Friday, October 5, 1973

Genesis Selling England by the Pound released

Selling England by the Pound

Genesis

Released: October 5, 1973

Peak: 70 US, 3 UK, -- CN, 52 AU Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.2 UK, 2.5 world (includes US + UK), 7.9 EAS

Genre: progressive rock

Tracks:

Dance with the Moonlight Knight [8:05] (18 CL)
I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe [4:08] (2/74, 39 CL, 21 UK, 24 DF)
Firth of Fifth [9:38]
More Fool Me [3:12]
The Battle of Epping Forest [11:49]
After the Ordeal [4:17]
The Cinema Show [11:06]
Aisle of Plenty [1:33]

Total Running Time: 53:48

The Players:

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

Rating:

4.548 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings)

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album

Selling England by the Pound “featured Gabriel’s strongest vocal performance and transcendent work by the rest of the band, especially Tony Banks’ keyboards, which took on a light yet fiercely lyrical profile.” ^BE “They were still a cult band in the United States…but thanks to a lot more FM radio play their music was getting heard beyond the ranks of the cultists, and finding new listeners.” ^BE

“Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn’t follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn’t so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers.” ^AM “Most of the album flaunts songs that are stuffed with stop-start riffs, shifty meters, atmospheric interludes and nutty rhymes: meticulously plotted excess.” ^JP

“Even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as ‘Watcher of the Skies,’ Genesis hasn’t sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot; they’ve married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that’s been their calling card since the beginning.” ^AM

This “is prog Genesis at its pinnacle, an album of song suites that can barely stop morphing long enough to show off a majestic tune or a spiraling guitar riff. It’s a concept album (but of course) about Britain’s long descent from past glories: from Shakespeare and chivalry to dead-end jobs and supermarket shopping.” ^JP

“Many overt literary allusions – the Tolkeinisms of the title of The Battle of Epping Forest only being the most apparent – gives this album a story book quality. It plays as a collection of short stories, fables and fairy tales.” ^AM

“Genesis has never been as direct as they’ve been on the fanciful yet hook-driven I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) – apart from the fluttering flutes in the fade-out, it could easily be mistaken for a glam single – or as achingly fragile as on More Fool Me.” ^AM The latter “introduces Collins as the morosely romantic lead singer he would later become full-time.” ^JP

“It’s this delicate balance and how the album showcases the band’s narrative force on a small scale as well as large that makes this their arguable high-water mark.” ^AM