abacab

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.

"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