Genesis: Selling England By The Pound (1973)

Genesis are one of my latest 70's rock discoveries; of course I knew the band and sometimes heard post A Lamb Lies Down On Broadway hits on the radio, but I was far from realising that Genesis were amongst Kings of early 70's progressive music.

Not only the band's gem but also one of the best prog albums ever made.

It is clear that Genesis has two phases: a Peter Gabriel one and a second phase following his departure, where sound and song composition changes drastically. What is less clear is which of the Peter Gabriel era albums is the best? I still can't answer this after listening to them extensively for more than a year, but here is a track by track review of what is generally considered not only the band's gem but also one of the best prog albums ever made: Selling England By The Pound.

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Dancing With The Moonlit Knight

"Can you tell me where my country lies?" After spinning my father's old LP for the first time and hearing the soft guitar riff, I still didn't realise what adventure I was getting into. The keyboard choirs and piano sections then explode as the "Captain leads his dance", leading to an accelerated riff with tapping guitar. Gabriel's high voice pierces the rhythm as we are slowly led to a shimmery flute/keyboard segment that goes until the song's closing. I knew then I was into something special!

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

The title song of the album cover, featuring the story of a lawn mower listening to gossips on a bench! One of the first songs that had great success internationally, with such a simple but catchy riff. This is a major turning point in my opinion as the chorus has a synthie, floaty keyboard part that would define Genesis's sound in the years to come (Abacab comes to mind). Nothing much to say about this song except it's hard not to sing along!

Firth Of Fifth

This song starts with a minute and a half piano intro so complex that the band plainly skipped the intro when they played live, starting instead at "The path is clear". It is a song of great beauty and harmony, with what is considered to be one of the most emotional guitar solos of the band (I disagree, think The Lamia or After The Ordeal). Great song overall.

More Fool Me

Acoustic guitar only and Phil Collins on the singing. A beautiful love song, with lots of emotions in it. It's nice to see Gabriel left a place for Phil to sing for himself, it makes for a nice addition to the album and a shift in the mood too, closing side A perfectly.

The Battle Of Epping Forest

Another nice lengthy song, but probably the weakest of the album (one has to be). Gabriel goes deep into the narrative of a fight between rival gangs. The bass is groovy though and there are nice guitar segments, but I frankly don't like the voice in some parts and it is maybe a couple minutes too long getting repetitive in the end.

After The Ordeal

One of the most beautiful guitar pieces of the band; it really feels like something big like a battle or an adventure has just come to an end. The piano and guitar complement each other perfectly in a delicate but harmonious manner. Then in an instant the song softly shifts from acoustic to electric, ending with a melodic electric guitar solo backed with keyboard and flute.

The Cinema Show

I'm not ashamed to say this song brings shivers and tears, just like the Lover's Leap segment of Supper's Ready! An all guitar intro with again a shift from acoustic to electric when reaching the chorus, then back to acoustic and beautiful flute. After the chorus is played twice we're in for an amazing, unbelievable 5 minute long keyboard solo, Tony Banks demonstrating all his skills and amazing talent. Then to a perfect song ending, bringing back the Moonlit Knight riff in the last seconds...

Aisle Of Plenty

...On to Aisle of Plenty. Such a well done album closer, acting more as a closing section to The Cinema Show and the album than a song in itself, with the Moonlit Knight riff again bringing the cycle to a full circle. I can't listen to The Cinema Show without listening to Aisle Of Plenty - that's what I mean. They did something similar on the A Trick Of The Tail album, where the album closer, Los Endos, brings back riffs from two other songs, Dance On A Volcano and Squonk, and I think it's beautifully done.

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Well this album had to end and what an album it is! It integrates so many key elements of 70´s prog in a perfect manner, no wonder it's considered a gem by many. For a long while I considered Emerson Lake and Palmer to be the Kings of Prog, but this album and all the Gabriel era ones changed all that, it was a revelation to me and I have a hard time stopping listening to them. I have yet to discover the post A Trick Of The Tail material in more detail, but as I said, in my opinion Genesis was never really "Genesis" again after the Gabriel split.


Raphael Gouin Loubert

Our guest writer this week is Raphael. A huge fan of Krautrock and 60-70’s rock Raphael also enjoys more contemporary artists like Radiohead, Godspeed You Black Emperor, White Stripes, and Half Moon Run. He hangs out at the Krautrock Facebook Group and his reviews can be found on www.progarchives.com .

