Posts by Schrottrocker

Quote from Backdrifter

I swithered over posting this here as I'm not sure it counts as politics. I'm not sure what the term for this is! It's Penny Mordaunt at the tory conference. As the poster says, watch through to the end if you can stand to. In the canon of Things I've Seen it's simultaneously one of the worst and funniest.

Someone nailed it when they said she's like the Head Girl at school who can't act but gets a starring role in the school play because she's the teachers' favourite. She certainly seems to have only just learned how to hold up an index finger and do pauses and has yet to master either.

To me as someone from a different country who doesn't know who this is and what she is talking about, this was still pure entertainment. The kind of real-life satire that leaves comedians unemployed

1. When did you buy Selling England By The Pound (or have received it as a gift)?

I still haven't made it to buy this album. My dad owns it, since I loved this record when he played it he copied it on cassette for me, I still have this cassette. Much later, a friend of my sister's copied me the 2008 remaster on CD; later on, in the high times of illegal file-sharing, I found a download of the original master and burned it on CD. I've been wanting to purchase the original album in some form for ages but I never made it. I did however buy Steve's live CD on his Selling England show in Stuttgart.

2. How old were you when Selling England was released?

Wasn't born yet, at that time my parents didn't even know each other. My mum was in her first marriage, my brother was 3 years old and my sister 1 year old. My dad had a girlfriend as far as I know. No sign of me on the horizon yet.

3. Was Selling England your first Genesis album? If not, how many Genesis albums did you own before getting Selling??

See above, yes, the first if the cassette copy counts. The first album I actually spent money for must have been Duke, which I bought in 1996. It was one of those albums my dad didn't have in his collection. I could try to trace back which albums I bought on CDs or LPs up to this day but it doesn't relate much to the question because my dad had a lot of Genesis albums in his record collection and I had access to all of them before I ever started buying anything.

4. If you had to rank all Genesis albums, where does Selling England stand?

1

5. Which track was your favourite when you bought the album?

Firth of Fifth

6. Which track is your favourite today?

Firth of Fifth

7. Which track do you think is the best track on the record despite your own taste?

All of them. Yes, I even include More Fool Me since it is part of the album.

8. How many versions of the album have you bought / owned? (Vinyl, CD, Remaster, Cassette, SACD etc)

See above

Always enjoyed this song. It became a classic radio evergreen, a lot of radio stations kept playing this song way up into the 2000s. Production-wise this is a pretty unusual song, there's no bass guitar, no actual drum set, a strange rotary speaker effect (or sth similar) on the whole mix, a keyboard that is hard to make out if it is strings or woodwinds or something else.

And yes, it is nearly impossible to talk about this song without mentioning the time signature. Aside from Dave Brubeck's Take Five, this might be the one song that became most famous for its odd-time signature. The cool thing about it is how unnoticeable the 7/4 is. Pretty much every song in an odd-time signature will give you the feeling you are tripping over the beat, as if someone is trying to mess with your dancing feet. This one doesn't. The rhythm is seamlessly flowing, and the song will be stuck in your ear.

I still have to purchase this album. I remember I almost bought it some time in the early 90's when I saw it in a second-hand record store. Should have got it.

Quote from DecomposingMan

Overall, the synthesizers and drum machines are typical in their '80s cheesiness, but I'm accustomed enough to '80s sounds that this doesn't bother me much.

No need to apologize. I don't know why everybody who talks about 80's music always feels compelled to apologize. "The synths are cheesy, I still like it though..." As if it was guilty pleasure. At the time, the synths were revolutionary.

I was born in 1981, as the youngest of 3 kids in a family in which everybody listened to a lot of different music I grew up with 80s music. I love those 80s synths and I missed them in the 90s; '1984' is too much though. At that time there were other album productions that had better sounding synths.

Well. I am a fan of Ant's and I enjoy a lot of his albums. I am also a fan of 80's music and of synth music too. On top, I do have to admit 1984 is actually quite an interesting album by the actual musical composition. But. Nevertheless. No matter what. I just can't get myself wrapped around this game boy sound of this album. I can't listen to it. It makes me feel like I am listening to one of these "8-bit version of Supper's Ready" videos that circulated on youtube a couple years ago.

Quote from Snowbound

I’m glad he’s honoring the Lamb’s 50th anniversary but I also hope he does more solo stuff live. Next year is the 30th and 40th anniversaries of Blues With A Feeling and Till We Have Faces so I’d love to see him revive some deep tracks from those records. I could see his current band nailing Footloose, Tombstone Roller and A Doll From Japan.

I am curious how many Lamb songs he’ll play. on his website Hackett states he’s “looking forward…{to playing Lamb} favourites as well as other iconic Genesis numbers along with solo gems.“ Since his show’s are a 50/50 solo material genesis split I was hoping that his second set would be 100% lamb material but I guess not.

You took the words out of mouth! I’m also expecting a moody sax jam on Waiting Room. I also really want him to play In The Rapids and It. I imagine It would have killer guitar/keyboard/woodwinds interplay.

A full trick performance could be cool… but I also feel like parts of that album are so banks heavy that I wouldn’t mind him dropping some tracks. Since his first solo album was made nearly back to back with trick (and with Phil and Mike) I’d be down for a set with songs from Trick and Voyage. It’d be a good way of increasing the solo songs in his set. I’d be happy with a Trick/Voyage anniversary set like this:

Dance On A Volcano

Entangled

Squonk

Star of Sirius

Ace of Wands

Ripples

A Tower Struck Down

A Trick of The Tail

Los Endos (w/ Myopia and Slogans excerpts)

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That would be a treat. He already performed Robbery Assault & Battery on his Seconds Out tour, right? I guess Mad Man Moon will be the deal breaker. I would love to get that song live but I can see the problem in performing it. Even Roger King might run into trouble with that one.

