TheNiceGuy

I believe drugs may have played a part in that.

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Salami

This is turning into a very good journal!

I think you were right in saying that "Games Without Frontiers" wasn't as atmospheric as the other tracks: the song was ruined by Kate Bush in my opinion. In fact I remember having a big argument with Il Duce over this. I also think that Peter Gabriel is a fantastic singer, and produces some intimate and personal songs. Sorry to bring it up again, but "Solsbury Hill" is a beautiful song, and definitely his best in my opinion.

Concerning "Pablo Honey", it is very easy to either succumb to the temptation of saying that it is great just because it is a Radiohead album (I would have!), or slate it because it sounds boring and unambitious. I think you walked the middle line very well.

Keep up the good work, I think that this is turning into an excellent set of reviews.

starrynight

I love Games without Fronties and the video for it is brilliant imo, brings out all the atmosphere and strangeness. Solsbury Hill is just a different kind of song, still excellent.

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TheNiceGuy

Solsbury Hill is certainly right up there in PG's catalogue.

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Blur-Modern Life is Rubbish (1993)



Track Listing:
1. For Tomorrow
2. Advert
3. Colin Zeal
4. Pressure on Julian
5. Star Shaped
6. Blue Jeans
7. Chemical World
8. Intermission
9. Sunday Sunday
10. Oily Water
11. Miss America
12. Villa Rosie
13. Coping
14. Turn It Up
15. Popscene
16. Resigned
17. Commercial Break
18. When The Cows Come Home
19. Peach


Best Track: For Tomorrow


90's Life is Rubbish more like...


The "Britpop" scene of the 90's almost felt like a backlash to the Grunge explosion at the start of that decade, and certainly revisiting the style of The Beatles (in the case of Oasis) and The Kinks/Jam (in the case of Blur) felt like a welcome contrast to the musical movement going on across the Atlantic. Modern Life is Rubbish really feels like the vanguard of the Britpop explosion, paving the way for both Blur and Oasis to release even huger albums.


Modern Life is undoubtably a subtle tip of the hat to The Kinks, especially their album The Village Green Preservation Society. Blur also added a touch of The Jam's attitude and blended it all into a 90's pop atmosphere. This mixture provides the album opener For Tomorrow with it's guitar pop buzz and it's chorus that's reminscent of the 60's. It's incredibly simple but it's also very addictive; who thought singing la-la-lala-la could make the centerpoint of a great song? Not me for one, but Albarn, Coxon, James and Rowntree certainly had the right idea.


Advert is punk meets The Kinks (ahem...The Jam?) and Colin Zeal is a slightly annoying but plausible attempt at creating a song like David Watts or Mr Clean. Pressure on Julian is a small improvement on that format with a nice swirling vocal hook from Albarn. (Pressure on Julliiiaaaaannn...) The stronger drumbeat on Star Shaped bangs down under Albarn's high pitched harmonies providing a solid combo that carries the song well. Blue Jeans has that very mellow 90's dreampop effect around it with something that sounds like an organ echoing below an easy and sweet acoustic guitar sound.


Chemical World describes the not-quite-perfect English suburban dream that Britpop was always so fond of. (The landlord said she's out in a week/What a shame she was just getting comfy) And then Coxon provides a guitar swirl that sounds like it's been chemically affected or something. Perhaps this is just a another subtle nod to their 60's influences (this one being psychedelia), but this feels original and fitting. Intermission is a bit of pointless filler that is still listenable with it's light piano before heading into a distorted guitar and bass cloud. Sunday Sunday has a pumping brassy funk about it while Oily Water has a choppy guitar and fuzzy bass interplay that gives me images of The Bends-era Radiohead, two years before they even released it! The whole song isn't completely satisfying; distorting Albarn's vocals doesn't come out very well and the guitar/bass interplay becomes a little bit tired as the song wears on. But it's not offensive in any way, which is kind of a signature sign of Britpop I guess. (And also one of it's greatest strengths)


The mellow, dreamy sound of Blue Jeans is touched on again in the song Miss America. The Blur boys seem to be giving across this high/stoned vibe with the lazy guitar flushes and light percussion, which works despite it kind of going agianst the theme of the album. Think of it as another tribute to the psychedelia of Barrett-era Pink Floyd and the like. In fact this song might have worked alright with Syd singing come to think of it... Villa Rosie has nice guitar spirals that turn into stronger riffing leading into Albarn's so English 'singalong' vocals. Coping has a punk throwback intro before moving into better suited guitar pop-rock. The shuddering synths provide a nice diversion to the guitar dominated sound, without totally blocking out the guitars. This time however, the "la la la la" outro trick isn't quite as melodic and attractive.