Other reviews by Raphael:

Tago Mago by Can
Amnesiac by Radiohead

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Log #84 - Heaven or 'El(p)

Pure Class

Continuing an eclectic mix of music this week we have dance, blues, world, and prog. Record of the week comes in the shapely form of the Cocteau Twins. Many fans standby their early indie music as their best although I prefer the latter period albums, this one Heaven or Las Vegas, or Four Calendar Cafe.

They were very much of their time and were mainstays of the excellent 4AD label which I imagine is no more? (Actually, completely wrong there, 4AD is still going strong). Like a lot of the artists on the label the albums were beautifully presented with arty covers like the one featured here. In fact the dreamy blurry images used for the Cocteau Twins releases suited their dreamy and blurry music too. The whole act was pure class really. A band I'll continue to return to many times over the years.

So if you haven't heard them how would I describe the sound? It's unusual, unique and recognisable. The vocals are ghostly and the guitar is treated through a flanger or chorus. It's a lush poppy 80s sound. Closest contemporaries would be Stereolab or My Bloody Valentine. 

Probably the highest praise I can bestow upon the Cocteau Twins is they were one of those bands that stopped me in my tracks when I first heard them with a "What is that?"; I was a passenger in a friend's car and they put one of their albums on (I think it was Four Calendar Cafe) and it was one of those moments when you hear something new for the first time (I've had a similar experience with very few bands - Can were one, Stereolab another, and David Sylvian specifically with Secrets of the Beehive strangely too). 

Why not take a listen now? 

Random Rock Trivia Fact: Cocteau Twins lead singer Elizabeth Fraser had a romantic liaison with Jeff Buckley.

A small but perfectly formed discography:

Garlands (1982)

Head over Heels (1983)

Treasure (1984)

Victorialand (1986)

The Moon and the Melodies (1986)

Blue Bell Knoll (1988)

Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)

Four-Calendar Café (1993)

Milk & Kisses (1996)

God ELP us

Emerson Lake and Palmer are a hard listen. Even for fans of prog, as I am, they seemed to employ the least likeable elements of the form - pretentiousness, irrelevant classical references, and disconnected frantic solos. Three members who did really seem to be three separate musicians seeking to show off their musicianship and out do each other. Also no guitar - what's that about? 

The best tracks on this album (their debut - no chance they'd have got a record deal today) are the song based "singles" Take a Pebble and Lucky Man but even they sound terribly dated. The latter is a nice Greg Lake song but what is that closing organ "solo" all about? Even Keith Emerson wasn't a fan of this hastily recorded and subsequently iconic solo -

I didn’t think much of the solo. Honestly, it’s a lot of shit. 

Well, I've ignited your interest now haven't I? Here it is...

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1. The Rhythm Kings - Struttin' Our Stuff

2. Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

3. Carlos Barbosa-Lima - Chants for the Chief

4. Groove Armada - Vertigo

5. Emerson Lake and Palmer - ELP

6. Genesis -  Wind and Wuthering

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Log #75 - Pat Metheny Goes Offramp and Genesis are Reborn With Possibly Their Best Yet

This week we continue our female vocalist focus with albums by Carole King, Marianne Faithfull, Caitlin Canty and Larkin Poe. Pat Metheny swings by with his 1980s jazz fusion group and we finally complete the Genesis mark 1.5 trilogy with possibly their best album of all.

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1. Larkin Poe - Fall

2. Carole King - Tapestry

3. Marianne Faithfull - A Stranger On Earth

4. Caitlin Canty - Reckless Skyline

5. Pat Metheny Group - Offramp

6. Genesis - A Trick of The Tail

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Carole King really owes her entry this week to a BBC4 documentary on Carly Simon's No Secrets album. I haven't got No Secrets (yet) but it reminded me of Tapestry - whether that's the image, the time, the music, or the James Taylor associations I'm not sure.

Carole and Carly with some bloke

Tapestry is another album (like Rumours) I only acquired recently, and, also like Rumours, it contains many songs I was already familiar with - I Feel The Earth Move and You've Got a Friend of course.

To read about the fascinating LA Laurel Canyon music scene (and the bed hopping, most of it by Joni Mitchell) of that time I recommend Barney Hoskyn's excellent Hotel California book. Ed. Can we say that? The bit about Joni Mitchell? Yes it's ok, if we get sued for defamation then this blog is actually reaching an audience, and it's only what Barney said anyway.

