"The Conqueror" is one of them.
Not sure what you mean by "Going Out," unless it's "Going Out To Get You" (not an FGTR track but a Mayhew-era demo from ARCHIVE 1).
Posts by DecomposingMan
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More thoughts about FGTR after a recent listen:
(1) The strings and horns on this album have been criticized quite a bit. I don't know that I'd consider it a big improvement if they weren't there, but they definitely add to the distance between FGTR and their later work.
Quick, without listening first: Can you name the 3 songs on FGTR that only feature the band, without any strings or horns?
(Bonus tracks like "One Eyed Hound" don't count.)
(2) Listen to how Pete struggles on the first verse of "Window." That sounds like it was written by someone who knew he wasn't going to be the one singing it!
(3) There doesn't seem to be much discussion of John Silver's drumming ability, probably because we can't hear him all that well on the album. On a past Genesis message board he got some mockery for his prominent but unimpressive fill in "In The Wilderness." But how good was he as a drummer, really? I don't get the impression that the band particularly wanted him to leave. How might he have done once they started getting more progressive?
His work on a 1973 Ant Phillips demo, and his (rather sloppy) "biscuit tin" work on "Magic of Time," indicate some definite jazz leanings.
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I like that bit in Stagnation too. Am I right in thinking the "Then let us...." section is Phillips singing?
I agree about that "OK men" bit in The Knife, I'm so glad you said that! It's really silly and even worse with the melodramatic female screams.
Stagnation: As with the group vocals in "Dusk," it seems to be several of the guys singing, with Ant's voice somewhat standing out. Tony is undoubtedly in there too, and he sounded rather like Ant at the time.
The Knife: Actually I find the female screams to be fairly effective -- better than the "OK men" voice, at any rate!
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Obviously a very different album from FGTR, but to my ears the two albums share a certain mood -- rather gloomy and humorless. Like most Gabriel-era material, TRESPASS took me a while to warm up to.
I never cared for the lyrics to "White Mountain," but hearing a live version with Phil singing made me realize what a lovely melody it has.
"Stagnation" is my favorite track on the album. For me, a crucial little touch in the song is that single long, low vocal note at the end of the instrumental break, right before the drums come crashing in. I always wonder whose voice that is.
"Dusk" is my second favorite. As interesting as the longer demo version on ARCHIVE 1 is, it shows that the changes they subsequently made to the song were for the better. The vocal melody on the verses in the early demo is fairly ordinary; the vocal melody in the final version, in contrast, is just amazing. (And the prominent backing vocal parts -- wherein Ant seems to be the main voice -- are so much more in tune on the final version!)
For me, "The Knife" is brought down by the "TV noises" in the middle, particularly the "OK men, fire over their heads!" part. It wrecks the sense of timelessness that the song might have had otherwise.
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In the outro of A Trick of the Tail, a few bars after "hello friend, welcome home," there's a little grunt or "hmph" sound, like a little creature or something just crossed their arms and pouted. I don't know what it is or why it's there but I always find it funny.
I'm pretty sure it's a guitar sound by Steve.
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it gives that story an ending open to interpretation...
Never mind that the entire story is open to interpretation!
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Another word I'd like to add:
decop - An empty police car strategically placed so as to make drivers think they're being watched.
Recent "redundonym" sighting: "MLB Baseball."
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Distinctly avarage to me. That said, if I was listening to Lamb, I wouldn't skip past it.
Does "skipping past" work when it's the last long?
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...the Three Sides Live version improves that song by 100%, I really like that live version.
I find that an interesting statement. To me, the 3SL version sounds very casually tossed out, besides being incomplete; in other words, there just doesn't seem to be much to it. The best part is how it segues into WOTS.
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No there is a gap - between every track on the album. That's what annoys me. Not that I care about much of the material anyway.
There aren't supposed to be gaps. It sounds like there's an issue with your copy, or something.
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Do not understand the question?
Which one of the two albums (the first solo albums by Tony & Mike) do you prefer?
Should I delete my post since it's apparently been skipped?
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Lazy beach holiday.
A Curious Feeling or Smallcreep's Day?
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Occasionally, I've had to use made-up words where there don't seem to be any appropriate real words. Here are some examples:
vulch - To wait for someone else to vacate a parking spot so you can take it, generally getting in other people's way in the process. (Someone who "vulches" is a "vulcher" [vulture].)
encrudded - Encrusted with crud.
redundonym - An acronym, followed by a pointless spelling-out of the last word in it -- i.e., PIN Number, ATM Machine.
Does anyone else have any favorite "personal" words?
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a 30-minute epic called Apotheosis of the Necromancer
This has officially given me a fit of the giggles. It sounds like something from a "progressive band" version of Spinal Tap.
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Choosing to play the entire album was something of a conceit as there are pieces on The Lamb that simply don't work well in a 'live' setting.
I could never imagine "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats" or "Ravine" being played in concert outside of the whole album being performed...
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"Odd" is a good word for it. It's a peculiar work that not only feels out of place in Genesis' discography, but doesn't really seem to belong anywhere else either! I've described it as sounding as if a band from 1967 somehow recorded an album in 1963.
Like much of early Genesis it took a while for me to warm up to. Some moments have a nice, haunting quality that I sometimes hear in music from the late '60s.
The early Genesis tracks released later on (ARCHIVE 1 disc 4, etc.) at least manage to give it some context, besides showing some of the transition to the very different TRESPASS.
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"Would we give songs like these even a remote chance if they hadn't a certain name stamped on it?"
There are quite a few Genesis songs I'm sure I wouldn't find very interesting if they hadn't been by Genesis, especially some of the early ones. That said, I probably would have found "Who Dunnit?" hilarious, and "Revolution 9" creepy and fascinating, regardless of who they were by. Still, I do think that R9 benefits, in my brain at least, from its context on the White Album.
"You probably had no interest in reading that, but I wanted to mention it as it suddenly came back to me!"
Actually, I did find that interesting.
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Regardless of how anyone feels about "Revolution 9," I can't say I blame them. I used to look down on it myself, mostly because that seemed to be the expected reaction.
Now I think of it as an example of how expertly the whole mishmash of material on the White Album was sequenced, apparently by George Martin. As musicologist Alan Pollock points out, if R9 had to be on the album, 2nd to last is the only spot that works for it.
I hear the album's ending stretch as follows:
"Cry Baby Cry" (one of my favorites on the album) - not quite a lullaby
"Take Me Back" - a subtle transition out of wakefulness
"Revolution 9" - a nightmare, in restless sleep
"Good Night" - the real lullaby (and what Beatle could be more reassuring than Ringo?)
BTW, I've heard a couple of John's early albums with Yoko. Compared to those, R9 is an absolute masterpiece.
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This one is quite surprising. Personally, I think [WMGGW] is probably George's best song ever and one of the Beatles' best.
I don't think I could ever manage to rank all the songs on the White Album, but if I did...
..."While My Guitar Gently Weeps" would be at the top, but George's other tracks would be much lower.
...Most of Paul's tracks would be in the lower half, with "Honey Pie" at the bottom.
..."Revolution 9" would be somewhere in the top half, along with many of John's other tracks.
For what it's worth, I consider the unlisted "Take Me Back" link to be a separate song, and thus count 31 tracks on the album.
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#4 Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
Wow... brilliant and fascinating analysis, Gabble.
