This is the POLL We Live In: Genesis - Invisible Touch

well, We Can't Dance technically broke the streak but that still sold 4 million or something

I think the record stood until CAS in England.

Ed Goodgold on dullness (from the Genesis Archive booklet):

I told them that it was my practice to hire detectives to follow all the musicians that I managed while they were on tour and that I had just received the report from the agency. I took an envelope out of my pocket and started reading the report: 'Of the five detectives originally assigned to follow the members of Genesis on their inaugural tour of the States, four have died of boredom. The fifth...the fifth is in a coma.'

I like Tony Banks. He comes across earnest, straightforward, and mostly just interested in talking about the music.

Sounds a bit like Rush. In that (great) doc, the band talks about how on their stint opening for Kiss, the Kiss guys would be going nuts, while the Rush guys would be reading. Kiss could not compute.

For those who have not seen this classic 1972 clip, it's got Tony playing guitar. And Peter playing flute.

man the 2007 remaster of this is TERRIBLE, just A/B'd it with the original and i can tell even on spotify

2007 remaster shat all over Trick of the Tail, too.

Pretty sure 2007 Genesis remasters were actually reMIXES. Big difference.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-234428.html

fuck, this album is the bald Thriller
― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:33 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this might be my favorite thing ever written on ILM
Serious thank yous

:)

The title track, which is the only thing I can stomach off this thing. Post-Hackett Genesis ain't really my bag.

but these are the hands we're givein

fuck, this album is the bald Thriller

― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 2:33 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As well as being an epic meditation on intangibility? Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear the nuance of every instrument.

Pretty sure 2007 Genesis remasters were actually reMIXES. Big difference.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 18, 2012 5:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah okay that makes sense because some stuff was way different (and way worse)

I agree that the 2007 re-releases didn't always get it right, but I thought Trick Of The Tail sounded great.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I wrote a long screed about a year or two ago about how "Tonight Tonight Tonight" (and to a lesser extent the album generally) had a massive emotional impact on c. 5 year old me. I can't really be objective in this poll.

can you link to the screed?

Defend the Indefensible: Genesis' "Invisible Touch"

The album cover completely mystified me until recently, but one of my possible interpretations of the image within the square was a penis head with cartoon eyes drawn on it with the shadow of a broken gun.

Fantastic post, Tim.

Wow. That's the best and most otm post on all ilx.

I read that before because it sent me on a Spotify question for this:

the gentle but widescreen mysticism of the extended mix of the Commodores' "Night Shift".

And agree, great post.

er, quest, not question

re: Tim's post and "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight", isn't that song specifically about an addict? Which makes its use in this Michelob commercial even more twisted/wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV9u0zv3g9k

also I should not have started playing this album because I now am second-guessing my vote

both TTT and LoC are fucking monstrous

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

Whoah, shocker.

yeah didn't really see that coming

It has a built-in ability!

The Brazilian over In Too Deep! Wow.

As it should be!

"Domino" driving down a deserted Turnpike on an early Sunday afternoon.

If I'd been around for this poll, I'd have voted for "The Brazilian", but it really is a fantastic, underrated album as a whole.

bald Thriller, y'all

― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 10:21 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

used to love The Brazilian. am i mis-remembering or was it used in When The Wind Blows?

Yeah, that's right; think it was playing on their radio or something.

Looked at results, said to myself, "I hope I was the one person who voted for The Brazilian," don't think I was, though

"fuck, this album is the bald thriller" never fails

My guitar teacher and I were going through the solo for "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and we came to conclusion that not only is Tears For Fears one of the few acts clearly influenced by '80s Genesis, but the guitar solo may be the only influence of something non-Genesis played in a "Mike Rutherford style."

Mike Rutherford: another candidate for least hard working man in in rock. Phil and Tony doin' the heavy lifting here.

Everybody Wants To Rule The World always sounded like an upbeat version of Albatross to me.

Albatross a la '80s Genesis.

well, there's two solos in EWTRTW, one of which is played by Orzabal.

What degree of overlap was there between fans of Genesis and fans of Phil's solo work? Did the latter buy Invisible Touch or were they generally two separate camps? What I'm trying to ask is, did Collins' solo popularity boost Genesis' sales or was it "hey, this song by this Genesis group on the radio is pretty good!"

each Genesis album going back to Gabriel's tenure outsold its predecessor, but, yeah, I don't doubt Invisible Touch sold a few million coming a year after No Jacket Required.