Some other musician type in California around that time

I read that the Larkin Poe sisters, actually Rebecca and Megan Lovell (there was once a third, Jessica), are distant descendants of Edgar Allan Poe (an author who wrote brilliant literature with plots). I've seen Larkin Poe live a couple of times - first time was in a small pub in Lewes and they were on the country/americana side (and I came away with this mini-album, signed). The second time they were on a much larger stage at a festival and seemed much more rock but did seem to have lost a bit of soul.

Cute artwork on the 6 track mini album Fall

The Marianne Faithful is a Greatest Hits album. Her classic album as far as I know is Broken English and this selection includes only two tracks from that album. What I remember about that album is the already ravaged voice (it was only 1979) and the Ballad of Lucy Jordan with this vivid call to action:

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never

ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair

... a line I remember my mother in law singing.

The Pat Metheny Group's Offramp album is very nice easy listening modern instrumental electronic guitar led latin jazz fusion. It's from the ECM stable and of it's time (1982) - very keenly produced with that synth/processed guitar as used by Al Di Meola (Log #6) but somehow keeps the right side of Kenny G type supermarket aisle fodder. Metheny's fluid jazz lines remind me of Jerry Garcia.

Pat Metheny (front dark shirt) and his group circa 1982

Metheny and Garcia: similar guitar similar hair

I've completed the Genesis Mark 1.5 three album catalogue with a purchase of Trick of the Tail. I have to say on only the first or second listening I can tell this is going to be pushing for my favourite Genesis album of all (currently The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway).  It's got it all and frankly I'm amazed to be hearing me say that after I first pondered the merits (or otherwise) of post Gabriel Genesis back in log #67. I was clearly making unfounded assumptions without researching the facts. Sorry readers.

The ATOTT cover depicting characters from the 8 songs has been voted best Genesis album cover in some forums

The mix is tremendous (I don't know if this is the result of the remaster - this is the 1994 edition) - clear, sharp and powerful. The bass is really deep, the guitar thick, and Collin's vocals are a revelation. Apparently it was his rendition of Squonk that convinced the rest of the band he could step out from behind the drum kit and into Gabriel's mighty shoes. I wonder what Gabriel must have made of this record when he first heard it. Do you think he was delighted for them, or was there a feeling of regret?

The whole concept of  The Lamb was darker, longer, and it was a real uphill battle to finish. That’s why A Trick of the Tail was easier to make. It was lighter, Phil was singing, and we had a whole new scenario with a breath of fresh air.

Tony Banks

Unlike some of the earlier albums there are no instrumental fillers where a member of this group of egos are granted a solo piece which ill fits the whole concept. For example Hackett's poor Bach imitation Horizons from Foxtrot, Ed. Can you say that a bit quieter? This is perhaps unfair on Hackett, probably the most modest member of the band. As the late joining guitarist it seems that his playing was generally so sidelined by the overwhelming keyboards of the dominant Tony Banks that he was merely and reluctantly granted the odd instrumental instead.

I was getting tired of bringing ideas into the group, which I felt they weren't going to do.

Steve Hackett

Furthermore Banks has been at pains to recall that it was himself who wrote and played the guitar introduction to Supper's Ready suggesting further that Hackett's input was not that crucial. That series of Genesis album reissue interviews on youtube is so revealing. Fans would disagree and many argue the Genesis sound suffered more after the departure of Hackett than it did even with Gabriel.

This sort of behaviour represented the worse excesses of prog rock when it became more important to demonstrate the technical skill of each musician rather than create great music itself. It's almost as if the musicians have to demonstrate that although they are playing rock and pop music they are very serious musicians and were actually originally classically trained. The trouble is the real classical musicians see (or hear) through this. Yes were also most guilty of this where many of their albums have a solo Steve Howe or Rick Wakeman piece shoehorned in amongst the prog epics. More kudos to Robert Fripp (a guitarist to whom Hackett is sometimes compared) - a classical guitarist originally who said that hearing one chord of Jimi Hendrix meant more to him than the entire classical repertoire. He also says Wimborne in Dorset is the centre of the universe.

After you, no your turn, Banks and Hackett battle it out

Anyway, pleasingly it's no such issue on A Trick of the Tail where a balance and equilibrium between the individual musicians and the overall music is achieved throughout the album.

Finally who is Caitlin Canty? No idea but she's got a nice Americana band and holds a decent tune and this record has a nice live band feel. Also described by Rolling Stone as "thoughtfully constructed alt-folk with just the right amount of twang". She's moved to Nashville. You get the picture. And here's a picture of her sitting on the stairs in her new house.

