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Blacksword View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 09:35
2.5 stars overall..

Abacab - Pretty good. Nice little rocker
No Reply At All - No comment at all
Me And Sarah Jane - Good
Keep It Dark - Interesting and infectious.
Dodo/Lurker - Good
Who Dunnit ? - sh*t
Man On The Corner - Boring
Like It Or Not - Not
Another Record - I hope it's not like this one.

Edited by Blacksword - September 07 2017 at 09:36
Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 11:09
Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

Originally posted by lostrom lostrom wrote:

Abacab is their best post Hacket album.

better than ATTW3 and Duke? 

Yes.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 15:35
Originally posted by lostrom lostrom wrote:

Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

Originally posted by lostrom lostrom wrote:

Abacab is their best post Hacket album.

better than ATTW3 and Duke? 

Yes.

ok, feel like I'm pulling teeth. 
Care to explain? 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 16:42
no reply at all would actually be a killer, menacing track without the cocaine horns.

sorry EWF. you guys rock. but putting you on that track was a big mistake.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 16:47
ABACAB is underrated. But I'd like it even better if they'd pulled a Duke and scattered the Dodo suite through the album rather than relegating more than half of it to maxi-single B-sides.

https://youtu.be/eEatqARfZgM

as is, ABACAB is sadly off-balanced and not totally cohesive.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2017 at 16:57
The drop from Naminamu into Dodo is f**king massssssive. It would have slayed live.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 08 2017 at 00:03
Originally posted by hegelec hegelec wrote:

no reply at all would actually be a killer, menacing track without the cocaine horns.

sorry EWF. you guys rock. but putting you on that track was a big mistake.


Exactly how I feel. I like EWF, but those horns are totally out of place on a Genesis album.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 08 2017 at 00:18
I nearly wept when it came it out. My only similar reaction to any other album release by any other artist was ELP's In The Hot Seat. It's that feeling of 'where has my band gone'. Over the years I've softened a bit on it when I realised that I really liked Dodo/Lurker (I'm actually happy with the edited version) and Keep It Dark. The title track also worked well played live with the extended run off. The rest though I still don't care for. From Abacab onwards there is just about enough decent Genesis material to have made a good (4 star) album methinks. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 08 2017 at 00:38
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

I nearly wept when it came it out. My only similar reaction to any other album release by any other artist was ELP's In The Hot Seat. It's that feeling of 'where has my band gone'. Over the years I've softened a bit on it when I realised that I really liked Dodo/Lurker (I'm actually happy with the edited version) and Keep It Dark. The title track also worked well played live with the extended run off. The rest though I still don't care for. From Abacab onwards there is just about enough decent Genesis material to have made a good (4 star) album methinks. 


Me and Sarah Jane I've always had a soft spot for. Because it's one of those endearingly meandering Tony-pop songs, like Duchess, that's way too clumsy and long-winded to actually work as a pop track but which still has some great chord changes overlaid with a really powerful, simple melody.

Edited by hegelec - September 08 2017 at 00:43
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 08 2017 at 03:08
Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

Originally posted by lostrom lostrom wrote:

Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

Originally posted by lostrom lostrom wrote:

Abacab is their best post Hacket album.


better than ATTW3 and Duke? 


Yes.


ok, feel like I'm pulling teeth. 
Care to explain? 


Almost anything is better than ATTW3. Their limpest and least interesting til Shapes. At this point, the band was basically the Tony Show and sadly he was just in a slump, both composition-wise and in his sound design choices. The album is grey. Just grey grey grey and flaccid and dull.

https://youtu.be/H4hTXOZKq0M

"The Waters of Lethe" should have been the centerpiece of the album -- its "One for the Vine" -- the Tony masterpiece of staggering genius that single-handedly redeems all of the album's weaker moments. But instead we're stuck with "Undertow" and "Burning Rope". Blah.

The *sole* stand-out on the album for me is the sprightly and delightful "Scene from a Night's Dream". Just a magic track. But 3 minutes of bliss is simply not enough. (And while "Down and Out" is acceptable, come on guys ... we've scaled this Volcano before.)

BUT... ABACAB better than *Duke*? Nonsense. Duke is mighty. ABACAB has some excellent tracks, but Duke has something ABACAB will never have: a balanced tracklist and thematic cohesion.

Edited by hegelec - September 08 2017 at 17:10
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 13 2017 at 00:26
ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 13 2017 at 00:30
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!

it's called The Day the Light Went Out

I love ATTW3, too :)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 13 2017 at 21:30
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!


There are several songs from the 80's I like a lot. However, I think they are mostly better live... I don't know if what I understand as a plastic quality in their 80's music is the same as yours, but I feel the live versions do sound less plastic. I guess there's quiet a bit of drum machine on the studio songs, which are really played live... perhaps more guitars... however, they just sound better.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 00:41
H'm - I might suggest that anybody who has already spun 'Abacab' and has any amount of 'proper' prog - to go at, why on earth would they bother with such atrocious 80's garbage?
Perhaps they only have 3 CD's ?
I would suggest that I probably have  at least a thousand CD's I'd rather spin -  'Abacab' is not and can't possibly be a 'desert-island' disc contender surely?
Or is it just me?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 07:35
Originally posted by M27Barney M27Barney wrote:

H'm - I might suggest that anybody who has already spun 'Abacab' and has any amount of 'proper' prog - to go at, why on earth would they bother with such atrocious 80's garbage?
Perhaps they only have 3 CD's ?
I would suggest that I probably have  at least a thousand CD's I'd rather spin -  'Abacab' is not and can't possibly be a 'desert-island' disc contender surely?
Or is it just me?

There's more to life than prog. Desert islands disc? no way but it has its moments. Overall, I'd rather listen to pre-ATTWT Genesis. Actually, I'd rather listen to a whole lot of stuff over Abacab and the 80s did feature some quality music. yeah, it's not classic 70s prog but who cares? Good music is good music. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 08:31
Although Abacab might be an average Genesis' record, I personally couldn't live without Abacab and Like It Or Not. Besides, it's Genesis, man!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 08:42
The last Genesis album I genuinely enjoy.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 09:35
Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

ATTWT is actually one of my favourite Genesis albums. For me not a weak song or track in evidence and it all holds together really well. Yes they were in the process of inventing 'Neo Prog' but that was not a bad thing in my book. Where I had more of an issue is when the music started to become a bit plastic. BTW Tony still managed to write one of the best 'rejected' songs ever 'When The Light Went Out' when he was going through his slump!
Ballad of Big, Snowbound, and Deep In the Motherlode? Outside of those, it's a fine album in its own right. Just love The Day The Light Went Out too.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 10:06
The thing that bugs me the most about Abacab is the drop-off in quality for all the tracks following Dodo/Lurker. A very poor ending for a mixed bag that had some nice highlights. During this period the group kept making long suites (The Duke Suite and the extended Dodo/Lurker ideas), but when it came time to put it down on record, they kept splitting them up. I guess it was a sign of the times.
 
In hindsight, it wouldn't have hurt anything if they had kept making suites. Enough of their other material was making the pop charts, and as we all know, parts of suites can be issued as singles on their own.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2017 at 11:01
Abacab is a strange album. When it is good, it is very good. I love the extended title track, Dod/Lurker is a great suite, Keep it Dark is menacing, and I adore Me and Sarah Jane. However, the horns had no place on a Genesis album, and some of the more commercial short tracks strike me as being somewhat bland in retrospect.

It is still, though, a good album, and one I enjoy revisiting every now and then.
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