Posts by Fabrizio

Quote from Liquid Len

I don’t understand the demon vitriol for a particular song. I could understand not liking a song from your favorite band; but sheer utter hatred of a song that brings you to boo at a concert? Just go to the bathroom, get a beer, whatever. If you were going to a Genesis concert in the 80’s wouldn’t you expect them to play their 80’s stuff? Lol.

Not necessarily, not all songs from the album are played live during a tour, some just don't lend themselves to it. I guess, some fans didn't expect them to play that one. I personally never booed and I agree with you, you don't like it just do something else, it's only 5 minutes, after all, if you pay the ticket however, I believe you have the right to boo, no matter how futile I find that.

Quote from martinus

Isn't that peculiar? With many people foaming at mouth when Whodunnit? is mentioned and with the famous booing concerts I would have expected it to be the other way round: hate for Abacab because of its music, and indifference to IT, because its music is pop.

That was just a sample of polls and personally I couldn't detect any particular animosity towards the album, it did rank low in any poll, rightly so in my opinion. As for Whodunnit, I t guess people in the meantime take it for what it was, a joke, it's up to anybody to take it seriously or less.

I went through a typical youtube rabbit hole last week: Genesis albums ranked to worst to best. I saw several of those videos, Abacab did consistently poorly, the general feeling however was not hatred, that was reserved for IT, rather indifference.

Quote from Dr. John

Many Too Many is possible - I seem to recall at least some members had spoken about it as a consideration previously.

If they drop the numbers that really featured Phil's drumming, that would eliminate many live staples: Cinema Show instrumental, Firth of Fifth instrumental, 2nd Home By the Sea, Los Endos. It also makes the Fading Lights instrumental less likely.

If they are dropping some longstanding features of their setlists, In the Cage makes sense as they have played it for most tours since 1978 except the We Can't Dance tour.

I've never fully understood Phil's dislike for that song, personally I think it's one of the best on ATTW3 and looking at the chords sequence it absolutely seems, like something Phil could have written.

Dodo perhaps, The dividing line is another one which would fit in any era, Down&Out maybe.

Quote from martinus

Apparently I'm not noticing something here. Perhaps a non-native speaker thing. Could you please explain? What is so special about the line and the way it was sung back then?

I'll let native speakers explain that but I totally understand you, even after having lived in the UK, it took me sometime to catch on to that and all the other references for that matter. When I first heard the album, the only thing helping us making sense of the lyrics were Armando Gallo's notes and as helpful as they were, they were nearly not enough to shed some light on everything. He would translate and try to provide a reference when things were typically British, but even if you get the words the references, colloquialisms and nuances completely escape you.

Quote from foxfeeder

So, I was right, you weren't joking, but I'm the one whose over the top?

And no, I don't buy your "Who? Me?" attitude, about being aggressive. You've pulled that stunt before, at least once on me, and one others. You throw stones, and when someone dares to throw one back, you cry foul.

I've looked. I've decided. I'm not taking the blame for your issues. Again!

Talking about Steve's albums taking the world by storm can ONLY be interpreted as tongue in cheek, I thought it was clear even, to a fanboy of your caliber. Still no justification for your vitriol. I couldn't give a bigger F... about what you buy or less, I know what I meant to say and what my intentions were. It's not my fault you and others misconstrue my unwillingness to lash out on the internet which I find lazy and frankly a bit coward for appeasement or worse hypocrisy Lots of assuming on your side, quite incorrect and frankly delusional. I'm done.

Quote from boredatwork

although in fairness to Tony, the winner of the Not Doing Much Musically for Inordinately Long Periods Competition must be Peter!    

No argument there.

Quote from foxfeeder

Well, if you were joking, it'd be fine, but you're not, are you? Not the first time you've painted yourself into a corner with pointless, dogmatic bullshit that is clearly ONLY for effect on the forum.

I'm pretty sure you yourself have, in the past, used the argument that chart success does not great music define, yet, here you are, trying to make that point, so I assume you prefer Madonna, or Michael Buble to Genesis, cos I suspect they have had more "charty" careers.

We've had spats before, and you've always tried the "I'm a nice guy really" argument, sometimes even in PM's. But sadly, experience has taught me otherwise. And in case you think I seem to have a very short fuse at the moment, you'd be right, cos there are too many troublemakers on the board of late, and not enough moderation.

Why so aggressive?

No i wasn't really joking but I find your reply over the top.

No, charts success doesn't define great music, I still maintain that but we weren't talking about that, were we?

I just made a remark over Tony being possibly jealous of the others' success and you got up in arms because I didn't include Steve.

No, I cannot know but I don't think Tony is envious of Steve's career, again, after all, it's Steve who's playing Tony's music these days, certainly not the other way around.

I even conceded the numbers are in Steve's favor. Numbers are numbers, even unimpressive ones

Troublemakers and good guys? Look at your reply and decide for yourself.

Try to calm down, nothing happened here.

Quote from Liquid Len

Fabrizio cracks me up! I always find your opinions entertaining and fascinating, genuinely.

You appear to be in the overwhelming minority these days but , hey, appreciate it.

Quote from foxfeeder

I genuinely believe you might be the ONLY person in the world who thinks that. Most people would consider a hit to be anything top 40 in the UK at least, top 100 in the US I'd guess.