Thoughtful Caitlin Canty playing with just enough twang (James Taylor just off camera)

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The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis

It's no wonder that Peter Gabriel left Genesis after this album. It's the sound of a leader moving sharply in the opposite direction to their band. A showman onstage and a painfully shy man off, he’d been approached by The Exorcist director William Friedkin, impressed with short story Gabriel had written on the back of Genesis Live, with regards to him writing a screenplay. Gabriel took himself away from the rest of the group, who retreated to the country to write the music for what was to become The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Although the film idea came to nothing, the resulting album is occasionally confused, yet frequently brilliant.

The first disc contains some of the most visceral, thrilling music the group ever recorded – the dense In The Cage condenses the side-long pomp of previous epics into eight exhilarating minutes; Back In N.Y.C, later covered by Jeff Buckley, is raw, aggressive rock; The Chamber Of 32 Doors contains one of Gabriel’s most soulful vocals; and The Carpet Crawlers gave the group a standard which remained in their live set for years. The second disc, some very real highlights aside (it. Lilywhite Lilith), could have benefited from editing. However, it is never less than interesting and still impossible not to listen to all the way through.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, along with Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes has come to be dismissed as reductive shorthand for all that is grim about progressive rock. However, concept aside (a sort of modern day Pilgrim's Progress centering on Rael, a Puerto-Rican leather clad street punk), this is dense, brittle music, that looks as much to harder-edge rock than to anything resembling a madrigal. The problem was, the rest of the band would have rather gone down the madrigal route. At the end of the world tour to support the album, Gabriel left the band.

A guest review by Daryl Easlea licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. The original appears at http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/pgn8/

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Log #72 - Genesis Chapter One and a Half

I like a bit of honky tonk (we're talking Exile on Main Street or Little Feat here) so thought I'd try some Chicago hearing they were a rock band with a brass section. It is a bit too easy listening for me, but there are plenty of famous tunes on this compilation that I hadn't realised were Chicago.

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1. Chicago - The Heart of Chicago

2. Genesis - Nursery Cryme

3. Genesis - And Then There Were Three

4. Genesis - Wind and Wuthering

5. Camel - The Snow Goose

6. Camel - Moonmadness

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The meat of the magazine this week is Genesis again. What a late blossoming of interest I've enjoyed this last month culminating in the procurement of two of the three Genesis (what I call) Mark 1.5 (post Gabriel, pre Duke) albums. The music is sumptuous, and, get this, the Collins singing ain't too shabby either.  Bigger fans than me tell me that Gabriel had the greater emotion (and I'd say the stage presence as a band leader) but Collins the greater vocal range. In actual fact they both have very similar voices.

The music is sumptuous, and, get this, the Collins singing ain't too shabby either.

The albums And Then There Were Three and Wind and Wuthering are a little more focused and succinct than the sprawl of Nursery Cryme or Foxtrot but hardly less progressive. Perhaps just the final track on And Then There Were Three, Follow You Follow Me, signposts towards the pop to come.

Missing from the trilogy is Trick of The Tail which I will probably review in a later retrospective together with these two again, once I've obtained the album which many consider their best.

Plenty more charity purchases this week too which will be featured in coming weeks. I have a new contender for Most Frequently Found Album In The Charity Bins, along with Texas White on Blonde: It's this one from Catatonia:

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Log #71 - Two Camels and a Dummy

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1. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

2. Genesis - Selling England By The Pound

3. Portishead - Dummy

4. Camel - The Snow Goose

5. Camel - Moonmadness

6. Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

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Two Classic Camels

While rediscovering Genesis over the last few weeks I noticed the band that resembled them the most to my ears was Camel. Both proggers are quite keyboard heavy but not in the mellotronic string backing style of King Crimson or The Moody Blues. The keyboards in Genesis and Camel are much more to the forefront of the music often taking up the melody lines. In Genesis this seemed to be to the detriment of guitarist Steve Hackett who is barely heard on many recordings. In fact, famously he was not even replaced on leaving in 1977. No such chance with Camel as guitarist Andy Latimer was most definitely the leader of the band both musically and spiritually (and now the only remaining original member).

Andy Latimer and Pete Bardens of Camel -  they could have been brothers?

Two classic mid 70s Camel albums in the player this week. If you like your prog melodic and at the easy listening end of  the heavy and challenging scale then you'll enjoy Camel. 

Consummate musicians with an ear for a heart wrenching melody the majority of both these albums is instrumental. In fact Snow Goose is entirely so. Both the recording and live performances featured the services of The London Symphony Orchestra. 

