Rank the albums!

  • Sides 3 and 4, while still very good, weaken the totality of the album a little.

    For me Side 3 ranks as one of the best sequences of songs they ever did, along with the side 1s of SEBTP and Shapes. Practically every kind of Genesis texture and dynamic is in there.

    Abandon all reason

  • For me Side 3 ranks as one of the best sequences of songs they ever did, along with the side 1s of SEBTP and Shapes. Practically every kind of Genesis texture and dynamic is in there.

    I'm halfway between your take and Liquid Len's. Sides 1&2 are amazing. I like a lot about 3, particularly Anyway and Lamia, but also Lily-white Lilith. For me, it runs out of gas at Silent Sorrow. Was never gone on Slippermen, and it just seems to lose some of the energy and creativity after that. Is there any truth that Silent Sorrow was an interlude to facilitate costume changes?


    Anyway the material from Silent Sorrow onward is what drops the album down a little for me. It's still great, and the effect is not as dramatic as the effect BoEF has on SEBTP.

  • 1 Trick of the Tail

    2 The Lamb

    3 Selling England

    4 Foxtrot

    5 Duke

    6 Wind & Wuthering

    7 And Then There Were 3

    8 Nursery Cryme

    9 Trespass

    10 Genesis

    11 Abacab

    12 Invisible Touch

    13 Calling All Stations

    14 We Can't Dance

    15 From Genesis to Revelation

  • I'm halfway between your take and Liquid Len's. Sides 1&2 are amazing. I like a lot about 3, particularly Anyway and Lamia, but also Lily-white Lilith. For me, it runs out of gas at Silent Sorrow. Was never gone on Slippermen, and it just seems to lose some of the energy and creativity after that. Is there any truth that Silent Sorrow was an interlude to facilitate costume changes?


    Anyway the material from Silent Sorrow onward is what drops the album down a little for me. It's still great, and the effect is not as dramatic as the effect BoEF has on SEBTP.

    I always wondered if Silent Sorrow was a product of the "Enosiffication" mentioned in the liner notes until Tony Banks shot down that notion in an interview several years ago. I may be in the minority in that I find sides 3 and 4 of the Lamb to be just about as interesting and enjoyable as sides 1 and 2 (except for The Waiting Room, which I admit I only really "got" way back in the day when I occasionally ingested certain substances that caused the walls to shift and change colors). Lily White Lilith, Anyway, The Lamia, The Colony, The Light, Riding the Scree and In the Rapids are all favorites of mine.

  • I always wondered if Silent Sorrow was a product of the "Enosiffication" mentioned in the liner notes until Tony Banks shot down that notion in an interview several years ago. I may be in the minority in that I find sides 3 and 4 of the Lamb to be just about as interesting and enjoyable as sides 1 and 2 (except for The Waiting Room, which I admit I only really "got" way back in the day when I occasionally ingested certain substances that caused the walls to shift and change colors). Lily White Lilith, Anyway, The Lamia, The Colony, The Light, Riding the Scree and In the Rapids are all favorites of mine.

    My understanding is that the vocals on Grand Parade were Enossified but that's no doubt what you're referring to.


    I'm with you on sides 3 and 4 apart from your reversal on TWR, a track I've always loved and without any kind of chemical assistance. It, and especially its various live renditions, are the sort of thing that even as a nutjob fan I yearned for them to do more of, taking things off-piste in the most un-Genesis-y way. I absolutely love this band but have always felt frustrated that while they showed on the Lamb tour, with that track, they could (by their standards) break free and run a little wild, they didn't do it more often. I'm not saying I wanted them to do Jazz Odyssey every night but at least cut loose more than that track on that tour. But I love the album version.


    I'm sure he won't mind me tagging him in - I know foxfeeder shares my love of side 3 and in fact for me, it's the most perfect side of sequencing they ever did apart from side 1 of SEBTP. It's like every kind of Genesis texture and dynamic is all there in those 6 tracks. I always think it's a shame people, more so the band themselves, are quite down on those 2 sides as I think it's some of their very best work by some distance

    Abandon all reason

  • My understanding is that the vocals on Grand Parade were Enossified but that's no doubt what you're referring to.


    I'm with you on sides 3 and 4 apart from your reversal on TWR, a track I've always loved and without any kind of chemical assistance. It, and especially its various live renditions, are the sort of thing that even as a nutjob fan I yearned for them to do more of, taking things off-piste in the most un-Genesis-y way. I absolutely love this band but have always felt frustrated that while they showed on the Lamb tour, with that track, they could (by their standards) break free and run a little wild, they didn't do it more often. I'm not saying I wanted them to do Jazz Odyssey every night but at least cut loose more than that track on that tour. But I love the album version.


    I'm sure he won't mind me tagging him in - I know foxfeeder shares my love of side 3 and in fact for me, it's the most perfect side of sequencing they ever did apart from side 1 of SEBTP. It's like every kind of Genesis texture and dynamic is all there in those 6 tracks. I always think it's a shame people, more so the band themselves, are quite down on those 2 sides as I think it's some of their very best work by some distance

    S'true!

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • Re: the Lamb, I love side 3 and the various dynamics on it. The lamia is masterful. I still think it just loses its way a bit on side 4, I'm not gone on Slippermen and similar to BOEF on selling england, if you have a big long track that doesn't do it for you it kind of weighs everything else down. I do like the light lies down, in the rapids and it though.

  • 1) Wind and Wuthering

    2) A Trick of the Tail

    3) Selling England

    4) Duke

    5) And Then They Were Three

    6) The Lamb

    7) Nursery Cryme

    8 )Trespass

    9) Foxtrot


    These first nine albums are ranked, but you should not pay too much attention to the numbers, since they are all Number 1 to me, especially from 1 to 7.


    10) Genesis

    11) Invisible Touch

    12) We Can't Dance

    13) Abacab

    14) Calling All Stations


    I find these last five albums to be very good, and there are superb songs that I like very much. I just find them less consistent than the others.


    The album that suffers the most from that is We Can't Dance : superb songs (Driving the Last Spike, Driving While You Sleep, Living Forever - that one is surprising ! , Fading Lights), really good songs (No Son of Mine, Jesus He Knows Me, I Can't Dance, Way of the World - I like the feel of that one), and the rest is... good but forgettable (Tell Me Why, Since I Lost You, Hold On My Heart, Never a Time - remember that one ?)

    Its main problem I think is the "CD syndrome". CD was now the main playback media, and since it could contain a lot more than the regular 45 minutes of an LP, it's like they felt obliged to fill it up entirely. Dangerous from Michael Jackson, released the same year, has the same problem (to me) : much too long.

  • I'm with you on sides 3 and 4 apart from your reversal on TWR, a track I've always loved and without any kind of chemical assistance. It, and especially its various live renditions, are the sort of thing that even as a nutjob fan I yearned for them to do more of, taking things off-piste in the most un-Genesis-y way. I absolutely love this band but have always felt frustrated that while they showed on the Lamb tour, with that track, they could (by their standards) break free and run a little wild, they didn't do it more often. I'm not saying I wanted them to do Jazz Odyssey every night but at least cut loose more than that track on that tour. But I love the album version.

    I hear ya on the "cutting loose" (or the lack thereof). I really enjoy the version of The Lamb that was performed on the Encore Tour in 1982 precisely because it feels like the band really took chances and pushed the envelope with the jazzy intro and outro. The outro didn't always work (IMHO it was a disaster at the show at The Marquee in '82, which I assume is why they cut the outro jam short and and transitioned into Watcher much sooner than at other shows on that tour), but when it did work it was joyous and magical.