This is the POLL We Live In: Genesis - Invisible Touch

fuck, this album is the bald Thriller

srsly

Hmmm I don't know the album tracks, but tell me that's a sidelong prog suite about tony banks getting his pubes waxed

it's a sidelong prog suite about Tony Banks getting his pubes waxed.

Invisible Touch, Land of Confusion or Throwing It All Away. Going with the latter.

tell me that's a sidelong prog suite about tony banks getting his pubes waxed

Domino is not too far off from that

Splitting "Domino" into its components is cheating!

I wish I could find DJP's great post about that song from years back. It made me buy Invisible Touch!

Which half of Domino has the line about the beautiful rivers of blood?

"The Last Domino," between which and "The Brazilian" I am wavering between voting. "The Last Domino" is the one that really modified me when I was listening to this a lot, but "The Brazilian" is the one that no one pays attention to but which is amazing. But now that I'm listening to "The Brazilian" I'm finding the drums a little bit fussy and leaning towards "The Last Domino." Will report back.

Title track is the best of the singles on this, by the way. Late-period Genesis was great at straght hits ("That's All", "Invisible Touch") and great at weirdo over-the-top prog-genre exercises ("Domino", "Silver Rainbow") but never combined the two in a satsifying way after "Abacab" (which to be fair is greater than anything of any kind they recorded after it.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t65NQg6iXDw

Title track is the best of the singles on this, by the way. Late-period Genesis was great at straght hits ("That's All", "Invisible Touch") and great at weirdo over-the-top prog-genre exercises ("Domino", "Silver Rainbow") but never combined the two in a satsifying way after "Abacab" (which to be fair is greater than anything of any kind they recorded after it.)

This is pretty OTM and explains why I Can't Dance doesn't work

Confession: the only single I don't like is "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."

^ That's the only one of these songs I DO like.

"Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" is massive imo, definitely considering voting for it

my dad musta played this tape in the car every day for a year and i still can't remember anything but the hits

Still protesting splitting "Domino" in half, going with "In the Glow of the Night" because of the chorus

i have a feeling it was my dad's attempt to introduce me to his beloved prog at any early age, but i guess it kinda backfired because it only left me with a lingering obsession with mid 80s pop schlock.

thanks to Collins' pop instincts, "Domino" IS mid 80's pop schlock.

it's kind of crazy to me that "In Too Deep" is one of the weaker songs on this album

NOW SEE WHAT YOU'VE GONE 'N' DONE

You've got to go Domino.

btw Abbs, here's that post you referenced: So what about that New Toyota Ad with Phil Collins?

Collins at his most punchable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW68T84RLHw

haha somehow I knew that was going to be the "Invisible Touch" video

although have you seen the "Anything She Does" video? it may be the most punchable thing ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxiQFNWGeq4

Immense poll. Side one is unfuckwithable, side two isn't sticking except The Brazilian, which is nice. Love Phil's vocals, they're so *urgent*. Has this been hugely compressed, actually? It's far more punchy than these headphones normally allow.

Anyway, I'm going with Tonight, Tonight, Tonight. This album is the most forbidden of fruit for me btw - has never been remotely fashionable, looks horrible, probably politically vile AND was one of the handful of contemporary records my parents owned.

The bridge on Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is epic.

I remember liking the bridge. Maybe I should listen to the album version before dismissing it (it's been years).

oh you really should

my god so everything here was a single or B-side except "Domino."

according to Wikipedia, both halves of "Domino" were b-sides (to "Invisible Touch" and "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" respectively)

bald Thriller, y'all

"Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" (album version) vs. "Throwing It All Away." "Land of Confusion" is really good, too. I like the dual epics at the end, but as much as I admire Tony Banks, in the '80s much of his work sounded like a preset demo (see: solo on "Abacab," solo on "Tonightx3," much of "Domino" and "Brazilian."

I love this record. I was talking to a friend about the drums on "Throwing It All Away," just this perfect, immediately-identifiable groove, something that Phil can pull off better than most.

The ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-AHH's on "Throwing it All Away" are A+.

a wonderful keyboardist but from the looks of those videos (and the "Behind The Music" episode) there might not be a duller person in the history of the world than Tony Banks.

By the way, I find these guys so far from punchable it's silly to even suggest it. No one could say they didn't put in the time and effort and talent. I think they were as amused at their super-stardom as anyone. Just a bunch of upper class - and yes, dull - British dudes and their hammy working class buddy. Who it bears noting took a while to give in to the spotlight and get his smug on.

a while back i made a thread about artists who had a long streak of every album selling more than the last where i just marveled at the fact that these guys had a thirteen-album streak of getting bigger and bigger (6 w/ Gabriel, 7 with Collins), which is kind of unheard of.