Beginning with Latimer's famous Rhayader flute riff the music on Snow Goose flows and soars continuously, essentially one symphonic piece with repeating themes that weave in and out across the fifteen tracks. The prominent organ and synthesizer arpeggios recall Genesis and when Latimer lets rip on the guitar over one of Pete Barden's organ grooves he sounds like Dave Gilmour or Carlos Santana - Rhayader Goes To Town is a Pink Floyd Echoes in miniature, the beautiful Snow Goose title track sounds like Santana's Samba Pa Ti.

(Im)famously the concept album was based on a novel of the same name by Paul Gallico who threatened to sue the band on copyright (I don't understand why fellow artists do this when the only effect the music could possibly have had - and it did become a popular record - surely was to increase the exposure to the source material?). 

The 1941 novel is a love triangle of sorts featuring a young girl who meets a reclusive artist living in an abandoned lighthouse on the Essex marshes. Together they nurse an injured bird back to health which subsequently returns each year during its migration. After the man is lost at sea during the Dunkirk evacuation the symbolic bird returns to the girl one more time.

Interesting Trivia Fact: Paul Gallico's other famous story was The Poseidon Adventure

In fact to avoid the copyright claim the album was originally entitled Music Inspired by The Snow Goose. Whatever, Paul Gallico did not live long to benefit or otherwise from the success of the record, dying in 1976 only a year after it was released.

Moonmadness, Camel's 4th album, followed Snow Goose in 1976. Following the extended concept of  the instrumental Snow Goose, Moonmadness saw a return to the more defined track based writing of their first two albums. Most of the 7 tracks are lengthy with extended instrumental passages of keyboard, guitar, and flute, and minimal, often distorted or mixed down, vocals (the band had literally yet to find it's voice with the understated vocals shared across all members). Sudden changes in direction are less bewildering than some employed by their prog contemporaries like Yes or Genesis but this does mean the music does verge upon the easy listening spectrum sometimes. What elevates Camel above that slightly anaemic diagnosis though is the sheer melodic beauty of the music. 

Camel are touring Moonmadness this year ending with a September gig at the Royal Albert Hall. I'm very tempted, if tickets are still available. 

Dummy

I had a gap year travelling in 93/94 and when I came back there were two new albums out on the UK streets that everyone was talking about. These were the debut albums by Oasis and Portishead. I was completely unaware of either having spent most of my time in Whitney Houston and Bob Marley obsessed South East Asia.

One was very old fashioned and derivative (not that there is anything wrong with that) and the other sounded futuristic and out of this world. I liked the latter, by Portishead, the more, but have to say I play neither very much any more. In fact I don't even own the Oasis one. But at the time Dummy, from the initial eerie strains of Mysterons, sounded amazing being one of those records the like of which you have not heard before. Someone posted a clip of a live track performed with orchestra on facebook the other day encouraging me to dig out the original album just to remind myself how fresh and original it was 24 years ago. Then I was watching the film Wild the other night with Reece Witherspoon (in the film, not on my sofa, obviously) and the soundtrack included Glory Box ("give me a reason to love you").

In 1995 I was in the acoustic tent for Portishead's long awaited set (long awaited as I recall there was some delay to do with Evan Dando of the Lemonheads failing to show, and then much consternation that it shouldn't take two hours to plug a synthesizer in, even if this was supposedly the acoustic stage). This is the story taken up by Paul Stokes writing in the NME:

‘Dummy’ had sneaked out in August 1994. By the end of the year word of mouth was spreading fast: Portishead’s debut album finished at or near the top of all the end of year polls and was hailed as the most brilliant, original album of the decade. The hype snowballed into 1995. Radiohead expressed admiration; Noel Gallagher declared that it had been an influence on ‘The Masterplan’; soon it would win the Mercury Music Prize, and bands imitating its cinematic sound – trip-hop – started to spring up everywhere. For Portishead, hailing from Bristol, Glastonbury was something of a homecoming show. Yet having been offered the pick of slots and stages, they opted for a low-key billing in the small Acoustic Tent on Saturday night. When it finally came, however, there was nothing ‘acoustic’ about this performance: their set crackled with electricity. Little was said onstage, yet the ever-shy Beth Gibbons bewitched the crowd, and every song from everyone’s new favourite album was cheered like an anthem on a football terrace.

In front of Portishead, it was total chaos. Sweaty limbs slid against each other and one moment you were capsizing to the right, before pressure came back the other way and the ripples started swelling again. Briefly, the band left the stage, allowing just enough time for word to skip around the crowd that, outside, 15,000 others were trying to squeeze in. The scrum had been worth it, though, and, as ‘Glory Box’ rounded off the encore, the mass of bodies who’d been squashed together all night were suddenly able to part. For those of us who endured the wait, the crush and, worst of all, Dando, a bond for life had formed. We are the ones who can say: Portishead at Glastonbury 1995, I was there…

Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Glastonbury 1995

1995 was hot. I went back in 1997 which was a quagmire. Another thing I remember about 1995 was bumping into a friend I'd met in the Philippines the year before. Imagine that - randomly meeting again in a field of 100,000 people in Glastonbury.

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Log #69 - From Raising Hell to Raising Sand

I pick up a lot of CDs from Charity Shops - often for a £1 or less! For example this week I came across Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand album which I'd heard a lot about but had never listened to (it's a cracker).

Of course there's always a lot of junk in the charity bins too - the same old rubbish gets recycled before eventually ending up in landfill presumably. It is rare to find a good album - logically the good stuff is usually kept so rarely recycled. Think about it - you don't see much Neil Young or Bob Dylan do you?

On the other hand there are a lot of artists that repeatedly show up in charity shops. It occurred to me that the most common album I see in charity shops is this one from Texas. I've never heard it but it must be a complete duffer. I imagine an anaemic middle of the road pop/rock band with a crap name fronted by an attractive singer. Ubiquitous in the CD collections of middle England. "Tick standard" as Keith Lemon would say. I could be wrong. I really should hear at least one track before my condemnation. I'll try one. Hang on... I tried Say What You Want. Don't know if this is representative but it's the first one that came up on Youtube. Predictably the video just centres on the singer who is all breathy and sultry with the occasional breaking croaky (sexy) voice in an X-factor style. The music was less expected. More disco and easy listening than I imagined.

Maybe it deserves an award? What other consistent showers in charity bins would give this one a run for it's money?

Perhaps as more and more people go digital old collectors like me may have further chances to pick up gems amongst the rubbish as people give away their whole collections.

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1. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. Beck - Colors

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Ege Bamyasi

6. Can - Sacrilege CD1

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The 2009 Grammy Award winning Raising Sand album was a very pleasant surprise. There are moments with these sorts of records where it's a case of "you go", "no your turn", "no after you" with the key players taking it in turns to lead. So we get some Alison Krauss songs and some Robert Plant songs and not all that many that feel like genuine duets. There's also some country and some rock, but mostly it's old time rock with production by T-Bone Burnett giving the sound a nice live band feel. Actually the songs are nearly all old covers mostly from the 60s written by the likes of Gene Clark, The Everly Brothers and Allen Touissant. There's also a song by Tom Waits and Waits' long time guitar collaborator Marc Ribot features in the band. Plant's voice has matured well beyond his 70s screaming heyday and now exudes a much more laid back and effortless confidence.

Lots of good songs including current favourite Please Read The Letter featured below:

I think I'll be checking out Plant's latest album Carry Fire soon too having heard some impressive samples somewhere recently - probably on Jools Holland.

A quick word on the Can albums this week (there will be more in a Can retrospective review currently in production). Ege Bamyasi is just about the perfect Can record covering all their best bases in barely 40 minutes, which is quite remarkable when some of their extended jams usually take up half of this time alone. The Sacrilege album is a set of remixes circa 1997 (when drum 'n' bass was the flavour of the month) by artists like Brian Eno, The Orb, Sonic Youth and U.N.K.L.E. The results are mixed and most successful where the remix artists have moved the furthest from the original. Where the originals are already very drum and bass heavy it is not sufficient to just augment the drum and bass which seems to me to often be the case with remixes. 

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Log #68 - Lovely Cardboard Covers (albeit not necessarily legible!)

Good evening pop pickers. What do we have here this week?  Not a large degree of change since last week - but brand new entries from The Goat Roper Rodeo Band and DJ Vadim, and slightly new entries from Genesis and Can with fellow old timers Beck and Neil Young leading the way.

