I've always thought they were short of material from 81 and 83 which is understandable considering their output; Abacab, 3Sides live, Shapes, Hello I must be going, The Fugitive and Acting very strange, plus the incessant touring.
Certainly not true of Abacab for which they had the five non-album tracks and, by their account, a load of stuff they junked because it was sounding too much like the previous three albums.
It confirms what I've always thought about Tony, he's brilliant, he has the chords, the melodies, the harmonies and the lyrics but he needs people around him, mainly to edit him and secondly to provide a different, edgier and fresher input, I feel his inability to acknowledge that really hindered his solo career.
For me it sums Tony's solo work up perfectly. All the ingredients are there. The beautiful chords, dynamics, instrumental pieces, thoughtful lyrics. But the album leaves me cold, like nearly all of Tony's solo stuff.
We all know the massive part Tony played the Genesis sound from day one. Phil and Mike managed to turn their skills/talent/approach into solo success.
I'm a massive Genesis fan and even I don't get Tony's solo work. Whatever he brought to Genesis (which is a huge amount) he couldn't seem to make it work for himself commercially or artistically (IMO). Others will disagree, but his lack of solo success is pretty much fact at this point.
Both spot-on comments.
TB and MR initially followed the same pattern: first solo album with bland guest vocalist, second self-sung. Then MR hit on a sustained winning writing partnership/singing team formula, which TB never managed for some of the above reasons.
I think MR also has an edge being a guitarist. Not that he's a showy performer but I think there's a more 'dynamic' perception of guitarists. Keyboardists somehow seem less exciting or interesting, which combined with Banks's self-confessed lack of visual appeal creates an additional drag factor.
I always wonder who would buy all those different color vinyl editions. Is there anyone on this forum, collecting all possible vinyl editions?
In the 70s when I first saw coloured vinyl it seemed excitingly different. My brother bought a few, but I remember the sound quality being markedly poorer on them. Whether it was coincidence or directly linked, I don't know. I echo the above comment, if I were a vinyl buyer I wouldn't be bothering with the coloured versions regardless of the artist.
QuoteThe fact that the song is about a detective is emphasized by the fact that a Dick Tracy-like picture is printed next to the lyrics in the booklet.
Surely it's about an assassin, given the lyrics which essentially say it doesn't matter who you are, if you've got to be killed I'll do it, it's just my job. It's definitely Dick Tracy shown in the graphic, but that's never made any sense to me - never been a fan but he's a cop isn't he?
QuoteAlthough the song is officially a joint production of the Genesis trio, like all the others on the album, it was probably mostly written by Mike.
Someone said, possibly on here, there was a plan that MR would sing lead on this given it's primarily by him, and TB would sing lead on Silver Rainbow as it's his, but this was obviously abandoned (although a mark of the intention is retained by Banks's prominent vocal line in the chorus of SR). Is there any verification of that?
The song's ok-ish, it has quite a good energy but there's also something indefinably naff about it and I hardly ever listen to it.
I've heard good things about their recent work but haven't investigated it yet. I liked the first two albums, loved Head Over Heels which is still a favourite 80s single. I liked some of Seeds and saw them on that tour, but was a bit irritated by the rather overbearing presence of Oleta Adams.
I lost touch with their work after that but did go to one more gig after Smith had left, which I enjoyed much more. Orzabal was a good front man, restrained and with a dry humour. That show gave me my first inkling of Radiohead, now a huge band for me but unknown to me then, when Orzabal said he wanted to do a song by a new band from Oxford, and then performed Creep solo on guitar. I liked it enough to later check them out.
The single For A While first came out on 5th October
Today, 6th October is 46 years since Sham 69 released their single Hurry Up Harry. Altogether now - WE'RE GOING DOWN THE PUB!
Anyway, A Curious Feeling etc.
the slightly bonkers storyline intrudes a bit more
I had no idea there was a 'storyline'. But I suppose, of course there was. 🙄
EDIT - just looked it up and realise I already did know it was loosely based on a novel but had obviously forgotten.
I am disappointed. Well, actually not that much, because I didn't expect a lot anyway. The last album was awful and there was no indication they would improve again. There are some bits and pieces on the new album that are okay, but overall it's just embarrassing for a band that has releases albums like Everyday Life or A Rush Of Blood To The Head ...
Well, according to them you should prepare yourself for 2 more albums. They maintain they have always intended to stop after 12 albums, and this is their 10th.
That said, the Doctor was only supposed to have 12 incarnations and they got around that, so... 🤷♂️
I've made two or three attempts to listen to it over the decades and each time it raised very little interest. I can barely ever remember any of it and each revisit left me with an impression of insipid late 70s Genesis cast-offs sung in a generic voice. I've always found The Fugitive much better and a preferable example of what a solo album should be, ie the artist's own voice and music that has the "host" band's DNA but also sounds distinct. When people say they like ACF because "it sounds the most like Genesis" I understand that but don't share it.
Willem Dafoe smiling at pancake mix.
I rewatched The Day After Tomorrow recently. I saw it in the cinema when it initially came out and remember the special effects being so incredible, and even though it was a bit dumb, an enjoyable big blockbuster.
Yes I saw it in the cinema too. It's one of those films that crops up on rotation on TV here and while I take your point about its naffness I do find it agreeably lazy easy viewing if I happen to catch it. I like picking out some of the reliable tropes such as:
✅️ harassed boss who points and says "you've got 48 hours" (✅️ during a hurried on-the-move corridor conversation)
✅️ gruff manly sidekick who heroically dies
✅️ younger rookie sidekick who doesn't die
✅️ charismatic comedy relief homeless guy
✅️ sceptical government/military figure (VP in this case)
✅️ haunted president intoning "God help us all"
✅️ mildly eccentric English character (climatology professor here) who makes reference to tea and biscuits
✅️ other English sidekick obsessed with football
By the way, the football obsessive is well observed in being a Man Utd fan, but not so well portrayed in that we see him watching a match while muttering "Kick it. Kick it. Go on, kick it." When of course he'd actually be half out of his seat shouting "Get it into the fucking box you useless - WHAT? Oh fuck OFF ref you WANKER!" etc.
