Overexposed: Maroon 5’s Slick New Pop Album (Review)

The following is a review of Maroon 5's album Overexposed that I wrote for the online music service KKBox a year ago. Their head office is in Taiwan, but they recently set up a Singapore branch, which is why they needed articles in English, and this is the first one I did for them. As the version they used is only viewable by subscribers to their service in Singapore (so I can't even view it myself), I am republishing it here. I haven't changed it from the version I sent to them (though I don't know whether the editor I was working with did anything to it), but I've added some comments at the bottom to further clarify my opinion of the album as compared with the band's earlier work.

Overexposed: Maroon 5’s Slick New Pop Album

Maroon 5 first burst into the public consciousness with soulful funk rock like the group’s breakout hit, the Stevie Wonder-inspired “This Love”. Their debut album Songs About Jane was released in 2002, though it wasn’t until “This Love” was released as a single in 2004 that the group achieved international superstardom, solidified by further hits taken from Songs About Jane such as the popular ballad “She Will Be Loved”. The band’s next two albums, 2007’s It Won't Be Soon Before Long (which featured the group’s first US No. 1, “Makes Me Wonder”) and 2010’s Hands All Over, showed increasing pop sophistication and polish, while retaining much of the funky edge of their debut. Following slightly weaker sales for Hands All Over, Maroon 5 bounced back in 2011 with the huge international hit “Moves Like Jagger”, a single featuring Christina Aguilera that sold over 8 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the top songs of the year and Maroon 5’s best selling song by far.

With their fourth album, Overexposed, Maroon 5 is clearly aiming to capitalize on the massive success of “Moves Like Jagger” (the title of which refers to Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones) in the hope of matching the sales of Songs About Jane, which remains their best selling album. They have stated in interviews that they consciously made a pop record, shifting further away from indie rock and toward polished pop and dance-oriented music. “Jagger”, which was written mainly by producer/songwriters Benjamin Levin (co-writer of songs like Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and Rhianna’s “Diamonds”) and Shellback (co-writer of P!nk’s “So What” and “Raise Your Glass”) with some additional writing by Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine, also inspired the group to make increased use of outside writers on Overexposed. On the band’s first two albums, all the songs were written by Levine with other members of the band (chiefly guitarist James Valentine and keyboardist Jesse Carmichael) or on his own. On Hands All Over, the group collaborated with outside writers on a few tracks, but wrote most of the album themselves. On Overexposed, however, while Levine co-wrote all of the songs, he only wrote four of them with other members of the band, writing all the rest, including the album’s singles, with Shellback, Benjamin Levin and other outside writers. The result is an album that emphasizes a radio-friendly, danceable sound over guitar rock.

Overexposed’s lead single, “Payphone”, is a catchy mid-tempo track about a broken romance featuring somewhat superfluous rapping by Wiz Khalifa. Propelled by its propulsive chorus, the song hit number 2 in the US and became their first UK chart topper. The album opener and second single, “One More Night” is a reggae-tinged pop song about a bad relationship with sexually irresistible lover that topped the US Billboard singles chart for nine straight weeks. The album’s third track and third single is “Daylight”, a soft rock ballad reminiscent of Coldplay. Of the four tracks written entirely by Maroon 5 themselves, the most notable are “Ladykiller”, a Michael Jackson-style number in which the singer’s girlfriend has left him for another woman, and the piano-based ballad “Sad”, which is a welcome change of pace from the dance beats that dominate elsewhere. Lyrically, the songs on Overexposed tread familiar ground for Maroon 5, being mostly about broken, dysfunctional, and sexually-charged relationships, but with the focus on the catchy pop hooks, the lyrics are relatively unimportant. While it marks a distinct departure from the sound heard on Songs About Jane, Overexposed should appeal to fans of danceable, soul-flavored pop, possibly winning Maroon 5 a new audience.

While of course I didn't write anything in this review that I didn't really think was true, I also didn't ever state outright what I really thought of Overexposed. However, most people no doubt can read between the lines and see that I strongly preferred their earlier albums, particularly their first. Overexposed is not terrible: it's got a few decent songs and overall it's more listenable than a lot of pop albums. But it's way too slick and overproduced, and it's obvious that the band was abandoning much of their original sound in a blatant effort to repeat the commercial success of "Moves Like Jagger" (which isn't that great either). While it's true, as I wrote, that this album will appeal to many pop fans (e.g., those who like shallow, disposable pop), I myself would much rather listen to the band's previous albums.

