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

Irony is there is some great stuff on that last Genesis album.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBz6nXgef9Q

That album came out as this fifteen year old Genesis obsessive was discovering Nirvana and grunge and everything that came with it and also hip hop. I still have some affection for the chorus to No Son Of Mine, but I remember little else and what I do remember I hatehatehate

Collins/Genesis holds a lot of nostalgic cache that stops me being objective about them and their place in the world. 'Land of Confusion' has a more memorable and satisfying hook than Invisible Touch, which simply doesn't do it for me. My partner and I have been jamming 'Jesus He Knows Me' a fair bit lately.

Not enough early epics, I know.

Not enough Paperlate.

fuck, this album is the bald Thriller

― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Tuesday, July 17, 2012 7:33 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

shitty poll results; somehow, expected.

"Land of Confusion" will always be the best Genesis single.

This album is fucking perfection.

There's a lot on this album that I love. Domino is awesome (part 1 would probably have gotten my vote, but I'd have felt bad about not voting for part 2 as well). Title track, Tonight Tonight Tonight, Land of Confusion and Throwing It All Away - all excellent singles. Brazilian is cool.

The remaining two songs (both of which got zero votes) bring it all down a little for me. In Too Deep borders the slimy sappy ballads I'd expect from an outfit like 3T (you know, Michael Jackson's nephews). Anything She Does has good parts, but I can't stand the horns and bass instrumental bits.

Still, I find the album's mostly pretty great.

The correct two songs got shut out.

Pretty sure I told this story before, but I was in some NYC shop one day and "Throwing It All Away" came on, and I saw not one, not two, but three people independently humming or singing along with it.

That song is great, the midlife boomer ballad in excess

I don't care what people say about late Phil Collins-era Genesis, a lot of bands would kill to write a song as good as 'Throwing It All Away' - also 'Invisible Touch' is as perfect a slice of '80s pop as you can get.

"Throwing It All Away" is also one of his most unlikely awesome Bonham grooves. When the drums come in, it's just this really swinging kind of stomp.

Collins sounds nothing like Bonham.

Even at his most aggressive on the kit, and even with the high reverb/noise gate processing, Collins had a far lighter, even jazzier touch on the kit than Bonham.

No one sounds more like Bonham than Bonham, and obviously Phil is fancier. But dude, "Squonk" (for example) is as Bonham-y as it gets. It's not a coincidence that Plant went for Collins.

I don't hear Bonham much on Squonk, but mores in Dodo

Yeah, maybe "Dodo," too. I'm thinking specifically of certain Bonham grooves, songs like "The Ocean" and "Kashmir" (and to a similar extent "When the Levee Breaks") where he's able to convey this heaviness without deviating much from pretty simple, straightforward beats. It's surprising how few drummers can pull this off. Or I should say, it's impressive how well a drummer as typically busy as Collins can pull it off.

I don't think Collins sounds like Bonham on 'Squonk' either... again, much lighter.

I don't think it comes across that way either, but a Bonham style is what he was going for. They've said that Squonk was their attempt to sound like Kashmir and When the Levee Breaks.

Had no idea. It's not just me, it's the band!

Phil says so here:

https://youtu.be/8zee0uGa_sE?t=8m35s

Ha, and of course followed immediately by Banks saying, yeah, Squonk is good, but I really like Mad Mad Moon, which of course I wrote all by myself.

I've always thought a key to Collins, especially in the late '70s, was Weather Report's "Black Market," which of course features Chester Thompson on drums. Though it's Narada Michael Walden on the loosely "Trick of the Tail"-y (and definitely precursor to Brand X) title track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7_vNpVXubA

Collins may well have been striving to sound like Bonham, like many drummers - but he doesn't, like many drummers!

I think what undercuts the legacy of this album more than anything is the general goofiness/dorkiness of the band around this time: Phil's stage presence, his haircut, those spitting image puppets.
i loved this album as a 16-year-old (and this thread is definitely going to make me revisit it), but I had always assumed that the only reason I loved it was that I hadn't developed any critical facilities yet. Compared to the gravitas of the Gabriel era, and even the prog-collins era, this stuff just scans as more throwaway.

xpost:

The whole world of music is full of examples of musicians striving to write or play like someone else and either getting it wrong and coming up with something different or being unable to replicate what they were going for and ending up with something else.

striving to sound like Bonham, like many drummers - but he doesn't, like many drummers

We drummers refer to it as "Bonhommage."

had always assumed that the only reason I loved it was that I hadn't developed any critical facilities yet. Compared to the gravitas of the Gabriel era, and even the prog-collins era, this stuff just scans as more throwaway.

fun >>> gravitas

Lord Alfred OTM

I think what undercuts the legacy of this album more than anything is the general goofiness/dorkiness of the band around this time: Phil's stage presence, his haircut, those spitting image puppets.

