Friday, November 12, 1971

Genesis Nursery Cryme released

Nursery Cryme

Genesis

Released: November 12, 1971

Peak: -- US, 39 UK, -- CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.06 UK, 1.5 world (includes US + UK), 4.9 EAS

Genre: progressive rock

Tracks:

The Musical Box [10:32]
For Absent Friends [1:48]
The Return of the Giant Hogweed [8:13]
Seven Stones [5:12]
Harold the Barrel [3:01]
Harlequin [2:57]
The Fountain of Salmacis [7:56]

Total Running Time: 39:39

The Players:

Peter Gabriel (vocals, various instruments)
Anthony Phillips (guitar, backing vocals)
Mike Rutherford (bass, guitar, backing vocals)
Tony Banks (keyboards, backing vocals)
Phil Collins (drums, percussion, backing vocals)

Rating:

3.400 out of 5.00 (average of 18 ratings)

About the Album

After losing two members, Genesis brought in Phil Collins, a former child actor turned drummer. Guitarist Anthony Phillips, who suffered from crippling stage fright, was replaced by Steve Hackett. He was new enough to the band that he barely played on the Nursery Cryme album. Mike Rutherford wrote and played most of the guitar parts, including “The Musical Box,” the centerpiece of the album. The song, which originated during Phillips’ tenure and used some material he had composed, told a “Victorian-era story of children, murder, and ghostly apparitions.” ^BE

The album “was far more exciting than most of the progressive rock of the period. Moreover, it had a daring edge…and while it might not have become a pop culture phenomenon, the album and the song did find an audience among collegiate listeners, principally from the more cerebral members of the public who were lofting Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s and Yes’ albums high up the charts.” ^BE

“If Genesis truly established themselves as progressive rockers on Trespass, Nursery Cryme is where their signature persona was unveiled: true English eccentrics, one part Lewis Carroll and one part Syd Barrett, creating a fanciful world that emphasized the band’s instrumental prowess as much as Peter Gabriel’s theatricality.” ^AM

Part of the new focus can be placed on “two new musicians – Collins on drums and Hackett on guitar – [who] put some kick into the band. They were full of ideas, testing extremes of fingerpicking delicacy and rock riffing, expansiveness and compression.” ^JP

“Which isn’t to say that all of Nursery Cryme works. There are times when the whimsy is overwhelming, just as there are periods when there’s too much instrumental indulgence, yet there’s a charm to this indulgence, since the group is letting itself run wild.” ^AM “Compared to what Genesis would become, their third album can sound clumsy. But for once in their career, decorum didn’t always matter.” ^JP

“Even if they’ve yet to find the furthest reaches of their imagination, part of the charm is hearing them test out its limits, something that does result in genuine masterpieces, as on The Musical Box and The Return of the Giant Hogweed, two epics that dominate the first side of the album and give it its foundation. If the second side isn’t quite as compelling or quite as structured, it doesn’t quite matter because these are the songs that showed what Genesis could do, and they still stand as pinnacles of what the band could achieve.” ^AM