A Look Back, And a Look Forward

This is my final blog entry for 2013 and also the 50th post I've made on this blog. This seems like a good place to look back over my previous entries and talk a little about what I hope to post here in the future (admittedly, my inability to pick a more specific topic to write about is another reason for doing this now). I've done reviews of favorite albums by the Beatles (Revolver and Abbey Road), Queen (A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races), Randy Newman (Sail Away), Genesis (Genesis and Selling England by the Pound), the Police (Synchronicity), Sting (Ten Summoner's Tales), the Super Furry Animals (Rings Around the World) and Radiohead (The Bends). I've written career retrospectives on each of the Beatles (Paul, John, George, and Ringo), the members of Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor), the members of Genesis (Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, and even Anthony Phillips), Randy Newman, Sting, Jimi Hendrix, and Lou Reed, plus a listing of my favorite Rolling Stones songs. I've posted several of my previously published articles on Taiwanese popular music, or links to articles online elsewhere. I've posted several of my imaginary post-breakup Beatles albums, and my compilations of 50s rock and roll and late 60s-early 70s classics of the psychedelic era. While some of these articles could use some revising and updating, I think for the most part I'm satisfied with them.

In the next year, I plan to continue to write articles similar to those I've already posted, particularly more album reviews, though as before I'll write whatever I'm inspired to write without following any particular plan. However, I'll probably be posting at most at a pace similar to that I've maintained for most of this year (about three articles every two months), or even less often than that. The main reason for this slower pace is I hope to be working intensely on my book on Taiwanese aboriginal music, and possibly also on my other book project, a general history of Taiwanese popular music. I also plan to post some of the reviews and articles I've written over the past year for the online music service KKBox, since for most of them the period for which I gave KKBox exclusive use has long expired. In some cases I may revise or elaborate on them, though probably I'll just post most of them in the form they were originally written. If I'm particularly busy on other projects, these articles may end up constituting the majority of my posts for the upcoming year. Fortunately I wrote a dozen reviews and articles for them this year, so even if I don't have time to write anything new at all, I should be able to post at least once a month in the upcoming year.

Imagine: A Beatles Album from 1972

This is the third of my what-if-the-Beatles-hadn't-broken-up Beatles albums, the first two of which were 1970's What Is Life and 1971's Working Class Heroes. This one would have been released in early 1972. As noted below and in my post on Working Class Heroes, I should have put "It's So Hard" on this album and "I Found Out" on this one, but until I have time to redo all of them, I'm just posting my original track listing and liner notes. The title for this one was the first to violate my original intention to avoid using the titles of any actual solo albums, but it proved to hard to resist in this case (and in the case of one later album in the series).

Imagine

Imagine (Lennon) 3:06 (1971/09/09)
Isn't It A Pity (Harrison) 7:08 (1970/11/27)
Tomorrow (McCartney/McCartney) 3:24 (1971/12/07)
Jealous Guy (Lennon) 4:17 (1971/09/09)
Bangla Desh (Harrison) (1971/07/28)
Another Day (McCartney/McCartney) 3:41 (1971/02/19)
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Harrison) 3:04
Ram On (McCartney) (1971/05/17)
Crippled Inside (Lennon) (1971/09/09)
I Found Out (Lennon) 3:36 (1970/12/11)
Back Off Boogaloo (Starkey) 3:24 (1972/03/17)
Mumbo (McCartney/McCartney) (1971/12/07)
Give Me Some Truth (Lennon) 3:18 (1971/09/09)

Total Time - 49:21

Imagine
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine

Isn't It A Pity
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass

Tomorrow
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Wings
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/12/07
From Wild Life

Jealous Guy
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine

Bangla Desh
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/07/28
Single

Another Day
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01; Released 1971/02/19
Single

Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass

Ram On
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram

Crippled Inside
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Dobro: George Harrison
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine

I Found Out
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band

Back Off Boogaloo
Written and Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Guitar and Production: George Harrison
Recorded 1971-2?; Released 1972/03/17
Single

Mumbo
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Wings
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/12/07
From Wild Life

Give Me Some Truth
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Guitar: George Harrison
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine


The third post-Beatles "Beatles" album is powered mainly by songs from John, specifically from his second solo album Imagine, which along with Plastic Ono Band is generally regarded as one of his two best solo albums. Strictly speaking "I Found Out" (a track from Plastic Ono Band) should have been on Working Class Heroes, while "It's So Hard" (a track from Imagine which I put on Working Class Heroes) should have been on this one. But it was only after I did Working Class Heroes that I decided to make use of more tracks from Plastic Ono Band. Originally I had limited myself to four tracks from any particular album (except George's All Things Must Pass, since it was a triple album), but afterward I decided that it would be a shame not to include more from the better albums, especially since many of the later albums by the various ex-Beatles lacked so much strong material. Another track that was a particularly strong contender from Plastic Ono Band was "Look At Me", which is one of the older compositions on the album (John noted that it was "pre-Janov", referring to the primal scream therapy he went through with Arthur Janov which led to most of the other soul-searching tracks on the album). But since it is a quiet, more ballad-like tune and this album already had two ballads from John ("Jealous Guy" and "Imagine"), I decided it made more sense to include a heavier song like "I Found Out".

"Imagine" and "Jealous Guy" were fairly obvious choices. Regardless of how one feels about the idealistic lyrics (which John later said Yoko should have been co-credited for, as he based them on something she had written), "Imagine" unquestionably had the greatest impact of all of John's post-1970 efforts and is in fact one of the most well known songs he ever wrote. "Jealous Guy" is also one of his best-known tracks. The music for this song dates back to the White Album period, though at the time it had different lyrics and was entitled "Child Of Nature". "Give Me Some Truth" is one of the best rockers on Imagine and, along with "I Found Out", makes a good counterbalance to the ballads. For the final selection from Imagine, I ended up choosing "Crippled Inside" over "How?" (another ballad), mainly because the jaunty music is something of a departure for John, but also because the lyrics, while vicious, are pretty well written. The song is obviously an attack on hypocrisy, and a few critics view it as an attack on Paul in particular (presumably because of the line about looking cute), though most do not. As far as I know, no one ever asked John to clarify his target, perhaps because all attention was focused on the song from Imagine which clearly was an attack on Paul, "How Do You Sleep?" (not the same as the song "How?" mentioned above). In that case there was no question about who the song was about ("The only thing you ever did was yesterday, now you're just another day"), though John defended it as a response to songs on Ram like "Too Many People". [And he later made clear that the hostility in the song was a spur of the moment emotional thing; in later years he and Paul even hung out together.]

Paul, meanwhile was going through a relatively fallow period, though as by far the most prolific of the four, he still had plenty of songs to choose from, some of which are not bad. "Another Day" was written in 1969 and was actually released before Ram, having been recorded at the beginning of the Ram sessions, and was Paul's first post-Beatles single. While I don't think it's quite as good as the best material on his first two albums, it's catchy and has a lyric which is better than many others he wrote. From Ram I decided to include one more song, and the short but pleasant "Ram On" was my choice (I also considered "Smile Away").

Paul followed Ram with his first Wings album, Wild Life. This is commonly rated as one of the worst albums of his career. This is not without justification, as it is sloppily recorded and contains some pretty poor material. Despite this, it is not entirely without merit. All Music Guide, while generally negative, calls it "frustrating and amazing", and "a pop record like no other", and Mojo gives a revisionist view, actually including it in The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time. "Tomorrow" is a standout track, and the opening track, "Mumbo", while not containing any actual lyrics (considering the kind of lyrics Paul sometimes wrote, this may not be a bad thing), is a decent rocker. Other tracks from the album which I considered were the title track and "Dear Friend", with the latter an especially strong contender, but unfortunately both were a little too long.

George's contributions include two more tracks from All Things Must Pass, and a single from the summer of 1971. "Isn't It A Pity" is one of the best known album tracks from All Things Must Pass, and "Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp" is one of the other many solid songs from the album. "Bangla Desh", meanwhile, was George's first effort to help that country recover from the aftereffects of the war in which it became independent. He followed this with his massive Concert For Bangladesh, which was the first major rock charity concert and an inspiration for later concerts such as Live Aid, though its actual effectiveness was limited by red tape and record company greed. The friend mentioned in the song who asked George to help was of course Ravi Shankar (he was not actually from Bangladesh, but was from neighboring West Bengal).