Turn It Up continues the Britpop formula, but it's a less memorable version compared to earlier tracks. Horns and grungey guitars are combined on Popscene to decent effect, but the horns feel wanky and overblown. They block out a nice keyboard melody below them which is a pity. Toning down the horns may have been the way to go, but you can't fault these guys to much for wanting to add a little diversity. Resigned is a laidback album closer that keeps the style of the album right to the end. And then of course there is the guitar workout of Commercial Break that probably should have been cut off from the album. The version that I have also includes the easy going English countryside funk of When The Cows Come Home and a peach of song, interestingly also called Peach! A relaxing 'early evening' synthy background surrounds Coxon's lassez faire guitar fuzz. To be honest, Peach is quite an excellent album finisher as well. It could of and should have easily found a spot on the album proper over the Commercial Break and Intermission ditties.


It's a bit too long, a bit too repetitive and a bit too British (That's not a bad thing) but ultimately Modern Life fills it's brief well. It's a pity that not many bands can make pop-rock like they did nowadays.


12/15

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Genesis-Invisible Touch (1986)



Track Listing:
1. Invisible Touch
2. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
3. Land of Confusion
4. In Too Deep
5. Anything She Does
6. Domino
7. Throwing It All Away
8. The Brazilian

Best Track: In Too Deep

Well it was "good" for 1986 at least...

Like most of the original wave of early 70's Prog bands Genesis started to change their sound to a more commercial and pop-rock orientated style as the 1980's went on. Although generally by doing this they become more commercially successful they also tended to make poorer quality records. Occasionaly one of these pop records would turn out alright (Yes with 90125 and Genesis itself with Genesis), but most of the time these albums turned out below average. Invisible Touch is one of these albums.

Good old Phil Collins, the once legendary drummer turned vocalist who recently started having a "successful" solo career pens the first track Invisible Touch. This isn't a highlight for Phil; calypso style synths over an oh so boring drumbeat make things bad to start with, but then the vocals come in and it turns to ****. Phil can sing but here his voice has a very sharp feel that doesn't sit well. Certainly the cheesy lyrics didn't help, but he wrote them so he has no real excuse. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight has a computer like synth bleeping that keeps on coming back and Phil's vocals are once again poor. Rutherford delivers a decent guitar riff towards the end but that's too little too late on a pop song that goes for 9 minutes.

Land of Confusion turns the tables quite well though. Here Rutherford gets plenty of work with more riffing over a beat like synth line from Banks that actually works. And Phil's vocals actually fit in well with the political anti-Thatcher-Gorbachev-Reagan theme. A far cry from the veiled metaphor dominated social commentary of Selling England By The Pound but they don't have Peter Gabriel now so I guess this is alright. In Too Deep shows some vocal subtlety from Phil which is pretty shocking compared to the first couple of songs. The atmospheric keys and subtle guitar ripples blend in well with the romantic feel. That lovely keyboard passage about 3 and half minutes can melt many a'stony heart or mind. It's an achievement at least, and it's the piece de resistance of the album.

Funky brass in Anything She Does breaks that subtle feel of the last song though. The brass almost reminds me of Sledgehammer from Peter Gabriel's 1986 album So, but Phil lacks Pete's ability to change pitch quickly. It's a pity that Pete had to leave Genesis; certainly putting him as vocalist and lyricist and letting Phil focus on his drumming would work well. Maybe sack Banks too; his synthy shrieks are can be really grating on the ears.