It is one of the good moments on this album, though the downside is it is one these incomplete tracks - when regarded on its own, without Broadway Melody of 1974 - that The Lamb has a number of. You just started, it gets going really strong, and you're already in another song. In this case the transition works well but I still wished they would have gone for more complete songs.

There has to be a way to crack this thing, sooner or later some nerd will find out. Something like hold a photo of a pink rubber boat and you're in. I really don't get all the people who "celebrate" this kind of big brother bs. Ooooh, you haven't smiled enough lately! The system wants you to be happy! Seriously. Why do people love nanny bots like this.

Steve: "John Lennon said Genesis were the true sons of the Beatles."

There's other instances when Steve would say John Lennon said Genesis were the most interesting new band from England, and similar claims. Not to rain on Steve's parade but it would be interesting to find other sources confirm this. Some youtuber that I can't remember had a video in which he claimed he searched thoroughly but could not make out any sources for these statements of John Lennon's, except Steve himself who has seemingly repeated citing John Lennon from the early 70s onwards. Steve doesn't come across as if he is making things up but he appears to be the only person that can remember John Lennon say these things about Genesis.

Let's hope he will finally perform A Trick Of The Tail in its entirety. His Selling England and Foxtrot shows were stellar, I don't care too much about The Lamb but Trick would be a real treat.

Thanks, I'll check this out. I am not an expert with these things, my dad and my brother are, I just enjoy using the stuff but I have no clue how to fix things. Sounds easy enough. Easier at least than replacing the belt in a floppy disk drive, I managed to break the one in my old KORG keyboard, then I found a USB floppy converter which works fine... Not an option for a vinyl player.

Anyways, yes, then I will get Selling England.

Unfortunately my turntable cannot play 45s in the correct speed any longer, the rubber is worn out. Otherwise I would have purchased Selling England. Or I need another turntable...

Since both my dad and my brother are audiophiles, I have an audiophile stereo in my apartment. I am unable to explain all the technical backgrounds but I listen to CDs as well as vinyl and by direct comparison my experience has been old LPs from the 70's mostly sound way inferior to digitally remastered CDs. Those old LPs usually have a muddy sound, the CDs reveal a lot more details and have more dynamics. However, with LPs from the 90s it is the other way round, those newer LPs totally beat CDs: unbelievably bright, transparent and clear. CDs don't get close to them. It's still just a rule of thumb, there's humongous differences between LPs even from the same era. The original Seconds Out LP sounds remarkably great even though it is from the 70's. CDs don't have such vast differences, they usually sound good enough and it's hard to find any with real crappy sound.

That "analogue warmth" thing is a myth imho. It might come from crappy vinyl players and crappy stereos with a lot of saturation and distortion, noise, hissing and humming.

That looks like a fake entry. Available since August 8th 2023, already out of stock, now download, no information about nothing and aside of this one amazon entry it doesn't exist.

Quote from Mozo

Well I think that's a bit harsh on SO, but I certainly agree with it about Side 1, and the version of The Lamb.

I think all of side 1 is inferior to the studio versions.

Fascinating how different fans' perspectives can be. I always found all of side 1 of SO superior to the studio versions, the only thing missing the additional synth lines in Robbery. Also I prefer the version of The Lamb a hell of a lot to its studio version.

I love the live version on Seconds Out, particularly the intro with the quiet hi-hat counting in and the surprised cheers of the audience when the band kicks in. I can almost see the dark stage, then all lights switched on. Great opener.

I honestly wouldn't have made the connection to Kashmir either but once Mike mentioned it it makes so much sense. Both songs share that same heavy groove. Mike came back on that slow rocky groove in his song Moonshine on Smallcreep's Day and later in Word of Mouth, and I can imagine his initial idea for Turn it on again might have been similar.

Interestingly, the band always mentions Squonk was the song that broke the deal for Mick Strickland. He might have been nervous but let's be honest: Squonk has a real counterintuitive melody to sing, they might have picked something else. Phil's own vocals in the studio recording seem to be a little insecure imho, in later live version he gained much more confidence.

Quote from DecomposingMan

No, the version on FGTR was not a re-recording. The only real difference between the versions (besides the "The") is that the single version is in mono and the album version is in stereo. I've heard it claimed that the strings are different between the two versions but I don't hear any difference there either.

Excuse me? The difference in the violins arrangement is striking. The album version's arrangement is much sparser and leaves more room for the actual song. Remember Tony said on the album they participated in writing the violins and brass arrangements to gain some control over it, as opposed to the preceding singles in which they had zero control over the violins.

Strictly speaking, The Silent Sun wasn't a single from FGTR - the 'Silent Sun' titled track (without 'The') on the album was a re-recording. Okay, it's the same song though.

It is interesting that even at the time they recorded Trespass, Tony mentioned they were still considering releasing Let Us Now Make Love as a single. Also, they had Going Out To Get You recorded as a single release with Wooden Mask as its B-side. I never found any information how all this changed. Whose idea was it to release The Knife as a single? Strat's?

Literally just good enough to chart and make a filler in live sets. That aside, nothing special. Shows how good the trio got in creating exactly this, a product. Symptomatic for the hit machine they had become in the late 80s.