As for Ringo, he still hadn't come out with a regular pop album, but he did release a single in 1972 to follow up "It Don't Come Easy". This song, "Back Off Boogaloo", was another hit. At the time, some interpreted it as being about Paul (supposedly "Boogaloo" was a nickname the other Beatles sometimes called him, though I haven't seen any reliable source for this), but while the lyrics do lend themselves somewhat to that interpretation, Ringo later said it was based on something his friend Marc Bolan used to say. In any case, while it's hardly as good as his previous single, it is a fair effort and is a credible contribution to the album.

My Top Fifteen Rolling Stones Songs

I’ve never been nearly as huge a fan of the Rolling Stones as I am of their friendly rivals from the 1960s, the Beatles. For that matter, there are a lot of other rock bands I listen to considerably more often than the Stones. I can only claim familiarity with a limited part of their catalog. I only own two studio albums (Let It Bleed and Exile on Main St.), the Hot Rocks compilation, and a promotional sampler with half a dozen classic tracks and half a dozen from A Bigger Bang, their most recent studio album. Other than the songs appearing on these albums, I am familiar with a few other frequently played songs from throughout their career, but that’s about it. However, out of the songs I know, there are a lot of good ones and quite a few great ones. Recently I wrote a retrospective on the Stones for an online music service (unfortunately only members can view the articles and reviews, though I will eventually post them here, after I’ve let the website have exclusive use of them for a sufficient period of time). Before doing so, I listened to the 50-track version of their new compilation GRRR! through the music service I was writing for, and was reminded of how many good songs they’ve had throughout their career. This inspired me to try to come up with a list of my fifteen favorite Rolling Stones songs.

I always have a lot of difficulty with this kind of list, because I often like a lot of songs (or albums) more or less equally, but for very different reasons, making it very hard to choose one over another. Also, my preferences will vary to some extent depending on my mood. In fact, I think it would be nearly impossible for me to make a list of my fifteen or even twenty favorite Beatles songs, because I think so many of their songs are equally great (I wasn’t even able to limit myself to twenty songs when only choosing from those written by Paul McCartney or those written by John Lennon). I might be able to make such a list for some other favorite artists like Queen, Genesis, Randy Newman or Sting, but it would be pretty hard in those cases too. It wasn’t even easy to do it for the Rolling Stones. In one respect, the difficulty was the same – choosing between several songs that I liked more or less equally well. But for the Stones, another difficulty was that problem was that there were some songs, particularly from later in their career, that I couldn’t remember well enough to decide whether I should include them. On the other hand, of course, they have a lot of songs that I’ve never even heard (the majority of the songs they’ve recorded, in fact) and therefore didn’t even consider, which at least narrowed down the field a lot. I originally intended to make a list of ten, but considering the size of the Stones’ catalog (even considering only the parts I’m familiar with), I ended up expanding that to fifteen. The first three songs are the ones that nine times out of ten I would name as my favorites, though the exact order might vary. The others I would say I have a decided preference for, but on any given day they might be in a different order or even replaced by other Stones songs that didn’t quite make the list this time.

Some might observe that few of my choices are the straight-ahead rock and roll songs that the Rolling Stones are best known for. Actually, I like that kind of song a lot as well, but in a catalog as huge as that of the Stones, it’s easier for a song to stand out if there is something unusual or quirky about it. I like clever arrangements and unusual sounds, and so these things are common features in many of my favorite songs by whatever artist. “Paint It Black”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” are not what might be called typical Rolling Stones songs, but they are in my opinion the best ones they ever recorded. I’m also quite fond of the psychedelic “2000 Light Years from Home”, which probably wouldn’t be ranked among the group’s top 15 or 20 songs by most Stones fans (it didn’t even make the 50-track version of GRRR!, unlike every other song here, though it is on the 80-track version). On the other hand, I also like some more stereotypical Stones songs like “Street Fighting Man”, “19th Nervous Breakdown”, and “Let’s Spend the Night Together”. While I imagine many ardent Stones fans would strongly disagree with some of my choices, this is after all a list of my own subjective preferences as a casual fan of the group. Maybe when I have the opportunity to listen to more of their songs, my preferences will change.

