abacab

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