Posts by DecomposingMan

With so many Anthony Phillips albums in existence, many of them will probably never have their own threads around here. But I'd like to start one for this album (which I have fondly nicknamed "Soft Waves, Slow Stars").

I don't recall where I first got the album, roughly 20 years ago, but it may have been the very last vinyl LP I got before seriously starting to replace all my records with CDs. I sat and listened to it once, but -- except for the brief "Bubble & Squeak" -- it didn't do much for me. (In retrospect, it's really not an album for just sitting and listening to.) I proceeded to sell the LP on eBay (which took a couple of tries). After that it remained the earliest of the handful of Ant albums I didn't own (and the only one of the Private Parts & Pieces series).

For some reason last week, it suddenly occurred to me that I'd like to hear the album again. I found it on YouTube and listened to it (as background music, with interruptions from loud advertisements) and thought, "Hey, I actually like this." It so happened that I was able to find a surprisingly cheap copy of it online, and so it has finally joined my CD collection.

I have nearly all Hackett stuff (other than most of his many live albums), basically all Banks pre-classical-era stuff, a majority of Phillips stuff, and basically what little Rutherford solo there is.

I have a little of each of the following but am not a follower thereof: Collins, Gabriel, Wilson, Mechanics, Brand X.

I just remembered something I read in a review of AVS shortly after it was released (don't know where); it was something like this: "Unlike Phil Collins, Rutherford doesn't have a strong voice, but he does manage to mumble his way through the album."

(Personally, I would not describe Mike's unsuccessful lead vocals on AVS as "mumbling.")

OK, here's a question related to opening songs: Do you prefer "Where the Sour Turns to Sweet" or "Calling All Stations"?

For me, it's the first one -- best song on FGTR IMO.

I almost didn't buy CAS because of the initial impression I had of the title track. It's one of those songs that took me a while to warm up to. (Once I heard the whole album I was glad I bought it, though.)

At first listen "Fox's Tango" sounds better to me than "Wingbeats." Steve's singing is especially impressive. (I can't understand the words but I get the impression he may be getting political, which I'd rather he didn't.)

BTW, I just listened to the songs without watching much of the videos. (Personally, I think music videos are one of the most useless art forms ever invented.)

Quote from Harold

i see this thread lacks a poll ...?

Would a poll allow enough options to cover all of Ant's albums, or even the non-collaboration ones?

Eleventh Earl of Mar. And it's not even my favorite song on W&W (Blood on the Rooftops has that honor).

Quote from Backdrifter

I hope it's not typical of the rest of the album.

"An Island in the Darkness" is very much not typical of the rest of the album.

Quote from Henry Hamilton-Smythe

"An Island In the Darkness" does absolutely nothing for me.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's not a big fan of the track. I can't say it "does nothing" for me, but I consider it to be one of the less enjoyable tracks on STRICTLY. I guess I'd describe it as a 17-minute song that has a much better 8-minute song inside of it trying to get out.

So the first pic might be somebody's wrong guess?

Quote from SkyWatcher

what I didn't know until recently, was that Phil Collins was one of the screaming fans at the end of the film.

Yes, and I used to hear conflicting things about whether or not he can actually be spotted. "There's a close-up of him here -- he's wearing glasses" or "you can't actually see him anywhere." When I had a chance to look through the film carefully one time, I couldn't spot him.

However, I just did a search and found a screenshot from the movie that points out where he is. It's not a close-up, and it's no wonder I didn't see him.

A review of the GTR album (now no longer available online) said something like this: Not long after GTR disbanded, Hackett was asked in an online chat to describe Howe's personality. His response was simply: VEGETARIAN.

I've always wondered if this had some connection with the "vegetarian guitar" from GENESIS REVISITED...

An OK album, not great and not terrible. I never liked the way "Please Don't Touch" (and the title of "Hackett to Pieces," for that matter) was recycled for "Hackett to Bits."

My favorite song on the album, by a long shot, is "Imagining."

One thing I find interesting is that Hackett seems to have originally come out of GTR with a rather low opinion of Howe, but the two would become good friends later on.

Quote from Christian

Funny, out of all tracks, Wingbeats was the only one I would NOT have chosen to be a video single (apart from the first and last track, which are short instrumentals). It's also the track on the record that sounds most like previous Hackett. The album has far more to offer.

That song did less for me on first listen than almost any other new Hackett song I've heard in a while. It's not hard to believe that there will be better things on the album.

I have a special fondness for most of Genesis's non-album tracks, so it's hard to pick just 6. So I decided to pick 5 and leave #6 up in the air.

Inside & Out

Twilight Alehouse

Let Us Now Make Love

On The Shoreline

You Might Recall

I'm also fond of Shepherd, It's Yourself, Anything Now, Build Me A Mountain (not listed), etc.

(On the other hand "Me & Virgil" & "Nowhere Else To Turn" may be my 2 least favorite Genesis songs.)

"Tony says he & Peter wrote the lyrics for Fountain"

Thank you! I've been wondering about that song for a long time.

Getting back briefly to the original topic of the thread: I think we can all agree that it would be interesting to know what individual credits for Genesis songs from the Gabriel era would have been. Well, many years ago I read an interview where Tony said he was actually pushing for individual credits as far back as FOXTROT.

...Then, many years later, he turns around and claims (in the notes for GENESIS ARCHIVE 1967-75) that the group credit was used "because that's the way it was" -- an obvious lie, especially in regards to the shorter songs. Go figure.

Quote from Backdrifter

The Seconds Out one with PC's overacting makes it even worse.

But I've always liked how Phil does "he was completely surrounded" on SO.

Well, I guess everyone has lost interest in this, so I'll go ahead and give the answer...

Symmetrical (or palindromic) songwriting credits!

ACTING VERY STRANGE

Side 1:

1. Rutherford

2. Rutherford

3. Rutherford-Bellotte

4. Rutherford-Palmer

Side 2:

1. Rutherford-Palmer

2. Rutherford-Bellotte

3. Rutherford

4. Rutheford

PROLOGUE

Side 1:

1. Dunford

2. McCarty-Thatcher

3. Dunford-Thatcher

Side 2:

1. Dunford-Thatcher

2. McCarty-Thatcher

3. Dunford

It looks like John Mayhew is unseen here, except very briefly on the far left at about 0:12.