My Top Fifteen Rolling Stones Songs

Sympathy for the Devil
Paint It Black
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Ruby Tuesday
Mother’s Little Helper
2000 Light Years from Home
Street Fighting Man
Miss You
Tumbling Dice
Honky Tonk Women
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
19th Nervous Breakdown
Let’s Spend the Night Together
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Gimmie Shelter

Honorable Mentions: The Last Time, We Love You, She’s a Rainbow, Jigsaw Puzzle, Rocks Off, Angie, It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It), Beast of Burden, Start Me Up, Streets of Love, Doom and Gloom

Note on Song Authorship: All of these songs were officially attributed to the songwriting team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. However, this may not be accurate in all cases. While the two collaborated much more than Lennon and McCartney, who despite sharing credits wrote many songs entirely separately, a number of Jagger/Richards songs were mostly written by one or the other, and some songs apparently had input from other members of the band, even though they didn’t get credit (though I should note that most of the information I’ve seen about the songwriting is secondhand, rather than being based on direct quotes by band members). As it happens, it seems Jagger was mainly responsible for writing two of my three favorite Stones songs. Both “Sympathy for the Devil” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” were mainly his work, and he really outdid himself on these two songs. Bill Wyman apparently claimed that the third song in my top three, “Paint It Black”, was a group composition that should have been attributed to “Nanker/Phelge”, the collective pseudonym the Stones used for songs written by the whole group. Whether this was true or not, Brian Jones’s sitar riff is one of the main reasons the song is as good as it is, a point that has been acknowledged by Richards. Of the other tracks, “Ruby Tuesday” apparently was written mainly by Richards with some help from Jones (one of the few instances of Jones playing a major role in writing a song). Wyman has claimed to have written the riff for “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. “Gimme Shelter” was mainly written by Richards. As far as I know, the other songs on the main list are genuine Jagger/Richards collaborations (of the honorable mentions, the chorus of "The Last Time" was lifted from the traditional gospel song "This May Be the Last Time", recorded by the Staple Singers).

Lou Reed: Walking on the Wild Side

As most people probably have heard by now, Lou Reed died on October 27, at the age of 71. His unique, monotone voice and his lyrics about outcasts, drug addicts and others on the fringes of society made him one of the most important and influential artists of his day, though commercial success mostly eluded him. There was a time many years ago when the only song of his I knew was his 1972 hit "Walk on the Wild Side", which used as the closing track on the original version of my compilation A Generation Lost In Space - Rock Classics of the Psychedelic Era that I put together in college. It wasn't until many years later that I borrowed the Velvet Underground boxed set from someone and had the chance to listen to all of their music, eventually acquiring their debut and a selection of other tracks. The Velvet Underground, of course, were the seminal 1960s band that Reed was the chief songwriter and primary vocalist for. The group was a commercial failure but went on to become incredibly influential, with their debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico now being regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and their other three albums before Reed's departure being almost as highly rated. It didn't take much listening for me to appreciate the band's originality and the high quality of Reed's writing. As for his solo career, I still can't claim to heard many of his songs other than "Walk on the Wild Side", but I recently acquired The Very Best of Lou Reed and so have made a start at familiarizing myself with his post-VU work. Still, the following selection of songs is necessarily heavily slanted towards Reed's VU songs, because they are what I know best. I also stuck to songs Reed wrote on his own, which meant leaving out songs like the VU's "Sunday Morning", which he co-wrote with John Cale. [Update: Having had the opportunity to listen to a little more of Reed's solo work, I've added a few songs to the list.]

Songs by Lou Reed (1942-2013)
I'm Waiting for the Man
Run Run Run
All Tomorrow's Parties (vocals: Nico)
Heroin
White Light/White Heat
I Heard Her Call My Name
What Goes On
Pale Blue Eyes
Beginning to See the Light
Sweet Jane
Rock & Roll
Walk on the Wild Side
Satellite of Love
Vicious
Caroline Says (II)
Coney Island Baby
Rock and Roll Heart
Street Hassle
The Blue Mask
Romeo Had Juliette
Dirty Blvd.
Perfect Day (vocals: Lou Reed and many other artists)