In a Q Magazine article published around the time of Calling All Stations (lol), Mike Rutherford, asked about that very fact, goes, "Well, we're prepared to take the hit this time."

well, We Can't Dance technically broke the streak but that still sold 4 million or something

I think the record stood until CAS in England.

Ed Goodgold on dullness (from the Genesis Archive booklet):

I told them that it was my practice to hire detectives to follow all the musicians that I managed while they were on tour and that I had just received the report from the agency. I took an envelope out of my pocket and started reading the report: 'Of the five detectives originally assigned to follow the members of Genesis on their inaugural tour of the States, four have died of boredom. The fifth...the fifth is in a coma.'

I like Tony Banks. He comes across earnest, straightforward, and mostly just interested in talking about the music.

Sounds a bit like Rush. In that (great) doc, the band talks about how on their stint opening for Kiss, the Kiss guys would be going nuts, while the Rush guys would be reading. Kiss could not compute.

For those who have not seen this classic 1972 clip, it's got Tony playing guitar. And Peter playing flute.

man the 2007 remaster of this is TERRIBLE, just A/B'd it with the original and i can tell even on spotify

2007 remaster shat all over Trick of the Tail, too.

Pretty sure 2007 Genesis remasters were actually reMIXES. Big difference.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-234428.html

fuck, this album is the bald Thriller
― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:33 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this might be my favorite thing ever written on ILM
Serious thank yous

:)

BLOOD ON THE WINDOWS!
MILLIONS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE THERE!

http://i1.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/article7098556.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/Phil-Collins.jpg

Coming out the woodwork, through the open door
Pushing from above and below
Shadows without substance, in the shape of men
Round and down and sideways they go
Adrift without direction, eyes that hold despair

http://www.paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disney_tarzan_jane_hands-680x383.jpg?74f3cb

Best track on this record: all of them.

What makes this record an incredible achievement is that is not just superior to everything else that Genesis put out from 1981 onwards, but in terms of quality and songwriting it knocks Phil Collins' solo work into a cocked hat, too. It's a real diamond in the rough.

IT is so blatantly commercial -- bully for them -- making a record with sales up the wazoo, videos on constant MTV rotation, entering the cultural confab; none too bad for some old white prog guys. The band changed their trajectory in a radical fashion even if this was the direction they were already heading. All these tracks sound far more dated than those from albums a decade earlier.

It took them years to write a perfect pop song. Their first attempt was 'I Know What I Like', and they got close with 'Follow You Follow Me', 'Turn It On Again' and 'That's All' ... but this album is where they finally nailed it, particularly on the title track, and they did it while keeping their inherent progginess intact. It was still prog in places, just a different kind of prog.

I agree that the album sounds like it was released in 1986, but that's to be expected given that it was. Dated is not a pejorative.

Duke does not sound like it was made in 1980, nor does Trespass sound like 1970 -- IT was of it's time; fine hits, but in the end, derivative. Take your classic rock-whatever, Moving Pictures, Women and Children First, Tres Hombres... as fresh today as ever. IT is in a box, and, a small one; especially when compared to the rest of their catalog. Why do so many equate an album's quality with the number of hits it has? ....a foolhardy pursuit.

Those albums also sound like they were released in the year in which they were released.

I disagree that Invisible Touch is derivative, particularly since the average pop artist of 1986 wasn't putting out tracks like 'Domino' or the full version of 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' ...

You seem to be under the impression that writing pop hits is an easy thing to do. It isn't.

pop hits are mostly either by design or by chance; in this case, having a pop-derived disposition lessened the impact of a once powerful group of uncompromising artisans -- starting to chase tails here, but Peter also went down the same rabbit-hole with Sledgehammer, et al (but could Collins have ever even conceived of anything as brilliant as the Passion OMPS? Apples and Oranges, Turd.

Dream Theatre used to say writing a good pop song was mind blowing to them because the shit they wrote was so freeform in comparison.

But they suck so...

xpost:

I'd say that as a pop song, 'Invisible Touch' has a lot of impact - as a tune, it's truly uplifting and joyous and the lyric is a theme that anyone over a certain age can relate to. The album as a whole certainly had enough "impact" to speak to a great number of people. Seems to me that you're irked that 10 minute epics about dungeons and dragons weren't speaking to a great number of people in 1986, including the band themselves. The bands melodic sense and desire to do something different remained intact, even if it didn't always work - see: the two LP's prior to Invisible Touch.

I've mentioned before that I don't reall like Phil's solo stuff, so I don't see what that has to do with anything, as well as Gabriel vs. Collins talk when Banks and Rutherford were the ones running the show.

I think we've established at this stage that bodacious ignoramus is a rockist prone to throwing juvenile hissy fits when his belief system is called into question, though.

troll-bait

Well I've been waiting, waiting here so long
But thinking nothing, nothing could go wrong, but now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her.

I don't really know her, I only know her name
But she crawls under your skin, you're never quite the same, and now I know
She's got something you just can't trust
It's something mysterious
And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her.

She don't like losing, to her it's still a game
Though she'll mess up your life, you'll want her just the same, now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I've fallen, fallen for her.

She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.

Rinse and repeat.

...i'm beside myself with the lyrical depth --- the two albums previous to IT have tracks are that are far more inventive than anything on IT... dungeons and dragons notwithstanding.

xpost:

Well, at least you're admitting it.

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to. If you can't, then fair enough, but I guess that says a lot. If you're relying on wacky stories about hypersexual Victorian ghosts, the human race being turned into a bunch of short-arses, or a bird stealing some guys dick to make you feel like the deep intellectual you think you are, but aren't, then also fair enough.

exhausted and bored -- meld to your flaccid 2112-version of the future; wait for me there.

...and you can buy the beers!

*cranks up Invisible Touch*

off topic, but cranks......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_duQibI3Nvo

I can't keep up with all these threads tbh

This is the one where people are arguing about Genesis. HTH

In the beginning ...

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to.

tf is this self parody

Nope, just the truth.

Trollo, Lurker.

sadness, and i'm 49 - turd must be 109

I rest my case.

you won't; guaranteed.

As I've said, 'Invisible Touch' has a lyrical theme that pretty much anyone over a certain age can relate to.

tf is this self parody

I was thinking more Patrick Bateman parody

*QI klaxon*

Well, I don't think Invisible Touch is their undisputed masterpiece (and I hate 'Sussudio' with a passion, for that matter) ... but it's without doubt their second best album of the '80s.

'Throwing It All Away' just came up on shuffle and I was just struck once more by how much of a beautifully sung and beautifully written song it is. I had to listen to the rest of Invisible Touch immediately.

It is like the perfect midlife boomer ballad. That gently billowing guitar line is lovely.

compare "Follow You Follow Me."

I am willing to come out and say that "Throwing" is probably a better song. More nuanced in both lyric and in delivery.

"Throwing It All Away" is such a lovely song. I particularly love the drums. This is mostly a Mike song, right?

Think it's Mike all the way

In Too Deep badly stiffed here

In Too Deep is the ballad I always forget about, like Taking It All Too Hard. Unlike most IT songs (save maybe Anything She Does?) In Too Deep wouldn't be out of place on No Jacket.

'In Too Deep' is another sublime track - if it had been on No Jacket Required, it'd have been the best thing on there.

compare "Follow You Follow Me."

I am willing to come out and say that "Throwing" is probably a better song. More nuanced in both lyric and in delivery.

― you had better come correct (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, November 26, 2017 3:07 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh absolutely! They'd truly mastered the art of the concise ballad by the time of Invisible Touch.

YOU KEEP TELLING ME I'VE GOT EVERYTHING!
YOU-SAY-I'VE-GOT EEEEEEVERYYYYTHIIIIING IIIII WAAAANT!

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/6Gg6GtPg7U4UELscme8yjY/33cc5a70-c559-4785-8069-cd939c0abd85.jpg/r0_52_2528_1458_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

“ it's without doubt their second best album of the '80s.”

Whatttt? It’s maybe the fourth, after Abacab, Duke, and S/T....and I’m not sure it edges out We Can’t Dance either...

I remember a school summer holiday when I played this album to death in rotation with Selling England By The Pound and IQ's Nomzamo (and I was still the coolest kid in my street!). I would've voted for Tonight Tonight Tonight. The ferocious release of the "You keep tellin' me I got everything" vocal after the super-tensile instrumental passage still resonates with me and is as raging as any Black Flag.

Absolutely! I've read some folks say "oh, the instrumental section on 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' is so dull" because they're not going full-on like they did in the '70s, but it's meant to be this long, slow build that climaxes in that part. As you say, a ferocious release.

I'd rank the '80s albums Duke > Invisible Touch > Genesis > Abacab at this point. While the latter two have their high points ('Home by the Sea'/'Second Home by the Sea', 'Dodo/Lurker', 'Mama'), they've also got tracks like 'Illegal Alien', 'Another Record', 'Who Dunnit?' etc. which aren't really all that great. Invisible Touch has absolutely no filler on it.

Aw, I love Another Record...

^ yeah, you can't mention "Another Record" in the same list with those other two.

round and round and round and a-round it go, uhhhh, see me smile

some talk on another thread reminded me that I actually used to love the song Illegal Alien as a kid, not only because it was super catchy but because I had assumed the lyrics were about space aliens that crashed to Earth and that for some reason they had been outlawed. I dunno, like half the video games I played on my PC had a plot like that. anyway, I'll still defend the music at least.