If you click and enlarge the picture you can see good ol’ Charlie Brown pulling out his well-worn vinyl copy of Selling England by the Pound.
Selling England by the Pound – Genesis (released in 1973)
I remember several times as a teenager watching the British comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus on my local PBS affiliate. I loved some of the more obvious zaniness and several of the buffoonish skits. However, I always felt that the broader contours of the humor were beyond my grasp. In retrospect, much of Monty Python’s humor was beyond me. The colloquialisms were foreign, the surrealism was unfamiliar to me, and the social situations involving prime ministers, knights, gumboots, vicars, civil servants, and the like were just too…British. I was (and still am) a United States Midwesterner and, while I appreciated the hilarity of the physical humor of silly walks or the “Gumby” skits, it wasn’t until I was older that I realized the deep cynicism lurking behind government grants for silly walks or a statement like, “I would put a tax on all people who stand in water.” Taking something serious (for example, wanton over-taxation) and sending it up through silliness is distinctly British and is something that ended up profoundly shaped my worldview, my sense of humor, and the way I look at things like oppressive governmental entities.
Many newbies to progressive rock probably feel the same bewilderment I felt toward Monty Python when approaching the early albums of the British band Genesis. During the mid-1980s Genesis produced highly accessible music that allowed them to sell millions of records, play worldwide to sold-out stadiums, and shill for Michelob beer. This massive success no doubt sent new fans scurrying for the band’s back-catalogue. What awaited those bandwagon fans was a lot of idiosyncratic music with song titles like “Squonk,” “Robbery, Assault & Battery,” and “Wot Gorilla?” If fans managed to white-knuckle it through those late-1970s albums and worked all the way back to the early-1970s where Genesis was fronted by Peter Gabriel they were greeted by aggressively quirky songs like “Stagnation,” “The Return of the Giant Hogweed,” “Harold the Barrel,” and “Get ‘Em Out by Friday.” Anyone expecting “In Too Deep,” “Invisible Touch,” or even “Sussudio” was in for a rude awakening.
Genesis was a band that formed out of several friendships fostered in the British boarding/public school system. They released an ill-conceived first album in 1969 entitled From Genesis to Revelation that found them sounding much more like a third-rate Bee Gees knockoff than the prog rockers they would become. The band’s first proper album (Trespass) was released in 1970 and reflected a far more progressive rock edge, although in a very undeveloped form. It was followed by Nursery Cryme in 1971, Foxtrot in 1972, and Selling England by the Pound in 1973.
The band’s unusual songs were coupled with a live act that was equally daring. Gabriel regularly appeared on stage wearing bizarre costumes like a bowler hat, a red dress, a fox head, and a flower headdress as he acted out the characters from Genesis’ songs. This combination of highly idiosyncratic music and musical theater showmanship brought the band tremendous notoriety and helped solidify their reputation as an edgy live act.
After the jump I will explore Genesis’ Selling England by the Pound track-by-track.