Music News Brief: New Albums from Sting and Paul McCartney

In the past few weeks, two of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters have released new studio albums of original songs. In late September, Sting released The Last Ship, his first new album since 2003 to be made up entirely of original material. The songs were apparently composed for a play of the same name that Sting wrote (the play is supposed to debut on Broadway next year). The play is said to have been inspired in part by Sting's childhood in Newcastle, England, and by his earlier album The Soul Cages. Also, in the past few days, Paul McCartney released his first new album of original material since 2007, entitled, ahem, New. He has been fairly active in promoting it, with a release party performance being broadcast by Yahoo! just last night. While I haven't gotten these albums yet, I intend to do so in the near future, and eventually I hope to review them properly. I did listen to The Last Ship once online, which was enough to hear that there is a definite relationship to The Soul Cages (one song even mentions "the soul cages"). Since the songs were written for a play, there is a particular emphasis on the lyrics, which in places are often spoken as much as sung. Though the result is material that seems less immediate than his work with the Police or even some of his earlier solo material, it seemed to be up to his usual high standards, and he didn't neglect to include some good musical hooks. Certainly it struck me as being worth repeated listening. As for McCartney, I've only listened to two songs from New, the title track and another song called "Queenie Eye", and both sounded excellent. If they are a fair indication of the quality of the album, Paul will have managed to keep up his streak of good to great studio albums that he's been on since Flaming Pie way back in 1997.

Album Review – Selling England by the Pound by Genesis

Album Title: Selling England by the Pound
Artist: Genesis
Release Date: October 12, 1973

Side One
Dancing with the Moonlit Knight (Music: Gabriel/Banks/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel)
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) (Music: Hackett/Banks/Gabriel/Collins; Lyrics: Gabriel)
Firth of Fifth (Music/Lyrics: Banks)
More Fool Me (Music/Lyrics: Rutherford/Collins)

Side Two
The Battle of Epping Forest (Music: Gabriel/Banks/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel)
After the Ordeal (Music: Hackett/Rutherford)
The Cinema Show (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford/Banks)
Aisle of Plenty (Music/Lyrics: Gabriel?)

Note on Song Authorship: Credit is given based on what members of the band have revealed in interviews about the writing of the songs and may not be complete. In most cases the primary writer(s) of the music are listed first, though in the case of “I Know What I Like”, Hackett just came up with the riff the song was built upon, while the others wrote different parts of the melody. In some cases, deduction or guesswork are involved, such as in the case of “Aisle of Plenty”, which is musically a reprise of the opening section of “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”, which was written by Gabriel. On the original album, all songs were credited to the entire band.

Few bands had as long and varied a career as Genesis. After starting out as a sort of songwriting collective writing slightly quirky pop songs, they quickly morphed into a progressive rock (or “art rock” as it was often called then) band before slowly evolving into a very popular pop rock band with a progressive edge. They also went through quite a few personnel changes in the process, particularly the departure of original lead singer Peter Gabriel and then guitarist Steve Hackett, reducing the band to the core of keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford and drummer/vocalist Phil Collins. While as I explained in my review of the group’s 1983 album Genesis, I like the later pop incarnation of the band as much as the earlier progressive one, there are many fans with a decided preference for the “classic” five man lineup, and I would not deny that they produced some great music which has virtues that that the more concise and direct later songs lack. A good place to hear what the early Genesis sounded like is the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound, which contains some of the best music recorded by the five-man lineup of the group.

Interestingly, even though there are quite a few fans and critics who consider Selling England the best album Genesis ever released, the only member of the group who seems to consider it their favorite is Steve Hackett, though Phil Collins has said it was enjoyable to record. Peter Gabriel unsurprisingly seems to prefer The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, while Tony Banks (who has named Foxtrot as his favorite early album) and Mike Rutherford were slightly disappointed with it. Banks has said that he thinks the material was slightly uneven, with a few great songs and a few that are not so great. I can see his point, since while “Firth of Fifth”, “The Cinema Show”, and “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight” are among the band’s very best songs, some of the others don’t work quite as well. In terms of the average quality of the songs, Foxtrot may be slightly stronger. But Hackett and to lesser extent Collins also rightly feel that the album features some of the group’s best playing. This in part explains the differing opinions about the album expressed by the band members, since for Banks and Rutherford (and Gabriel as well) songwriting was always the most important thing, whereas Hackett and Collins placed more emphasis on playing, particular in those days.