I haven't heard it, I'm not in much of a hurry to. What reviews I've seen don't suggest it's any kind of radical departure. In fact one said parts of it sound like it's generated by a ColdplAI algorithm that's digested their back catalogue. I've seen references to Jupiter being the best one, in line with what you said.
The Critic, set in 1930s London, about an all-powerful theatre newspaper critic (played by Ian McKellen) feared by actors and producers as a bad review from him can close a show. When a younger man takes over the paper it's the critic's turn to feel the fear as the new owner isn't a fan of his and his long-held cherished job comes under threat. At the same time, he's unsettled by an actress who's had enough of his vitriol and confronts and challenges him. The main plot of the film focuses on the turmoil arising from all this. Overall it was very entertaining.
The Substance - another one about a person in a long-standing role that comes under threat, but all similarities end there. This time it's a TV fitness instructor who's now deemed too old by the studio who want a much younger person to rekindle viewers' interest. She's offered the chance to take a new treatment that will bring back her youth and revitalise her career. But this being a film, it obviously doesn't go as planned! I had some issues with it but stuck with it despite it being ludicrously overdone and cartoonish at times. It's grotesquely funny in parts, with emphasis on 'grotesque'. It feels like it borrows a little too much from Seconds and the 80s The Fly remake, and indeed owes a huge debt to Cronenberg-esque body horror. On balance I'm glad I saw it. Oh and Mr Shallow wants to pop in and say two words: Margaret Qualley.
Three Days Of The Condor, first of two 70s thrillers being shown at my local cinema. In this one Robert Redford is a CIA operative who comes back from a lunch run to find all his office colleagues murdered. He has to go on the run and find out what's going on.
The other 70s film was The Parallax View, which I remember seeing on TV decades ago. Warren Beatty plays a journalist who learns that people who witnessed a political assassination are now also being picked off. Unsurprisingly his investigation leads him into a very sticky situation involving a shadowy organisation. I've always thought this was Beatty's best work, along with McCabe & Mrs Miller.
not anniversary linked, but a random post from musician Ian Mcnabb yesterday
I liked some of his solo stuff and some of Icicle Works.
I find it interesting hearing of musicians who admire Genesis and/or specific albums, and I occasionally read about some having particular liking for The Lamb. McNab wasn't one I was aware of who has that partiality. It underlines how the apparent widespread loathing for the band largely sprang from a biased media, especially the music press from late 70s onwards, and many of the public taking their lead despite being unfamiliar with most of their work whereas other musicians tend to not see through those lenses.
We've said in other threads about a current younger generation who've grown into music appreciation without the old drag factors regarding Genesis and Collins, and therefore more genuinely like or dislike them based simply on the music. I have my doubts how much impact this new boxset will have but if promoted well it might open the album up to a new audience who could be surprised by it.
I didn't want to hijack the Lamb boxset thread too much with this response relating to the TB interview. In this post Thelawnmower said
Quotethe interviewer knew his stuff and approached it perfectly and Tony responded as I would have hoped and come to expect, candidly and with humility and humour.
I wish the interviewer wouldn't keep saying 'like' but anyway that quibble aside he asked some good questions and elicited interesting responses. I'm 100% with TB on San Jacinto being a favourite PG track and his disappointment at its exclusion from the i/o show.
On the Hackett comments, what remarks are being referred to when TB seeks to correct an earlier impression he gave regarding SH? I recall Hackett saying something disparaging along the lines of trying to get material past Banks and the latter's dominance of W&W.
These other shows that often get cited, eg Liverpool being one. As superior in quality as they're said to be, presumably they simply don't pass muster, certainly for TB. I think I've heard the Liverpool Waiting Room and remember loving it as an incendiary performance, but don't think I've heard the whole show and what bits of various Lamb shows I've heard have never sounded great in terms of the vocals. Can anyone here who knows better confirm there are strong vocal performances that could reasonably have passed with approval from the Banks Quality Control Committee? Because if not, it's always going to have been pie in the sky.
Ditto the Grange tapes, as enticing as that is (for some of us, at least).
10 shows??????
Unbelievable. This must be the biggest tour that ever happened.
In all it's around 40 stadium dates including the 10 Wembleys. They are all currently showing as sold out except for some in Abu Dhabi and Seoul.
Whether it's the 'biggest' ever tour, I don't know. One of their previous tours, and the recent Taylor Swift Eras tour, are cited as being the highest-grossing tours (if that's what you meant), and some sources include the U2 360° tour of 2009-11, adjusted for inflation.
EDIT - I just remembered that about 10 or 12 years ago (?) among their arena and stadium dates Coldplay included a tour date at Dingwalls in London, a 500-capacity club they played in their early years. I doubt they'd do that now. Imagine the mayhem if they or Swift attempted it.
Looks like their 2025 UK shows will be another great success
Ten sold-out Wembley Stadium dates, a new record beating even Swift.
But was this really planned, or is it a random fan fantasy, based on his own understanding of the lyrics that got spread all over the fanbase, to the point it became a *fact* ?
TB says in this interview there was such a plan. What's never been clear is whether Naminanu would have been the start or end of it.
What sounds sounds like tympani rolls at the end of Lurker are heard briefly at the start of Submarine which suggests a D/L-Sub linkage was intended.
It's ok. As with about half this album, while it's not bad it makes little impact on me.
