Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (2xSACD, 1974) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 94:26 minutes | Scans included | 5,79 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,87 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Given all the overt literary references of Selling England by the Pound, along with their taste for epic suites such as “Supper’s Ready,” it was only a matter of time before Genesis attempted a full-fledged concept album, and 1974’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a massive rock opera: the winding, wielding story of a Puerto Rican hustler name Rael making his way in New York City. Peter Gabriel made some tentative moves toward developing this story into a movie with William Friedkin but it never took off, perhaps it’s just as well; even with the lengthy libretto included with the album, the story never makes sense. But just because the story is rather impenetrable doesn’t mean that the album is as well, because it is a forceful, imaginative piece of work that showcases the original Genesis lineup at a peak. Even if the story is rather hard to piece together, the album is set up in a remarkable fashion, with the first LP being devoted to pop-oriented rock songs and the second being largely devoted to instrumentals. This means that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway contains both Genesis’ most immediate music to date and its most elliptical. Depending on a listener’s taste, they may gravitate toward the first LP with its tight collection of ten rock songs, or the nightmarish landscapes of the second, where Rael descends into darkness and ultimately redemption (or so it would seem), but there’s little question that the first album is far more direct than the second and it contains a number of masterpieces, from the opening fanfare of the title song to the surging “In the Cage,” from the frightening “Back in NYC” to the soothing conclusion “The Carpet Crawlers.” In retrospect, this first LP plays a bit more like the first Gabriel solo album than the final Genesis album, but there’s also little question that the band helps form and shape this music (with Brian Eno adding extra coloring on occasion), while Genesis shines as a group shines on the impressionistic second half. In every way, it’s a considerable, lasting achievement and it’s little wonder that Peter Gabriel had to leave the band after this record: they had gone as far as they could go together, and could never top this extraordinary album.

(more…)

Genesis – Selling England By The Pound (1973) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 53:37 minutes | Scans included | 3,34 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,12 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn’t follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn’t so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. For even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as “Watcher of the Skies,” Genesis hasn’t sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot: they’ve married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that’s been their calling card since the beginning. This, combined with many overt literary allusions — the Tolkeinisms of the title of “The Battle of Epping Forest” only being the most apparent — gives this album a storybook quality. It plays as a collection of short stories, fables, and fairy tales, and it is also a rock record, which naturally makes it quite extraordinary as a collection, but also as a set of individual songs. Genesis has never been as direct as they’ve been on the fanciful yet hook-driven “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” — apart from the fluttering flutes in the fade-out, it could easily be mistaken for a glam single — or as achingly fragile as on “More Fool Me,” sung by Phil Collins. It’s this delicate balance and how the album showcases the band’s narrative force on a small scale as well as large that makes this their arguable high-water mark.

(more…)

Genesis – Nursery Cryme (1971) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 39:33 minutes | Scans included | 2,41 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 791 MB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

If Genesis truly established themselves as progressive rockers on Trespass, Nursery Cryme is where their signature persona was unveiled: true English eccentrics, one part Lewis Carroll and one part Syd Barrett, creating a fanciful world that emphasized the band’s instrumental prowess as much as Peter Gabriel’s theatricality. Which isn’t to say that all of Nursery Cryme works. There are times when the whimsy is overwhelming, just as there are periods when there’s too much instrumental indulgence, yet there’s a charm to this indulgence, since the group is letting itself run wild. Even if they’ve yet to find the furthest reaches of their imagination, part of the charm is hearing them test out its limits, something that does result in genuine masterpieces, as on “The Musical Box” and “The Return of the Giant Hogweed,” two epics that dominate the first side of the album and give it its foundation. If the second side isn’t quite as compelling or quite as structured, it doesn’t quite matter because these are the songs that showed what Genesis could do, and they still stand as pinnacles of what the band could achieve.

(more…)

Genesis – Invisible Touch (1986) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 46:15 minutes | Scans included | 2.93 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 963 MB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Delivered in the wake of Phil Collins’ massive success as a solo star, Invisible Touch was seen at the time as a bit of a Phil Collins solo album disguised as a Genesis album, and it’s not hard to see why. Invisible Touch is, without a doubt, Genesis’ poppiest album, a sleek, streamlined affair built on electronic percussion and dressed in synths that somehow seem to be programmed, not played by Tony Banks. In that sense, it does seem a bit like No Jacket Required, and the heavy emphasis on pop tunes does serve the singer, not the band, but it’s not quite fair to call this a Collins album, and not just because there are two arty tunes that could have fit on its predecessor, Genesis. There is a difference between Collins and Genesis — on his own, Phil was lighter, and Genesis was often a bit chillier. Of course, the title track is the frothiest thing the band ever did, while “In Too Deep” and “Throwing It All Away” are power ballads that could be seen as Phil projects, but “Land of Confusion” was a protest tune and “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” was a stark, scary tale of scoring dope (which made its inclusion in a Michelob campaign in the ’80s almost as odd as recovering alcoholic Eric Clapton shilling for the brewery). But those songs had big hooks that excused their coldness, and the arty moments sank to the bottom, obscured by the big, bold pop hooks here — pop that was the sound of the mainstream in the late ’80s, pop that still effortlessly evokes its time.

