Genesis

Genesis' fifth album (released in 1973) is a paean to England's good old days (meaning medieval times, or whenever it was that fairies ran the show) and finds the band tightening up their highly technical play and adding a previously non-existent studio gloss. The result was their highest charting album of the Peter Gabriel years, with the record reaching No. 3 upon release. "Firth of Fifth" has one of their all-time best song openings and synth/mellotron/pianist Tony Banks continuously keeps things interesting with a million different keyboard sounds and classically anthemic vamps.

"I know what I like, and I like what I know," Peter Gabriel sings on the second cut. This
could be Genesis' problem. If American audiences are not willing to make the effort to
decode the British English in which the lyrics are written, this album will not receive the
attention it deserves. Selling England merits some recognition because it contains a few
good tracks which are pieces more than conventional songs. One number, "The... More >

The best rock jolts folk-art virtues--directness, utility, natural audience--into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation; the typical "progressive" project attempts to raise the music to classical grandeur or avant-garde status. Since "raise" is usually code for "delegitimize," I'm impressed that on half of this Peter Gabriel makes the idea work: his mock-mythologized gangland epic and menacing ocean pastorale have a complexity of tone that's pretty rare in any kind of art. Even more amazing, given past performances, organist Tony Banks defines music to match, schlocky and graceful and dignified all at once--when he's got it going, which is nowhere near often enough. As for the rest, it sounds as snooty as usual. (Grade: B)