SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

My second favorite Genesis album. It was hard to decide either on this one or Foxtrot as my truly number one, but actually I think the latter is more well balanced, in songwriting terms. Nevertheless, Selling England By The Pound is a masterpiece in many ways. It contains some of the bands most beautiful and sophisticated sutff like Dancing Wtih The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth and, most of all, Cinema Show. On the other hand we have also some uneven tunes like The Battle Of Epping Forest (a good idea that really did not translate into a good song, it seems like they tried too hard to replicate Supper´s Ready). More Fool Me gives a glimpse of the commercial pop approach the band would follow several years ahead. It was Phil Collins first credited lead vocals and it´s a simple love song (and I like it). After The Ordeal is another fine instrumental tune with Steve Hackett showing off his skills both on classical and electric guitar. I used to like I Know What I Like a lot (excuse the pun) but it was a bit overplayed.

The sounding quality of this album is far superior than previous effords and Gabreil never sang better. Although I still think that Foxtrot is their creative peak, this is also a masterpiece of prog music in any sense, a very influential album and had not dated after all these years. So, even with some faults (at least for my ears), I cannot give this classic anything lower than a 5 star rating. It is a must have for any prog fan and one of the reasons for my love for this kind of music.