Steve Hackett's 4th solo album DEFECTOR was released 40 years ago today
Our review: https://www.genesis-news.com/c…or-album-review-s386.html
And your opinion?
STEVE HACKETT - Defector - released 40 years ago
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My least favorite of his initial "classic four", and yet I still like it quite a bit.
"The Steppes" is one of his very best song - hands down. I like "Slogans" and "The Show" too.
I'd be quite up for SH's next tour featuring some songs from it (whenever that will be).
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Despite its being ludicrously short I Iike it a lot. I don't think I dislike any of it. I'm not keen on the 1st two albums but for me, he hit a rich vein with Spectral and this.
I agree about The Steppes. It might be my favourite SH track, it has a bleak dark feel yet is also melodic in a way that's bright yet austere, a great combination. When I saw my first SH gig in July 1980 this was the standout track, the deep rumbling bass pedals shaking my bones and seemingly every fibre of Hammersmith Odeon.
It's also an important album for me in the same way Duke and PG3 are. I was a 14yo Genesis fan and in the space of about 3 months got great new albums from all 3 of the above and saw them all on stage for the 1st time. So, like those other 2 albums and the gigs Defector represents a very buoyant time in my Genesis fandom.
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I picked up a second hand copy of this on vinyl back in the early nineties. I think The Steppes is fantastic and The Show is a great pop tune. Can't recall much else about it, though.
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I must say - I have my problems with this album. The Show might be the low point and The Steppes the absolute favorite. But in between, there's not much to discuss.
I also do prefer his later albums, from Guitar Noir onwards.
Personally I do love Hammer in the Sand and Jacuzzi.
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Personally I do love...Jacuzzi.
Ah, forgot about that one! Yes, Jacuzzi is great.
I see not everyone's a lover of The Show. I find that bewildering; it's one of the few times Hackett seems to have stepped out of the box, as it were, and darn it, he actually proved he was rather good at it. I suppose it must be hard to do pop songs when the ardent proggers won't let you, though.
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I love The Show - one of his best. I really like the whole album. If you are going to leave one of the best bands on the planet, make it count- and he did with the first four albums, albeit with Defector being too short and a little weaker, in my opinion. Great track, excellent album.
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I love The Show - one of his best.
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Ah, forgot about that one! Yes, Jacuzzi is great.
I see not everyone's a lover of The Show. I find that bewildering; it's one of the few times Hackett seems to have stepped out of the box, as it were, and darn it, he actually proved he was rather good at it. I suppose it must be hard to do pop songs when the ardent proggers won't let you, though.
problem is that The Show is really a bad production. Probably a different producer and more time in the studio would have made that a good track.
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problem is that The Show is really a bad production. Probably a different producer and more time in the studio would have made that a good track.
Really bad? You really think it's THAT bad?
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problem is that The Show is really a bad production. Probably a different producer and more time in the studio would have made that a good track.
Did he use a different producer for that track? And hasn't the album been remastered since then?
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Did he use a different producer for that track? And hasn't the album been remastered since then?
It has been remastered and also again into 5.1. I simply don't hear bad production in either remasters.
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I also do prefer his later albums, from Guitar Noir onwards.
I need to familiarise myself with the post-Faces stuff as I don't know it very well at all.
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Guitar Noir, Darktown, To Watch the Storms and Beyond the Shrouded Horizon are the ones to get. If you can call those recent.
As for Defector, I like the whole album, including The Show.
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Beyond the Shrouded Horizon
Eurgh! That must vie with Script For A Jester's Tear and Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors for most pretentious album title of all time.
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Eurgh! That must vie with Script For A Jester's Tear and Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors for most pretentious album title of all time.
It's pretty bad, as are the ones you mentioned. I've always shuddered at Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness.
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It's pretty bad, as are the ones you mentioned. I've always shuddered at Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness.
Mind you I just looked up 'worst album titles' and for pretension it'd be hard to beat this preposterous effort from the ever-punchable self-important Chumbawumba:
The Boy Bands Have Won, and All The Copyists and The Tribute Bands and The TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture To Be Shaped By Mimicry, Whether From Lack Of Ideas Or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try To Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, Or Hold Art And Music And Literature As Fixed, Untouchable And Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try To ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form Of Music Are, Like The Copyists And Manufactured Bands, Doing It The Worst Disservice, Because The Only Thing That You Can Do To Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and The Boy Bands Have Won
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Chumbawumba, another here-today-gone-tomorrow band. Trendy for about five minutes (although at the time, those five minutes felt like a lifetime), like Pulp, another band whose short-lived success remains a total mystery to me.
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Eurgh! That must vie with Script For A Jester's Tear and Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors for most pretentious album title of all time.
Which just goes to prove the old saying, "never judge a book by it's cover", all 3 are great albums.