For myself, though I agree with Banks and Rutherford that good songwriting is ultimately more important than virtuoso playing – which is why I like Genesis better than Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer – the crisp sounds and excellent performances on this album make even the lesser tracks sound good, and make the best ones sound outstanding. While there may be times when I prefer Foxtrot or The Lamb or even Nursery Cryme, to speak only of the Gabriel-era albums (and I should emphasize that I like several of the later albums as much as any of these), Selling England is almost always near the top of my list of favorite Genesis albums, and if I were to recommend one album from this period to someone who’d never heard the five-man lineup of Genesis, chances are it would be this one.

Selling England by the Pound Song by Song

Dancing with the Moonlit Knight: The album’s opening track begins with a line sung acapella by Gabriel. The instrumentation slowly builds through the first few minutes of the song, centered on a repeated riff. Eventually it goes into an instrumental section featuring some great playing by the band before reprising the vocal section and concluding with another instrumental bit. The music for the first part of the song was written by Gabriel (who wrote the lyrics as well), though the entire band contributed to the instrumental sections. This is definitely one of the stronger tracks on the album and a great opening.

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe): This quirky, slightly Beatlesque song was the first Genesis song to make the pop charts in the UK, narrowly missing the top 20. It was developed from a riff Hackett had come up with, while Banks wrote the chorus melody and Gabriel and Collins wrote the verse melody. While it’s not quite the equal of the songs before and after it, it’s a fun track that pointed the way to the band’s future pop success, and it remains one of the best known songs from their early days.

Firth of Fifth: This nine and a half minute song opens with a very cool minute-long piano solo by Banks followed by the main vocal section, then a lengthy instrumental featuring flute, piano and guitar in turn, and finally another vocal section. The music, all of which was written by Banks, is brilliant and performed very well by the band. Hackett’s guitar solo, which is basically his interpretation of the flute melody, is justly praised, though credit for writing the melody itself goes to Banks. The lyrics, which were mainly written by Banks (though some sources claim Rutherford helped) have been criticized, even by Banks himself, but while they are certainly not the best he ever wrote, they aren’t all that bad except for one or two weak lines. In any case, the music alone makes this the best song on the album and one of the best songs Genesis ever released.

More Fool Me: In a complete contrast to “Firth of Fifth”, this is a short, gentle acoustic song sung by Phil Collins with only Mike Rutherford’s guitar as accompaniment. Many of the “fans” with a pathological dislike of the 1980s incarnation of the band also hate this song, because they see it as a harbinger of the future. I would say that while it may not be anything spectacular, it’s a pleasant song that makes a nice break from the lengthy, heavily arranged tracks that surround it.

The Battle of Epping Forest: At almost twelve minutes in length, this track is the longest on the album (though since “The Cinema Show” segues directly into “Aisle of Plenty”, the two together could be considered longer). The music was written mostly by Banks and Gabriel, and the lyrics, a long, elaborate tale about a gangland fight, were written by Gabriel. Both the music and the lyrics have a lot to recommend them, but as Banks, Collins, Rutherford and even Gabriel have said in interviews, the song is far too busy, with the dense lyrics clashing with the music. As a result, though the song is interesting and even fairly entertaining, it doesn’t work nearly as well as the other long songs on the album.

After the Ordeal: This classical-flavored instrumental was mainly written by Hackett, with a little help from Rutherford. Banks and apparently Gabriel as well disliked it and wanted to drop it from the album, though Banks once admitted that one of his objections to it was that he thought his own playing on it was poor. I’d say it’s a decent piece of music, though perhaps not the most successful instrumental bit on the album.

The Cinema Show: The guitar-based song that makes up the first few minutes of this eleven-minute track was written by Rutherford, with help from Banks on the lyrics (Gabriel also made a few suggestions lyrically). The second half of the song is an instrumental written by Banks, Collins and Rutherford and featuring a lengthy solo by Banks. The song part is one of Rutherford’s best compositions, and the instrumental part is one of the strongest Genesis ever did, one that they were still playing live decades later. The lyrics are also quite good. The combination of these elements makes this one of the band’s best songs, though I would give the edge to “Firth of Fifth” as the best track on the album.

Aisle of Plenty: “The Cinema Show” segues directly into this short song, which musically speaking is basically a reprise of the first part of “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight” and so can be credited to Gabriel, who presumably wrote the lyrics as well. By returning to the album’s opening musical theme it brings the listener round full circle and so makes a good closing number.