It might be, I guess a hit is something known to the general audience, played on the radio. We all know Steve and Tony here, we are more or less aware of their output, would you say it applies to the general audience at large?

Quote from foxfeeder

Well, several top 30 albums would be hit enough for me. The Uk charts are available and searchable online. Tony had one album, I think

Right, those albums took the world by storm, joking aside though when it comes to Tony and Steve, I think the fairest assessment of their solo careers would not be who's been more successful, because frankly neither was, rather who's been the least unsuccessful and I guess Steve wins there.

Quote from AndE

I think the only album of Tony's to chart were A Curious Feeling (21) and The Fugitive was 53 or something. So in that regard, Steve did a lot better.

Yes,, in that regard he did. I guess Tony can take solace in the fact that to this day, Steve is still out there performing his songs.

Quote from AndE

He had several solo top 20 or 40 albums, and GTR reached #11 on Billboard charts.

Again, Tony aside, we are hardly in Peter's, Phil's or Mike's league. A hit is, I believe a #1, or at least in the top ten, isn't it? I really ought to go and check how Tony did with his albums but, I don' think it's really important, we already know two things: he wasn't as successful as the other three and, at least he had Genesis where he was, let's say substantial.

Quote from foxfeeder

Er......? Steve has sold several hit albums, and one (admittedly very minor) hit single. So he's beaten Tony too.

Hit albums? I guess we don't share the same concept of ''hit''. Are we talking Face Value or So magnitude? Because those are hits. I might be mistaken but I don't think that Steve came ever nowhere near to Mike and the Mechanics. As for Tony, I really don't know, I don't have the figures so you might be right but I again, I really have no idea. I am still convinced though Steve couldn't write a hit to save his life.

Quote from Dr. John

I think it is actually quite hard to write a pop song that really becomes a big hit. There are always people trying to write pop hits and most fail to be successful. Writing a simple song might sometimes be simple, but writing a simple song that lots of people like is not so simple. And it is a particular talent to do this repeated

Very true, some revered artists couldn't write a hit to save their lives. Peter can, he needed it and did it, quite brilliantly imo, then he made again clear, it was not what he was interested in.

Steve isn't interested and plainly can't, no matter what. Tony tried and it's really not his thing, it must eat him up inside that, with the exception of Steve, every member of the band had more commercial success than him.

I like pop, if I'm driving and Dancing Queen comes up or even Wake me up before you go-go, I turn up the volume and sing along with gusto. Now, I never bought those singles or the albums, it was not what I was interested in. Genesis, like many other artists, didn't sellout, they simply went along, the music scene in the second half of the 80s was about that, selling records which doesn't mean that in the 70s they loathed the idea of selling more but they were all, including the record companies a bit more idealistic or naive, if you will. Genesis wouldn't have made it in the 80s, no record company would have ever indulged them and waited for them.

I was OK with the new course, the idea of it, the execution left me sometimes perplexed. Keep it Dark, to name one, is pop and it's great, it's inventive, quirky, original. I find stuff like I can't dance, Invisible Touch, into deep and a few others plainly tacky.

That said, I simply don't buy the ''evolution'' rationale, they so often fed to the press and the fans.

Quote from Henry Hamilton-Smythe

I know a lot of people seem to really like 'It's Gonna Get Better', but the song does absolutely nothing for me. I remember hearing it before the album came out (flip side of the 'Mama' single). I was intrigued by the introduction, but once the song itself started, it completely lost me. I've certainly tried, but just can't get into it all. I'd rather listen to Who Dunnit.

I'm always a bit surprised when I see song like It's gonna get better being highly praised or fans lamenting the fact that it's underrated. Don't get me wrong, I don't skip it, it's a nice listen but it's really not much more than that.

Quote from Liquid Len

I think Illegal Alien is supposed to be “tongue in cheek”. It’s probably even less PC today than it was in 1983, but it still sounds good.

I'm married to a Latina, I exposed to the song and she wasn't offended, she didn't find it particularly humorous either. I would agree, as a song per se, again imo, northing special.

Quote from Liquid Len

They weren’t very successful pop songs? Singles from Invisible Touch were all over top 40 radio stations all through the late 80’s and early 90’s. Every supermarket, dentist office waiting room, every car radio played those songs. You get the point. Disagree strongly that they weren’t successful pop songs.

They were extremely successful pop songs, huge but you are basically saying, correctly imo that they achieved elevator music status, although they would still throw in the occasional odd one and some fans might have a problem with that.

Quote from Liquid Len

In a sense I agree with you. WCD suffered from “cd bloat”, in that this was the early years of the digital age and they probably thought, hey let’s put every song on the album, we got the space for it. In my opinion, they should have just cut out three or four of those middle of the cd songs, and just added On the Shoreline. Cut a 70 something minute album down to 55-60 mins, would have made it stronger. Overall I don’t dislike it as much as some do, but it would still be in the bottom half of overall ranked Genesis albums, IMO. Off track, as this is a thread about Shapes, my apologies.

A shorter album would have made everything more even and a couple of editorial choices were quite questionable. Also, imo Phil wrote far too many lyrics and amongst his manifold skills, this is the one I really rate the least, although NSOM and Spike are good. It would have still been an end of the road album, that's what it was after all but it would have been a bit more palatable, to me at least. So, Shapes...