I definitely agree with this - particularly the haircut!

i loved this album as a 16-year-old (and this thread is definitely going to make me revisit it), but I had always assumed that the only reason I loved it was that I hadn't developed any critical facilities yet. Compared to the gravitas of the Gabriel era, and even the prog-collins era, this stuff just scans as more throwaway.

I disagree with this, obviously because I - first and foremost - think it's a great album, but also because while there's some stunning highlights on those Gabriel-era Genesis records, there's also plenty of it that's quite silly. People also talk about this era of Genesis thinking that it's easy to just suddenly start writing pop smashes - of course it isn't, and if it was Genesis would have done it sooner.

a band whose singer wore scarlet dresses and a fox head had gravitas?

I'm not picking on you, enochroot!

Like, 'The Battle of Epping Forest' is far more complex and lengthier than 'Invisible Touch', but one is more successful at what it does than the other and it ain't the former.

Until So and particularly the Sledgehammer video, Gabriel seemed a remote, menacing figure. The dress and fox head read as disturbing (and maybe disturbed) in its day. Phil was never convincing in that mode.

I liked this record fine - had it on cassette when I was perhaps 15. I don't think I liked it as much as Abacab, Face Value, or No Jacket Required (all of which I loved then and still admire).

To be sure, we were aware that there was more pop sheen than classic-rock groinal oomph. Around that time, my friends and I were starting to get into Zeppelin and Floyd and such, so we were shying away from pop radio. But Genesis were grandfathered in, so to speak, and so it was okay to like Invisible Touch. Also So and Graceland, for similar reasons.

I think I saw Throwing it All Away as Follow You Follow Me part 2.

I think the videos to 'In The Air Tonight' and 'Mama' are quite successful in conveying the more menacing side of Phil. On the whole, though, Phil seemed more content to be himself rather than go for a stage persona.

dinnerboat, maybe - to a tweenaged FM audience, Shock the Monkey and Games Without Frontiers did seem a bit offputtingly weird amid the pop of the day. But Gabriel was known to have a cuddly side too, cf. Solsbury Hill and Biko.

Did I Have the Touch chart? I only heard it later.

As for "classic-rock groinal oomph", even in the Gabriel-era they were hardly the hardest rocking band around. Sure, they could do it, but I wish they'd done it more.

Right, Turrican, I wasn't speaking of comparing them to their prior selves, but rather to other 1970s acts still active at that time. Petty, the Who.

Ah, gotcha!

xp Gabriel toured with death's head makeup (cf the first live album cover), then with a shaved his head at a time when skinheads were a thing. I think he liked scaring his audience early on, though it seems he came to see it as an insincere pose that So was meant to correct. Also, smh if Biko is your cuddly side.

...Oh and Springsteen too (re: bringing the groinal oomph).

DC had a classic rock station around this time that captured a lot of teenaged boys' ears, even if it was actually aimed at their older brothers or cool uncles (or even, gasp, their DADS). One could groove on Bad Company or Yes or whatever, and feel superior to those lame-os who were still stuck to the pop station with its Debbie Gibson and Menudo. Anyway they made a great show of bringing out "the latest from..." to show that those hoary old classic rock doodz could still Bring It.

The youngsters will never know how dynamically different 1984 seemed from 1987, and 1986 from 1990. But these differneces smooth out in retrospect.

difference between 1984 and 1987 was absolutely massive especially in terms of the tone colors and rhythms which dominated the charts, i would think it's still pretty obvious today to a youngster with a sharp ear

OK, i just re-listened to the album for the first time in about 25 years (this was probably my favorite album in 1987, btw):
- ok, fine: it holds up surprisingly well. i'll have to go dig out my tour shirt.
- agreed on "Throwing It All Away" being their best single
- why not more love for The Brazilian? I remember that being a highlight of their live show around this time.

Re: gravitas: Gabriel was creepy even in a giant flower costume. Phil Collins defaulted to hammy, which probably helped widen their audience, but not necessarily their credibility as serious musicians.

In Too Deep is heavily featured in Neil Jordan's excellent Mona Lisa. it depicts a truly bloody vile depths-of-the-Thatcher-era London and the use of the song is pretty much the only respite from the gloom and the horror.

That's right! Wasn't the film releaesed in the UK in late spring '86? That would've made "In Too Deep" the first exposed track.

June 86 aye. i'm no Genesis expert but i thought i recalled it being written for the film then added to the album which was the style at the time (Kate Bush writing This Woman's Work for She's Having A Baby etc..)