Genesis
Selling England by the Pound


5.0
classic

Review

by babaoriley27 USER (2 Reviews)
November 23rd, 2008 | 14 replies


Release Date: 1973 | Tracklist

Review Summary: My all-time favorite progressive rock album.

Wow. I wrote this review when I was thirteen, and it was a goddamned mess. I want to delete it, but that isn't something we're allowed to do on this site, apparently. What silliness. So I'm just going to leave this text here and hope a mod deletes this review eventually.

Delete this review, mods! Please! It's an utter embarrassment!

There's apparently a length limit on these things, so I'm going to write some random meaningless characters, now. Good stuff.

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user ratings (1766)
4.5
superb
other reviews of this album
1 of
  • Nagrarok (4.5)
    It's not the perfect progressive album, but Selling England by the Pound remains a peak mo...

    Cragorio (4.5)
    The beginning of the end for the gabriel-genesis era, but what a beginning....

    ashpoodle (5)
    Genesis prove themselves to not just their fans, but to the rest of the expectant world....

    shindip (4.5)
    An excellent album that displays musical ability and interesting songwriting....

  • Necrotica (5)
    "I have crossed between the poles; for me there's no mystery"...

    sonictheplumber (5)
    The pinnacle of the group's career....

    pulseczar (4.5)
    ...

    e210013 (5)
    The peak of their musical career and one of the best albums ever made....

  • newWorld (4.5)
    ...



Comments:Add a Comment 
robin
November 23rd 2008


4596 Comments


the battle of epping forest needs more love.

foreverendeared
November 23rd 2008


14720 Comments


all i have from Genesis is The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, which is brilliant btw

robin
November 23rd 2008


4596 Comments


you should get this cause its better

Spamue1G
November 23rd 2008


1291 Comments


Good review, but try to stay away from track-by-tracks in the future. But if you want to use track by tracks, don't just avoid describing a song because you don't like it as much. Great description, very nice work. Absolutely amazing album as well. Just one thing:

Genesis albums are often critisized for problems such as lack of guitar, prominent and often poor synthesizers, and stretches of boredom.

Slight generalisation. Be careful about how you word that kind of thing, mention which albums this is true for, since this isn't necessarily true for Foxtrot through to ATOTT for example. I'm being quite picky here though.

Mendigo
November 23rd 2008


2299 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

dunno, I think this really pales in comparison to Foxtrot. It has two of Peter Gabriel's best songs (Dancing With the Moonlit Knight and Firth of Fifth), but the rest isn't all that great. both The Cinema Show and The Battle of Epping Forests have amazing moments, but tend to drag at times. And I Know What I Like is surprisingly bad imo... I've always enjoyed More Fool Me though, but both songs just don't fit on this album.

To me this album is always a bit like a slightly weaker version of Foxtrot, which did everything that's on here, only a tad better.

Mendigo
November 23rd 2008


2299 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

oh, ecaxtly: good review though I usually don't like tbt's that much ;)

robin
November 23rd 2008


4596 Comments


mendigo, i think the placement on foxtrot is all off compared to this. none of their albums, bar perhaps the lamb, really 'fit together' in the prog era, though this one comes the closest while still being the most interesting.

shame their best song is off tresspass though.

Mendigo
November 23rd 2008


2299 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

probably you're right when it comes to placement, but the songs on Foxtrot are way better than on here. Just compare "Get Them Out by Friday" and "The Battle of Epping Forests"... the latter seems much like a less inspired version of the former imo. Or the shorter songs, "Time Table" and "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" are both like little epics (especially the second), whereas here the two short songs sound much more like usual pop-numbers. I don't even want to try comparing anything here to "Supper's Ready". And actually the flow of Foxtrot isn't really any worse than this one when I think about it.

Spamue1G
November 23rd 2008


1291 Comments


The Lamb, SEBTP and Foxtrot are almost tied imo. I've listened to The Lamb the most, so I'd have to say that's my favourite at the moment. It flows together the best, certainly, and is slightly more experimental than the other two, so I'd say that's my favourite, but they're all amazing albums.

robin
November 23rd 2008


4596 Comments


i don't think of it that way mendigo, to me battle of epping forest is a progression/development in the quirky way that genesis became the pretentious prog rock band for.

but i will agree that supper's ready is one of my favourites. i'd tie my favourites as fifth of firth, suppers ready and the knife

StrizzMatik
November 23rd 2008


4156 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Favorite Genesis album. Then again anything with Peter Gabriel is pretty awesome. "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight" is pretty effing spectacular.



Side note: Spamuel, that is a f*cking SICK album on your dig list. PG3 ftw.

72haha72
November 23rd 2008


497 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Great review!



This and Foxtrot are equally good, but I find myself listening more often to Foxtrot because of Supper's Ready (Genesis's best song IMO). I think Genesis's pinnacle of creativity is The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. However, this album and Foxtrot are more symphonic and "proggier".

babaoriley27
November 26th 2008


8 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

I'm a little torn on Foxtrot. I completely adore Supper's Ready, my favorite Genesis song. Nothing on SEBTP can match the sheer emotional euphoria of that song. But Side 1 is just...well...it's not BAD by any means, but it just doesn't thrill me too much.



I actually don't have The Lamb, but I'm planning on getting it sometime. I'm a little nervous about it, though, because it's supposedly a big departure from their typical sound.

KILL
October 30th 2010


81580 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

love the cinema show so much



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