Selling England By the Pound - Progressive Rock Missing the Mark

1/25/11 – Selling England By the Pound (Genesis)

When I don't like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely.
- Florent Schmitt

            I have no idea how to review this album.  Much like the Jaco Pastorius and Antje Duvekot albums, this is one I’ve been looking forward to getting to for a while now.  I’ve been told that some of my musical tastes would lend me to getting into some early Genesis, back when Peter Gabriel was still with the group.  I was told, “It’s a little outside the box, but what good prog rock album isn’t, right?”  This is not a little outside the box.  This is way outside the box.  At this point, I’d be inclined to lump this CD in with both the Ligeti string quartet and Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.  I don’t get it, I don’t particularly enjoy it, but I’m not prone to dismissing it entirely.

            The opening track, “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight,” contains the lines that lend the title to this album.  Phil Collins’ voice is recognizable, but the textures and sounds behind it combine elements of Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” with early music and big church choir influences.  Early analog synth sounds combine with harpsichord, electric guitars, flutes, and dulcimers to form this strange amalgamation that I can only describe as Christopher Guest and the cast of This is Spinal Tap if they took themselves seriously.

            “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” is the closest thing to a radio-friendly track on the album.  Amidst a number of 11-plus minute tracks, this is a modest four.  The melodies are a little catchier and maybe even infectious, but the piece as a whole is still outside the mainstream.  More buzzy synths, this time paired with sitar in the background and tutti vocals by the whole band.  Peter Gabriel inserts fragments of poetry reminiscent of Lewis Carrol intermittently.

            “Firth of Fifth” begins with a classical/new age-y piano solo in a series of odd-metered arpeggios that seem to be another trend of the CD.  The instrumental interludes throughout the piece are interesting and soaring in nature, if somewhat disjunct from the vocal sections of the tune.  “More Fool Me” seems again to be a return to a traditional single, with a simple acoustic guitar and vocal texture.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a lot to work with; the verses are soft and slightly out of time, and the chorus short enough that just as it seems it might be going somewhere, it’s over.

            “The Battle of Epping Forest” is the longest offering of the album, nearly 12 minutes, beginning with a military 7/8 fife and drum march.  Then, without any transition, it’s into British-styled rock.  The piece winds into what I can only describe as a rock operatic presentation of a through-composed epic poetic narrative.  Like much of the album, this feels less like a song by any variety of rock band, but closer to a performance art piece or contemporary classical offshoot.  The guitar, bass, and drum instrumentation is vaguely rock, but the cohesion of a “band” seems absent.

            “After the Ordeal” I feel is intended to be an epilogue to the “battle” of the previous track, and is the only instrumental on the CD.  It begins as more of the same neo-baroque piano, lute and hand percussion instrumental haze that hangs over many of the other tracks herein.  It eventually gives way to a Pink Floyd-esque guitar and trippy organ duet.  I could see this track very easily playing over a morphine or LSD induced montage in any number of movies…

            “The Cinema Show” is another lengthy narrative piece, beginning with a rather beautiful renaissance inspired guitar, organ and dulcimer texture.  This texture is interrupted by a brief section of “rock” (whatever that means at this point,) and then returns, adding some oboe and flute obliggati into the mix.  I am briefly reminded of some of the instrumental sounds of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Faire (Canticle.)”  If you’re familiar with that one, you can get the gist of this.  As the track continues, it seems to develop into a tug-of-war between these two camps – the ultra-retro and the futuristic.  In fact, I think it’s a microcosm of the whole CD (and perhaps prog rock as a whole;) the elements of moving rock ahead and elevating the art form using what has gone before as the yardstick are at odds and seem impossible to be brought together.

            “Aisle of Plenty” closes the album, and once again, seems to be an epilogue to the previous track, pulling in both melodic and lyric connections to both “The Cinema Show” and the opening track of the album.

While I know the point of progressive rock is to elevate it to a higher art form than mainstream, when not executed well, it just comes across as pretentious.  The intent is clearly futuristic, but the implementation seems based on Baroque and earlier throwbacks.  The result seems to be a jumbled mess more often than not.  I was really looking forward to enjoying this album.  I was.  Perhaps I, like Genesis, set the bar too high on this one.

Tomorrow – Hindemith: Kleine Kammermusik

Next week – Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits