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

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..)

'Invisible Touch' was the first single - May '86.

Although it's worth pointing out that while Invisible Touch was indeed the "bald Thriller" in the US, in the UK none of the singles were as successful as you'd think.

why not more love for The Brazilian? I remember that being a highlight of their live show around this time.

I love it! Particularly the percussion...

BLOOD ON THE WINDOWS!
MILLIONS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE THERE!

http://i1.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/article7098556.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/Phil-Collins.jpg

Coming out the woodwork, through the open door
Pushing from above and below
Shadows without substance, in the shape of men
Round and down and sideways they go
Adrift without direction, eyes that hold despair

http://www.paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disney_tarzan_jane_hands-680x383.jpg?74f3cb

Best track on this record: all of them.

What makes this record an incredible achievement is that is not just superior to everything else that Genesis put out from 1981 onwards, but in terms of quality and songwriting it knocks Phil Collins' solo work into a cocked hat, too. It's a real diamond in the rough.

IT is so blatantly commercial -- bully for them -- making a record with sales up the wazoo, videos on constant MTV rotation, entering the cultural confab; none too bad for some old white prog guys. The band changed their trajectory in a radical fashion even if this was the direction they were already heading. All these tracks sound far more dated than those from albums a decade earlier.

It took them years to write a perfect pop song. Their first attempt was 'I Know What I Like', and they got close with 'Follow You Follow Me', 'Turn It On Again' and 'That's All' ... but this album is where they finally nailed it, particularly on the title track, and they did it while keeping their inherent progginess intact. It was still prog in places, just a different kind of prog.

I agree that the album sounds like it was released in 1986, but that's to be expected given that it was. Dated is not a pejorative.

Duke does not sound like it was made in 1980, nor does Trespass sound like 1970 -- IT was of it's time; fine hits, but in the end, derivative. Take your classic rock-whatever, Moving Pictures, Women and Children First, Tres Hombres... as fresh today as ever. IT is in a box, and, a small one; especially when compared to the rest of their catalog. Why do so many equate an album's quality with the number of hits it has? ....a foolhardy pursuit.

Those albums also sound like they were released in the year in which they were released.

I disagree that Invisible Touch is derivative, particularly since the average pop artist of 1986 wasn't putting out tracks like 'Domino' or the full version of 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' ...

You seem to be under the impression that writing pop hits is an easy thing to do. It isn't.

pop hits are mostly either by design or by chance; in this case, having a pop-derived disposition lessened the impact of a once powerful group of uncompromising artisans -- starting to chase tails here, but Peter also went down the same rabbit-hole with Sledgehammer, et al (but could Collins have ever even conceived of anything as brilliant as the Passion OMPS? Apples and Oranges, Turd.

Dream Theatre used to say writing a good pop song was mind blowing to them because the shit they wrote was so freeform in comparison.

But they suck so...

xpost:

I'd say that as a pop song, 'Invisible Touch' has a lot of impact - as a tune, it's truly uplifting and joyous and the lyric is a theme that anyone over a certain age can relate to. The album as a whole certainly had enough "impact" to speak to a great number of people. Seems to me that you're irked that 10 minute epics about dungeons and dragons weren't speaking to a great number of people in 1986, including the band themselves. The bands melodic sense and desire to do something different remained intact, even if it didn't always work - see: the two LP's prior to Invisible Touch.

I've mentioned before that I don't reall like Phil's solo stuff, so I don't see what that has to do with anything, as well as Gabriel vs. Collins talk when Banks and Rutherford were the ones running the show.

I think we've established at this stage that bodacious ignoramus is a rockist prone to throwing juvenile hissy fits when his belief system is called into question, though.

troll-bait

Well I've been waiting, waiting here so long
But thinking nothing, nothing could go wrong, but now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her.

I don't really know her, I only know her name
But she crawls under your skin, you're never quite the same, and now I know
She's got something you just can't trust
It's something mysterious
And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her.

She don't like losing, to her it's still a game
Though she'll mess up your life, you'll want her just the same, now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I've fallen, fallen for her.

She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.

Rinse and repeat.

...i'm beside myself with the lyrical depth --- the two albums previous to IT have tracks are that are far more inventive than anything on IT... dungeons and dragons notwithstanding.

xpost:

Well, at least you're admitting it.

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to. If you can't, then fair enough, but I guess that says a lot. If you're relying on wacky stories about hypersexual Victorian ghosts, the human race being turned into a bunch of short-arses, or a bird stealing some guys dick to make you feel like the deep intellectual you think you are, but aren't, then also fair enough.

exhausted and bored -- meld to your flaccid 2112-version of the future; wait for me there.

...and you can buy the beers!

*cranks up Invisible Touch*

off topic, but cranks......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_duQibI3Nvo

I can't keep up with all these threads tbh

This is the one where people are arguing about Genesis. HTH

In the beginning ...

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to.

tf is this self parody

Nope, just the truth.

Trollo, Lurker.

sadness, and i'm 49 - turd must be 109

I rest my case.

you won't; guaranteed.

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to.

tf is this self parody

I was thinking more Patrick Bateman parody

*QI klaxon*

Well, I don't think Invisible Touch is their undisputed masterpiece (and I hate 'Sussudio' with a passion, for that matter) ... but it's without doubt their second best album of the '80s.

'Throwing It All Away' just came up on shuffle and I was just struck once more by how much of a beautifully sung and beautifully written song it is. I had to listen to the rest of Invisible Touch immediately.

It is like the perfect midlife boomer ballad. That gently billowing guitar line is lovely.