Worth remembering that Collins in various contexts was pretty ubiquitous from 1980 to 1987 or so. It was a constant momentum, because he was never gone. Genesis was already playing arenas in the late '70s, I think, and that's before they had any real hits. And then came the vari-lites.

being a former prog-Genesis fan when this came out were some hard shoes to walk in, I know y'all on this thread are fans of the record and that's cool but on the reactionary prog side it was like "fuck...was the suck always there or did they just start sucking any follow the suck train to moneyland?" I was already off prog by then so it was at some degree of remove but it was still "wow that band I used to love is terrible now"

I seem to recall the Xgau review noting how it best makes use of Banks' synths, more so than the self-titled, which is a much weaker record than this one. This is the album where they go pop, but confidently so, and as I'm wont to invoke when defending '80s Genesis, the group had without question paid its dues and was already massively successful, so it's hard to come down on this album as a shameless sell-out move. They'd been moving in this direction for years, and it should have surprised no one.

I'd like to recount my funny observation of seeing the group's 2007 reunion tour, that all the women seemed to leave for the beer line when the set turned prog, and all the guys seemed to leave when it went pop. But by and large, most people stayed. I've always been impressed, from live records and seeing the group live, how well the band balanced its epics with its pop stuff, sometimes breaking the epics down to their poppiest bits and then playing them as medleys. In 2007 they played proto ballads like "Ripples" and "Afterglow," which had no problem fitting in with "Hold On My Heart."

What degree of overlap was there between fans of Genesis and fans of Phil's solo work? Did the latter buy Invisible Touch or were they generally two separate camps?

In 1983 I was a big fan of Collins-era Genesis (basically Duke through and including IT but especially Abacab) but did not care about a) Gabriel-led Genesis or b) Collins solo. I mean, I probably liked both more than I disliked them but not enough to own any records by either.

the self-titled, which is a much weaker record than this one.

Utter wrongness, the s/t is their great pop record!

compare "Follow You Follow Me."

I am willing to come out and say that "Throwing" is probably a better song. More nuanced in both lyric and in delivery.

― you had better come correct (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, November 26, 2017 3:07 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh absolutely! They'd truly mastered the art of the concise ballad by the time of Invisible Touch.

YOU KEEP TELLING ME I'VE GOT EVERYTHING!
YOU-SAY-I'VE-GOT EEEEEEVERYYYYTHIIIIING IIIII WAAAANT!

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/6Gg6GtPg7U4UELscme8yjY/33cc5a70-c559-4785-8069-cd939c0abd85.jpg/r0_52_2528_1458_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

“ it's without doubt their second best album of the '80s.”

Whatttt? It’s maybe the fourth, after Abacab, Duke, and S/T....and I’m not sure it edges out We Can’t Dance either...

I remember a school summer holiday when I played this album to death in rotation with Selling England By The Pound and IQ's Nomzamo (and I was still the coolest kid in my street!). I would've voted for Tonight Tonight Tonight. The ferocious release of the "You keep tellin' me I got everything" vocal after the super-tensile instrumental passage still resonates with me and is as raging as any Black Flag.

Absolutely! I've read some folks say "oh, the instrumental section on 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' is so dull" because they're not going full-on like they did in the '70s, but it's meant to be this long, slow build that climaxes in that part. As you say, a ferocious release.

I'd rank the '80s albums Duke > Invisible Touch > Genesis > Abacab at this point. While the latter two have their high points ('Home by the Sea'/'Second Home by the Sea', 'Dodo/Lurker', 'Mama'), they've also got tracks like 'Illegal Alien', 'Another Record', 'Who Dunnit?' etc. which aren't really all that great. Invisible Touch has absolutely no filler on it.

Aw, I love Another Record...

^ yeah, you can't mention "Another Record" in the same list with those other two.

round and round and round and a-round it go, uhhhh, see me smile

some talk on another thread reminded me that I actually used to love the song Illegal Alien as a kid, not only because it was super catchy but because I had assumed the lyrics were about space aliens that crashed to Earth and that for some reason they had been outlawed. I dunno, like half the video games I played on my PC had a plot like that. anyway, I'll still defend the music at least.