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1. Beck - Colors

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. The Goat Roper Rodeo Band - Cosmic Country Blue

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Anthology 25 Years CD 1

6. DJ Vadim - The Sound Catcher

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First the slightly new. The Can Anthology is a double CD in chronological (mostly) order. So CD1 contains the earlier tunes taking us from Monster Movie through Tago Mago to Ege Bamyasi. CD2 concentrates on Future Days and later plus some really early tunes from the Monster Movie sessions that surfaced on the Limited/Unlimited compilations. As I think I noted last time CD2 in particular is a useful way to hear a sample of latter day Can without the need to buy all the post Future Days albums which are not as strong as the earlier ones. CD1 therefore by definition has the stronger tracks but is less essential, certainly to any regular Can fan who will have the original albums (which contain the full length recordings of important tracks like Mother Sky and Hallelujah). That's a long winded way of saying I tend to play CD2 of this Anthology the most. Anyway, not a substitute for the original albums but nevertheless 29 tracks of Can which is never bad!

Last week I was playing something called Genesis's Turn It On Again, The Hits as well. But this is a different CD (or 2 CDs actually). It's called the Deluxe Tour Edition. I don't really see the point. It's not even live. It's got a silver cover and the other one was white. This one has white writing on silver which is infuriating as you can't read it (why do bands do this?)(more on Beck later). There is loads of overlap between the two releases - both heavily weighted towards the late period Genesis. Interestingly I put it out on Twitter last week that there wasn't anyone out there who liked both prog Genesis and pop Genesis. Actually there is and I discovered quite a lot of love for the Phil Collins version of the band even from fans who were familiar with their prog era too. I must say I'm growing to like the pop side of the band more too. Some of it is annoying tripe of course, but there are some good tracks too and I was wrong to write off all Genesis post 1976. There's certainly nothing wrong with title track Turn It On Again.

Pop brings me nicely to Beck's Colors. I suggested this was a bit light weight last week but I've grown to like it. It's short and sweet and very catchy. It really reminds me of something other than Beck but I can't put my finger on what at the moment. Plenty of single material including Up All Night which my son tells me is being used on playstation FIFA. The CD comes in a nice cardboard cover - I do like cardboard covers and I'm pleased to see many more manufacturers are producing them now (as an illustration 67% of the albums above are presented thus). They give the product that old LP feel in miniature. They don't make a horrible noise when you drop them like plastic CD covers which always end up chipped and cracked. So nice outer sleeve Beck but... as for the inner booklet - its ridiculous. The bizarre layout of the lyrics, the mismatched colour schemes, and the tiny typeface make it all illegible and thus pointless (why do bands do this? - lyrics can still be printed large enough to be seen on a CD - I used to love reading all the blurb on an album but this is rarely possible with CDs). Am I labouring the point too much? Surely the music is the important thing. Yes, of course, but the tangible feel is all part of the experience - if you aren't convinced have another read of my essay on the subject.

DJ Vadim is a new entry this week but not his first appearance in this blog. Born in Russia and raised in London DJ Vadim's mixes languorous down tempo beats of reggae and hip hop. Another beautifully presented CD in a nicely designed cardboard sleeve which nearly made it as my cover piece this week.

The other new entry belongs to young Welsh hipsters The Great Roper Rodeo Band. I came across these lads by accident at a festival and loved their confident energetic acoustic roots country (cosmic?) blues. In fact they were the highlight of the weekend. I was surprised to hear they came from Wales looking and sounding so authentically "americana" with their cowboy shirts and strong accented vocals (I reckon they'd go down a storm on tour in the US). 

I'm not yet sure this recording fully captures the live experience but nevertheless it does give a flavour of their gigs and setlist including my current favourite the very emotional Don't Believe in You. In the quite crowded bluegrass market this very talented trio standout and should go far. Great (cardboard!) cover too.

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Log #67 - From Prog To Pop

Many bands of course change direction during their careers. Sometimes this is a natural progression or development. Sometimes it's an unavoidable result of changing personnel or a result of burnout leaving bands bereft of new ideas (how many bands shoot their loads completely with a tremendous first album which has in essence been many years in the making, but then understandably fail to follow up with a decent sophomore six months later?).

With the advent of punk and new wave in the mid to late 70s, many existing bands such as prog rock giants Genesis became "dinosaurs" and had to adapt to survive (or did they? Ed.). The Genesis transformation appeared dramatic and sudden with the release of Duke in 1980 but in actual fact had really begun a few years and albums earlier with the departures of key personnel setting in train subtle changes well before that transformative album.

German Krautrock trendsetters Can were already ahead of their time when they launched in the late 60s - their change in the mid-70s was a little more gradual as rather than punk and new wave, which they were already close to in the beginning and arguably influenced, they began to introduce elements of reggae and world music into their sound (being ahead of their time again).

