Genesis

Abacab

The Best Pop Genesis That Money Can Buy

Review Score:

(10/10)
Genesis fans are always split down the middle: Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins? Were the Collins-era pop albums nothing more than lowest-common-denominator sellouts? Were the Gabriel-era prog albums little better than self-important pretentious mush?

Well no and no, says I. One thing that I've always like about the Genesis fans that I know is that regardless of whichever way they lean, they politely allow for a plurality of views without bashing. And I believe that there is room in this world for BOTH the Peter Gabriel-led Genesis and the Phil Collins-led group.

Because it's silly to call an album like Abacab a "sell-out." There are pop songs on this disc, stuff that you would conceivably hear on the radio tomorrow, but you see, they're the kind of songs you'd WANT to hear on the radio. Since when is making a catchy tune selling out? I'll agree that later albums like We Can't Dance come disturbingly close to pandering, but Abacab remains a very strong album and the finest Collins-era work from the band.

There are quite a few "pop" songs on this album - "Abacab," "No Reply At All," "Keep It Dark," etc. - but the thing is, these are GENESIS pop songs. Which is not to say that they're necessarily going to be superior to normal pop songs (take "Misunderstanding" from Duke, for example, as a HORRIBLE pop song from Genesis), but that they're deceptively complex. I was so busy grooving to the horns and Phil's awesome vocal on "No Reply At All" that it took me forever to realize just how brilliantly put together the song is. Listen to it simply from a musical standpoint and you'll hear INTELLIGENT pop, which is always welcome in my CD player.

And they haven't abandoned their prog-roots either. There are at least two long-form songs here (I don't count "Abacab" because it's basically a concise rocker with a lengthy coda tacked on), and they're both GREAT. "Me And Sarah Jane" is probably my favorite song on the album; it evokes a palpable atmosphere, a dreamlike fog which I get into completely. And "Dodo," well that just rocks, harder than most stuff they've done before or since.

There are some tracks I'm not too fond of (like "Who Dunnit?" an experimental piece which can get really aggravating, or "Man On The Corner," which lays it on a bit thick), but all in all this album is consistently good all the way through. It's neither scattershot like the earlier Collins pop albums (...And Then There Were Three and Duke, both of which are uneven), nor is it too cloying like the later ones (Genesis, Invisible Touch, etc.), it's just solid, entertaining, and quite often magnificent music from a band which was evolving out of the death of prog into something completely different. Leave your prejudices at the door - this one's worth owning.

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