(more…)

Genesis – Genesis (1983) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 46:19 minutes | Scans included | 2.92 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 46:19 mins | Scans included | 982 MB

Moments of Genesis are as spooky and arty as those on Abacab — in particular, there’s the tortured howl of “Mama,” uncannily reminiscent of Phil Collins’ Face Value, and the two-part “Second Home by the Sea” — but this eponymous 1983 album is indeed a rebirth, as so many self-titled albums delivered in the thick of a band’s career often are. Here the art rock functions as coloring to the pop songs, unlike on Abacab and Duke, where the reverse is true. Some of this may be covering their bets — to ensure that the longtime fans didn’t jump ship, they gave them a bit of art — some of it may be that the band just couldn’t leave prog behind, but the end result is the same: as of this record, Genesis was now primarily a pop band. Anybody who paid attention to “Misunderstanding” and “No Reply at All” could tell that this was a good pop band, primarily thanks to the rapidly escalating confidence of Phil Collins, but Genesis illustrates just how good they could be, by balancing such sleek, pulsating pop tunes as “That’s All” with a newfound touch for aching ballads, as on “Taking It All Too Hard.” They still rocked — “Just a Job to Do” has an almost nasty edge to its propulsion — and they could still get too silly as on “Illegal Alien,” where Phil’s Speedy Gonzalez accident is an outright embarrassment (although in some ways it’s not all that far removed from his Artful Dodger accent on the previous album’s “Who Dunnit?”), and that’s why the album doesn’t quite gel. It has a little bit too much of everything — too much pop, too much art, too much silliness — so it doesn’t pull together, but if taken individually, most of these moments are very strong, testaments to the increasing confidence and pop power of the trio, even if it’s not quite what longtime fans might care to hear.

(more…)

Genesis – Foxtrot (1972) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:17 minutes | Scans included | 3,12 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,02 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Foxtrot is where Genesis began to pull all of its varied inspirations into a cohesive sound — which doesn’t necessarily mean that the album is streamlined, for this is a group that always was grandiose even when they were cohesive, or even when they rocked, which they truly do for the first time here. Indeed, the startling thing about the opening “Watcher of the Skies” is that it’s the first time that Genesis attacked like a rock band, playing with a visceral power. There’s might and majesty here, and it, along with “Get ‘Em Out by Friday,” is the truest sign that Genesis has grown muscle without abandoning the whimsy. Certainly, they’ve rarely sounded as fantastical or odd as they do on the epic 22-minute closer “Supper’s Ready,” a nearly side-long suite that remains one of the group’s signature moments. It ebbs, flows, teases, and taunts, see-sawing between coiled instrumental attacks and delicate pastoral fairy tales. If Peter Gabriel remained a rather inscrutable lyricist, his gift for imagery is abundant, as there are passages throughout the album that are hauntingly evocative in their precious prose. But what impresses most about Foxtrot is how that precociousness is delivered with pure musical force. This is the rare art-rock album that excels at both the art and the rock, and it’s a pinnacle of the genre (and decade) because of it.

(more…)

Genesis – Duke (1980) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 55:05 minutes | Scans included | 3,49 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,14 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

If And Then There Were Three suggested that Genesis were moving toward pop, Duke is where they leaped into the fray. Not that it was exactly a head-first leap: the band may have peppered the album with pop songs, but there was still a heavy dose of prog, as the concluding “Duke” suite made clear. This is modernist art rock, quite dissimilar to the fragile, delicate Selling England by the Pound, and sometimes the precision of the attack can be a little bombastic. Nevertheless, this is a major leap forward in distinguishing the sound of Genesis, the band, and along with a new signature sound come pop songs, particularly in the guise of “Misunderstanding” and “Turn It on Again.” The first is a light, nearly soulful, heartache song, the latter is a thunderous arena rocker, and both showcase the new version of Genesis at its absolute best. The rest of the record comes close to matching them.

