abacab

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.

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