Domino is a 10 minute song that almost seems like a throwback to the Prog years on first glance, but in reality it's just another long synth dominated pop-rock meddle. Not all of it's bad; the part where Phil cooly recites his vocals through a synth cloud feels quite deep, but then the shrieky farts return and Phil loses his vocal calmness. This repeats a few times thoughout the song, with not a lot of variation which really make me lose interest in this song, despite the fact it isn't that bad. Throwing It Away is quite a nice pop ditty that comes out in quite a sincere manner from Phil. Rutherford does have a knack of writing quite lovely pop love ballads that aren't too saccharine ala Your Own Special Way, and this is another example of that school. Even Phil's cooing comes out well, which is a good thing I guess. You'd reckon that would be enough, but instead an ugly sounding instrumental called The Brazilian is tagged on at the end. The main synth melody of the song has a steamy (Brazilian?) style about it but most of the other synth parts are messy jerk offs that are really just poor quality padding. A pop-rock band doing instrumentals? Or an old Prog band trying to reconnect itself somewhat with it's glory days where mainstream success wasn't be all and end all?

The main saving grace of Invisible Touch is that despite the muddled synths and badly applied vocals on some of the tracks all of them are least listenable to an extent. There's nothing truly horrendous here, but Genesis would change that in the next few albums. And at least there are a smattering of good songs here. After all these guys still had some talent left after all didn't they?

8/15

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Trollheart

"Invisible touch" is not one of my favourite Genesis albums, in fact sometimes I dub it "Invisible talent"! There are some good songs on it, but you're right in that it's really a continuation of the annoying pop sound they inflicted on us with the shocking "Abacab", which was so bad and such a shock to the system that I almost went entirely off Genesis. Luckily the follow up was miles better, and in fairness I was pleasantly surprised by "We can't dance", but then "Calling all stations" hammered in the nail into the coffin. Well, to be accurate about it, if I'm honest, "Abacab" pushed Genesis into the coffin, "Genesis" was their desperate attempt to get out of the box -- "We're not dead! Really we're not!" --- "Invisible touch" pushed them back down, hammered in some nails, "We can't dance had them banging on the inside of the lid (but no-one really heard them) and of course "Calling all stations" knocked in the final nails and allowed them to be lowered into the ground. You're dead now, guys!

For me, the last great Genesis album was "and then there were three", though "Duke" is a fine album too, but you could see the slow leanings towards pop with songs like "Misunderstanding" and "Turn it on again", not surprisingly the biggest hits on that album, and some of Genesis' biggest recent hit singles too.

I hated the pop sound of IT with a few exceptions: I like "Tonight, tonight, tonight" and "Domino/The last domino", and indeed "In too deep" is a great ballad, probably a result of Collins' by then successful solo career. But I must take issue with you over Tony Banks' keyboard style: sack him? Well, pointless now of course, but the guy virtually held the band together imo and he's a keyboard genius! Listen to his solo albums "A curious feeling" or "Seven: a suite for orchestra" and see if you disagree. Now Collins --- there's a man who almost single-handedly plotted (if subconsciously) and eventually achieved the fall of one of the mightiest prog bands the world has ever seen...

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starrynight

I doubt I would like much of the Invisible touch album either, certainly from the songs I remember hearing. But it sounds like your preference is definitely progressive over pop. Some earlier solo songs he did I really quite liked: Against All Odds, One More Night, Take Me Home. Some progressive groups did become more pop over time, so did some punk groups, but it could be to memorable effect sometimes I think. By 85 quite a few British acts also seemed to want to get a bigger and more streamlined production sound to appeal to mainstream American radio even more. Often I don't think this worked out too well, OMD's later music for instance.

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TheNiceGuy

I agree that Banks was quite a good keyboardist technically and certainly in the prog days he was a good songwriter as well. However a lot of that keyboard playing nous is wasted in the late Genesis albums as a lot of his synth work comes out badly. He was more of a prog keyboardist then a pop keyboardist in other words. Mind you his prog playing wasn't always great either; ala Wind and Wuthering.

I have nothing major against Phil honestly; he did a pretty good job as vocalist for what 16 years? And his drumming has always been to a high standard pre-1986. However my only real gripe with him at times is his songwriting which certainly strays a bit too far in to that 'adult contemporary' style which was a hallmark of his solo career. Sometimes it works (In Too Deep, Against All Odds) but this isn't often. BUT Phil isn't only to blame for the poor pop that came out at times for '80s Genesis. Banks was the dominant instrumentalist and he deserves some of the blame for it as well.

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TheNiceGuy

I do prefer the Prog Genesis days but I do like parts of their pop era as well.

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