(more…)

Genesis – Calling All Stations (1997) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 67:59 minutes | Scans included | 4,35 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,41 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Phil Collins left Genesis following the We Can’t Dance tour and many observers expected Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford to finally call it a day. They decided to persevere instead, hiring former Stiltskin vocalist Ray Wilson to replace Collins. Given that Stiltskin was a European neo-prog band, it isn’t a total surprise that Genesis returned to their art rock roots on Calling All Stations, their first album with Wilson. The music on Calling All Stations is long, dense, and lugubrious, but it’s given the same immaculate, pristine production that was the hallmark of their adult contemporary work with Collins. It wants to be an art rock album, but not at the expense of losing the pop audience – which makes it all the stranger that the group doesn’t really write pop songs on Calling All Stations. That may be because Wilson’s voice isn’t suited for pop, but works well with languid, synthesized prog settings. But even ponderous prog rock has to have musical themes worth exploring, and on that level, Genesis come up dry on Calling All Stations.

(more…)

Genesis – A Trick Of The Tail (1976) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:22 minutes | Scans included | 3,23 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,06 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

After Peter Gabriel departed for a solo career, Genesis embarked on a long journey to find a replacement, only to wind back around to their drummer, Phil Collins, as a replacement. With Collins as their new frontman, the band decided not to pursue the stylish, jagged postmodernism of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – a move that Gabriel would do in his solo career – and instead returned to the English eccentricity of Selling England by the Pound for its next effort, A Trick of the Tail. In almost every respect, this feels like a truer sequel to Selling England by the Pound than Lamb; after all, that double album was obsessed with modernity and nightmare, whereas this album returns the group to the fanciful fairy tale nature of its earlier records. Also, Genesis were moving away from the barbed pop of the first LP and returning to elastic numbers that showcased their instrumental prowess, and they sounded more forceful and unified as a band than they had since Foxtrot. Not that this album is quite as memorable as Foxtrot or Selling England, largely because its songs aren’t as immediate or memorable: apart from “Dance on a Volcano,” this is about the sound of the band playing, not individual songs, and it succeeds on that level quite wildly – to the extent that it proved to longtime fans that Genesis could possibly thrive without its former leader in tow.

(more…)

Genesis – And Then There Were Three (1978) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 53:37 minutes | Scans included | 3,43 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,10 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

And Then There Were Three, more than either of its immediate predecessors, feels like the beginning of the second phase of Genesis – in large part because the lineup had indeed dwindled down to Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins, a situation alluded to in the title. But it wasn’t just a whittling of the lineup; the group’s aesthetic was also shifting, moving away from the fantastical, literary landscapes that marked both the early Genesis LPs and the two transitional post-Gabriel outings, as the bandmembers turned their lyrical references to contemporary concerns and slowly worked pop into the mix, as heard on the closing “Follow You Follow Me,” the band’s first genuine pop hit. Its calm, insistent melody, layered with harmonies, is a perfect soft rock hook, although there’s a glassy, almost eerie quality to the production that is also heard throughout the rest of the record. These chilly surfaces are an indication that Genesis don’t quite want to abandon prog at this point, but the increasing emphasis on melody and tight song structures points the way toward the group’s ’80s work.

(more…)

Genesis – Abacab (1981) [Remastered Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 47:07 minutes | Scans included | 2,95 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 0,97 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Duke showcased a new Genesis – a sleek, hard, stylish trio that truly sounded like a different band from its first incarnation – but Abacab was where this new incarnation of the band came into its own. Working once again with producer Hugh Padgham, the group escalated the innovations of Duke, increasing the pop hooks, working them seamlessly into the artiest rock here. And even if the brash, glorious pop of “No Reply at All” – powered by the percolating horns of Earth, Wind & Fire, yet polished into a precise piece of nearly new wave pop by Padgham – suggests otherwise, this is still art rock at its core, or at least album-oriented rock, as the band works serious syncopations and instrumental forays into a sound that’s as bright, bold, and jagged as the modernist artwork on the cover. They dabble in other genres, lacing “Me and Sarah Jane” with a reggae beat, for instance, which often adds dimension to their sound, as when “Dodo” rides a hard funk beat and greasy organ synths yet doesn’t become obvious; it turns inward, requiring active listening. Truly, only “No Reply at All,” the rampaging title track (possibly their hardest-rocking song to date), and the sleek and spooky “Man on the Corner” (which hides a real melancholy heart underneath its glistening surface) are immediate and accessible – although the Mockney jokes of “Who Dunnit?” could count, it’s too much of a geeky novelty to be pop. The rest of Abacab is truly modern art rock, their last album that could bear that tag comfortably.

(more…)