Genesis - WInd & Wuthering (1976)

Dan:

Wind & Wuthering was the second of two albums issued by Genesis in 1976. Like Trick of the Tail, W&W was recorded by a quartet, with Phil Collins handling the vocal responsibilities vacated by Peter Gabriel. The new drama surrounding this album was conflict over songwriting credits and the pending departure of guitarist Steve Hackett - W&W would be Hackett's last as a member of Genesis. Hackett's solo career had already begun with the release of Voyage of the Acolyte the preceding year, so his departure was not a surprise.

It's common to read interpretations of the music on W&W that are reflective of the tensions within the band. Certainly, Hackett was unhappy that he shared writing credits on only four of the nine cuts and none of his individual songs were included. In addition, there isn't much guitar featured; Tony Banks' synthesizers had taken over as the lead melodic voice. How could a such a great band not self-destruct and produce an album full of flaws related to ego conflicts? If you only read about the album, instead of listening to it, you might expect an aural disaster. The rather dismal album cover might reinforce low expectations.

Fortunately, W&W again shows the resilience of Genesis in rising to the occasion and producing another great album. Except for "Wot Gorilla," side 1 of the LP flows nicely with two strong numbers - "Eleventh Earl of Mar" and "One for the Vine" - setting up the pop-like hit "Your Own Special Way." I like all of these songs and don't find the absence of Hackett solos to be a problem. Side 2 continues in the same vein, highlighted by "Blood on the Rooftops," penned by Collins and Hackett, and the closing "Afterglow," written by Banks. Thematically, much of the English ennui from Selling England by the Pound is revisited, as the protagonists in the songs lament social decay and the plight of common men and women. But it's still beautiful in part because it's honest and sad. 

A few years ago, Steve and I did a sonic comparison of the original CD, a remastered CD, and a late LP pressing. As I expected, the LP won. There are details and nuances heard on the LP that the CDs do not render, and the digital versions especially do not favor synthesizers. I'm happy to have both a rip of the remastered CD and the old vinyl copy.

Steve:

While overall Wind & Wuthering fails to match A Trick of the Tail in quality, it does feature tracks that foreshadow some of my favorite aspects of their first two post-Hackett albums, And Then There Were Three and Duke. "Eleventh Earl of Mar", the album opener, is the best example of this. The keyboards are dominant and layered, the chord changes are rapid and complex, and Mike Rutherford keeps right up with Banks with his contrapuntal bass lines and quick-strummed rhythm guitar. Phil Collins gives all this potential confusion plenty of rhythmic drive. Steve Hackett can only occasionally be heard in the background, except for a bridge section in the middle that he contributed himself. While I'm sure it was painful at the time, I doubt that any of the parties involved still have regrets about his decision to leave the band; as I mentioned in the Trick of the Tail review, he had plenty of talent to hack it (ha ha) on his own, which he did, with a still-thriving solo career.

Not that Hackett doesn't provide some key moments on this album. In addition to "Blood on the Rooftops", which Dan wrote about above, his compositional and instrumental touch is definitely felt on the penultimate track, the instrumental "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers.... In That Quiet Earth", my favorite track on the album. After a long opening atmospheric section sounding like gathering storm clouds, Hackett delivers soaring guitar melodies over a racing 9/8 pulse, before the piece crashes back down to Earth with a nasty, slow 4/4 beat and syncopated power chords (I almost called it funky, but "Genesis" and "funky" just don't belong together in the same sentence - safer to keep it inside this parenthetical phrase).  

I also have to praise "Afterglow", proving Tony Banks' prowess with uncomplicated, sincere and resonant love songs, a style he would return to in subsequent years. Concluding the album with that song, fading in after the tumult of "Unquiet Slumbers...", was an inspired choice, inasmuch as "Afterglow" describes the aftermath of a disaster, but uses that premise to emphasize how the experience only intensifies our love and care for what and who really matter to us. Nice. It came out so well that they would conclude their next album with "Follow You, Follow Me", another gentle love song, which became their first big hit single. 

The rest is history. Genesis and especially Phil Collins became so omnipresent on the charts in the 1980s that I recall reading an interview with Phil in which he said something to the effect of, "Even I was getting sick of hearing me everywhere."

The Alan Parsons Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976)

Dan:

The Alan Parsons Project's recorded legacy begins here with the 1976 release of Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I had read more about this album than actually hearing it. I vaguely remember acquiring a copy of the 1976 release as well as a vinyl copy of the 1987 remastered version. The earlier version was spooky and dramatic; the 1987 remix was even more so. The difference maker was the inclusion of Orson Welles' narration on two key tracks: the opening instrumental "A Dream Within a Dream" and the prelude to "The Fall of the House of Usher." Those few lines alter the whole experience of the album, making it darker and more dramatic. Great touch.

The adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's gruesome stories to music makes perfect sense in the world of progressive rock. Since most people are at least partially familiar with Poe's works, having the stories realized in the prog genre makes them all the more compelling. The extravagant musical arrangements and gaudy packaging for Tales set a high bar for rockers with similar ambitions. Parsons and company worked on the album for six months in London's Abbey Road studios, enlisting dozens of musicians including the English Chorale choir.

The most impressive tracks are on side 2 of the LP, which includes the 15:13 minute suite "The Fall of the House of Usher." Eerie sounds begin the suite behind Welles' narration, followed by a continuous buildup of tension, culminating in loud door knocks, thunderclaps and a chaotic crash signifying the fall. This track illustrates most accurately what I like to refer to as cinematic rock. I can see the storm clouds and lightning flashes, fear the impending doom, and watch as the ancient House of Usher crumbles before me. 

This epic piece is poignantly followed by a simple song lasting a mere 4:21 to close the album. "To One in Paradise" is a reflection using part of a Poe poem and part new lyrics. I feel both hope and despair listening to this song, which captures much of the ambiguity typical of Poe's works. Composers Parsons and Woolfson prove themselves to be masterful songwriters based on this song alone.

Steve:

The only version of this album I've heard is the 1987 remix with Orson Welles' narration, and it's hard for me to imagine the album without it. If the production on the original release is as spacious as on the newer version (which I can totally believe, given the awesome sonics of I Robot from just a year later), then I am once again impressed by the studio skills of Parsons and his gang.  

The most memorable moments for me include the opening instrumental "Dream Within a Dream", which set the template for future Parsons instrumentals, often the highlights of their respective albums. Also, being an Arthur Brown fan, I derive much enjoyment out of his vocal feature on "The Tell-Tale Heart". His recording career (which continues to this day) has so many interesting twists and turns, I encourage you "weird music fans" to check him out.  

The real meal, though, is the "Fall of the House of Usher", which frightened me so much the first time I heard it that I avoided it for a long time afterwards. Listening again now, it's not all that scary. Its orchestral approach really nails the mood of loneliness and hopelessness that Poe's short story evokes. "To One in Paradise" serves as a welcome comforting hand upon one's shoulder following this tense despair, even though its comfort is laced with a certain resignation to the inherent horrors of the human condition. 

Steely Dan - The Royal Scam (1976)

Dan:

I suppose there might be skeptics who would not wish to include Steely Dan as prog artists. If there were an existing category for cynical, slick, American rock, that's where the Dan would belong. But there is no such category I know of, so the more logical classification is "sui generis" (which, of course is not really a category). With no precursors and no successors, Steely Dan remains an original. (Incidentally, I reject the pejorative classification of Steely Dan as "yacht rock" for reasons that should become obvious in our analysis of song content below).

The Royal Scam earns its way into our blog for two reasons. First, consider the program of songs, which serve up sly, oblique social critiques of the so-called "American Dream." The title track deals most directly with the false hopes of immigrants coming to America in search of opportunity while ending up on the streets like the homeless man in the cover photo. "Kid Charlemagne" traces the rise and fall of a drug dealer who ends up on the run. "Don't Take Me Alive" profiles an armed fugitive bent on self-destruction and possible collateral damage to "luckless pedestrians". "The Caves of Altamira" fantasizes about hiding in a secret cave. And so the stories continue - strange, creepy, and weird - good grist for the prog music mill.

Second, songs contain a variety of rhythmic foundations, many allowing instrumental solos that could easily belong on a jazz album. (The jazz inclinations appear on almost all Steely Dan albums, but most notably on the sublime Aja). The straightforward rock of "Kid Charlemagne" features a dynamite guitar solo by Larry Carlton, who is best known as a fusion jazz player. Carlton has claimed that this solo, although stitched together from many takes, is his absolute best. On other songs, the layers of studio tracking produce the sounds of a large ensemble that feels neither over- nor under-produced. The eclectic mixture of themes and musical styles is literally music to my prog-sensitive ears. 

Steely Dan is also unique because they shunned live performances for most of their career. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the only permanent members of the band, were experts at writing songs and assembling musicians like Carlton to play them or to sing background over Fagan's lead vocals. The key to their success was not improvisation or jamming on stage, but rather crafting hit albums in the comfort of L.A. studios.

Sporting a string of seven best-selling albums in the 1970s, Steely Dan joined in on the rising popularity of prog record albums. The time had finally come in the mid-70s for progressive rock to be fully accepted; albums by Genesis, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Santana, among others, sold in huge numbers as did the Dan. Prog subcategories began to proliferate to accommodate the seemingly endless variety of rock. "Prog for the Masses" was now upon us and ready to be celebrated!

My Steely Dan LP collection began with Aja, which I bought when it first came out in 1977. I then worked backwards and forwards so that I owned all seven of the 1970s output. That was enough. I never sampled the live album or the reprised version of the band in the aughts. My albums were played frequently at home, provoking both glee and protest depending on the family members present. One memorable Steely Dan fest was the lip-syncing, tennis racquet-playing air band of Steve and his cousin Thad (aka Shade Bro). Thankfully, both have grown up to become perfectly normal adults!