The results were less than impressive though and like Genesis their core fans deserted. Genesis carried on obtaining unbridled commercial success with a new set of fans who had never heard Supper's Ready and didn't care. Meanwhile Can disbanded in 1979 leaving their original legacy largely intact notwithstanding a disappointing and short lived reunion album at the end of the 80s.

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1. Beck - Colors

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. Bruck - Violin Concerto No. 1

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Anthology 25 Years CD 2

6. Handsome Family - Honey Moon

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I have two greatest hits/compilations/anthology CDs in the player this week from these two important bands.  As regular readers know this is not normally something I advocate. But sometimes these catch all releases serve a purpose - for example you may not like the band enough to buy all the albums so just want a sample, or you just want to sample as a beginner before venturing deeper. 

In the case of Can, I do love the band (I was even named after them!), but this Anthology seemed a good choice in order to cover a lot of ground economically (having bought many of the albums before on vinyl which I no longer hold, I don't always replace all like for like with the CD formats). In particular this anthology has a good selection of their latter day material (post 1975) that doesn't really warrant purchase in its entirety (the key music from Can can be found on their first half a dozen albums or so starting with Monster Movie and ending with Landed in 1975) (but do check out their solo albums too Ed.).  Subsequent albums had their moments as the band dabbled with world, disco and reggae music, but the core Can sound which had made them so exciting and influential had gone.

Where a band is famous for extended improvisations a compilation album will also run the risk of inappropriate edits. How exactly can Hallelujah or Mother Sky for example be cut down to 5 minute samples? Having said that this compilation does it pretty well and the shortened tracks are not too grating - of course you've got to make sure you do hear the full versions of Hallelujah and Mother Sky on their original albums (Tago Mago and Soundtracks respectively), but note this CD does at least have the bonus of the unedited 20 minute You Doo Right from Can's debut album.

Similarly, yet more marked and (un)celebrated, was the change in Genesis around the same time. There can't be many bands who became so different as music fashions (and personnel) changed. This hits compilation is very heavily weighted to the latter day Genesis beginning particularly with the 1980 Duke album (although the change set in with the departure of Peter Gabriel and then Steve Hackett in quick succession following their Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974), and Wind and Wuthering (1976) albums respectively) - there are only two Gabriel era tracks on this 18 track album!

Unlikely Rock Trivia: Genesis were discovered by now disgraced record producer and radio presenter Jonathan King.

In fact being far from a fan of Phil Collins I have never had any desire to hear any post Gabriel Genesis. However this CD was a gift. Also my interest was piqued somewhat by an excellent ranking rundown I read here > http://www.prog-sphere.com/specials/genesis-albums-ranked/ which encouraged me to reassess (notice how the album covers deteriorated with the music too!).

What do I think now? Well, much the same really although I would say the chasm between the two incarnations is possibly slightly narrower than I had realised. They are still completely different bands and Collins is no Gabriel (keener prog era Genesis fans will also not underplay the influence of Hackett too). The prog era band produced some amazing original music with a charismatic front man. The pop music version went soft and became a vehicle for Phil Collins' constipated singing, thumping snare and syrupy love songs, covered in Tony Banks' synthesized cheese.

Are there any fans out there who like both the prog-Genesis and pop-Genesis?

From this to this - two very different beasts

And from this to this... nuff said

However it's not so bad and without the comparison of the original band Genesis Mark II may have been a perfectly reasonable pop band. Duke which was an affront to the existing fans was not such a bad album in itself (similarly time has been kind to King Crimson's 1980 comeback album Discipline for example which was a shocking release for their prog fans at the time but now seems quite revolutionary). To be fair, and in hindsight, Genesis Mark I.V did enjoy a prog swansong of sorts with three good post Gabriel albums that have each aged well - A Trick of the Tail, Wind and Wuthering (both 1976) and And Then There Were Three (1978), while downsizing from a five piece to an eventual trio (remarkably neither Gabriel or Hackett being replaced).

A few other new entries this week which may warrant more words at a later date. We have Beck's latest Colors which is very poppy and dare I say quite shallow compared to his usual work. I do love Stay Up All Night though.  Neil Young's Hitchhiker is a solo acoustic album from the mid-70s featuring slightly altered versions of songs from Rust Never Sleeps and various other previously unreleased tracks.  The title track is excellent and I love the version of Powderfinger which gives the song a completely different atmosphere. Best of all is Campaigner though with its famous refrain - "even Richard Nixon's got soul".

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