest on the muppet show, then we could have had a puppet-off

Phil sighting at 1:05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCOuLZmt1c

Has anyone watched the Phil Collins This Is Your Life? I just skipped to the Genesis section as it seems like the worst show in the history of television.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPn2FQpWz0k

I've seen the Mike Rutherford one. I don't think Jonathan King makes an appearance as I believe it arrived during his Proto-Yewtree period

man I'm sorry but I just tried to listen to Anything She Does and that song is just straight up garbage.

Excellent song. Great chorus.

benny hill in the video iirc

song couldve used some yakety sax to liven it up a bit imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdyEiZG9fdQ

this thread is forcing me to look deep inside and reexamine some longstanding core principles

― Hadrian VIII, Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:22 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Phil Collins would have made a great guest on The Muppet Show.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:30 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

great 1-2 punch

i had forgotten about the bridge to "no reply at all", so great

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, July 17, 2017 3:47 PM (four years ago)

it really is

Lmao at Turrican relentlessly hating on this album upthread. For me it's so obviously the best Collins-era album and it's not even close (I'd still go with Gabriel era if I had to choose, but only The Lamb and Foxtrot are better than Abacab imo).

Also perfect aesthetic synergy of musical content + album art (specifically the version with the primary colors + gray, but the different color variations on the initial pressing was a cool idea)

Yeah this album is incredible. And it's probably my second favourite Genesis album overall after SEBTP and "Keep It Dark" favourite Genesis song overall :)

"Who Dunnit" joins "Temporary Secretary" and "Mother" in the trifecta of famously very divisive tracks on early 80s UK number one albums by major acts that RYM refers to as 'zolo' and for which fanclubs might as well exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R6qu62xekE

ABACAB RULES
Is how I break it down to an extent

^^^

would vote for “like it or not” now

Fishy got problems