Steve:

Perfectly normal, my foot. Any kid who grows up reading Steely Dan lyric sheets is bound to come out the other side a little bent - a fact of which I am proud. I do remember the tennis-racket-air-band sessions at our house, an activity I took quite seriously. While it may have been enough for others (such as "Shade Bro" or my dad) to simply hop around and loosely mime their performances (the fools!), I took special care to make my lip syncing, tennis racket fingerings and strumming as precise and as close to the music as possible. At the time I thought I must have been pretty impressive to watch, but in retrospect I probably could have gotten away with less. Such are the ways of the music business. 

I mention the lyric sheet first because I think that The Royal Scam has some of the best lyrics I've ever heard - so vivid, so grotesque and fanciful, and yet so human. To add to what Dan said above, each song is a look inside the life and soul of a different character - and although it's most likely not meant to be a concept album per se, one does get the feeling that all these little stories are taking place in the same city, the desperately oppressive urban dungeon depicted on the album cover. 

One of the most compelling scenarios occurs in "Haitian Divorce", in which a woman takes a temporary trip away from her husband with whom she's always fighting, has a drunken liaison in Haiti, and winds up getting pregnant, with the truth only coming out after the baby is born ("Tearful reunion in the USA / Day by day those memories fade away / Some babies grow in a peculiar way / It changed, it grew / And everybody knew"). 

Appropriately, the following song ("Everything You Did") is from the point of view of a man who suspects his wife of cheating on him, after finding clues lying around the house ("I never knew you were a roller skater / You're gonna show me later"). Adding a slice of realism to the argument, one of them realizes they might be overheard by their neighbors and tries to take corrective action: "Turn up the Eagles / the neighbors are listening" - my favorite lyric on the album. The Eagles returned the favor with a Steely Dan reference in their song "Hotel California" - "They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast", according to Glenn Frey in the liner notes to an Eagles best-of CD. 

Song after song The Royal Scam delivers amazingly vivid renderings of people in dark and desperate situations, but the clever and witty details help to turn it into a dark comedy rather than a bunch of depressing stories. Musically, The Royal Scam is Steely Dan's densest, darkest album, a trait that may turn off fans of the band's lighter material as on their more popular tracks like "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "My Old School", or even "Do it Again". Like it or not, the dense atmosphere is appropriate for the subject matter of the songs. 

When pressed, I consider The Royal Scam as my favorite Steely Dan album, but all of the albums in their initial run are essential. 

Picchio dal Pozzo - Picchio dal Pozzo (1976)

Steve:

Picchio dal Pozzo was a very unusual Italian 70s outfit named for a piece of artwork made by a bandmember, depicting a "Woodpecker from the Well". I chose their self-titled album for review on this blog due to its unique take on progressive rock music. For the most part, the influences behind Picchio dal Pozzo can be traced to the Canterbury Scene, a mostly British phenomenon; and yet there is a distinct Continental European flavor that you would not encounter on, say, a Hatfield and the North or Henry Cow album.  

The music is grounded in polyphonic beauty, mostly realized with horn and flute melodies and harmonies, with jazz chords and rhythms underneath. Very often, though, disturbing movements of dark ostinato passages, strange voices and sounds panning left and right, and sudden shifts in mood never let you relax for long. Some moments may make you uncomfortable in a way that even Henry Cow never would, but in the final analysis, its musicality, even in the more difficult bits, is likely to win over most fans of progressive rock. Its unique flavor is emblematic not only of the Canterbury prog movement at its peak, but also of the specific magic that Italian bands in the mid to late 70s seemed to have at their disposal.

I discovered this band during the 1990s when I reviewed for the Exposé newsletter, but Picchio dal Pozzo has risen in my ranks more recently. It's a quietly eccentric album that is rarely considered among "the greats", but which is rated extremely high by a small group of serious music fans who recognize and understand its hidden brilliance.

Dan:

Without Steve, I doubt that I would ever have learned about Picchio dal Pozzo. Coming to it fresh, it sounds like nothing I'm familiar with, but it's clearly a carefully designed and executed project. The key to enjoying what one hears is to suspend expectations and just go for the ride. The shocks are not ugly ones, and the beautiful passages are introduced at just the right moments. The sounds of the electric piano, flute, vibraphone, and percussion during the quieter passages are lovely - a great recording from an era not especially known for its sonic excellence.

One track in particular appears to me to deploy most of the band's various resources. "Seppia" employs grungy ostinato for a while, then moves into more idyllic themes where flutes and vibes offer relief, followed by bits and pieces of vocal discussions spoken/sung in Italian (I guess). It's the longest piece but not the only one to be splintered into multiple parts. This postmodern modus operandi is evident throughout the album's approximately 40-minute length. 

Since my discovery is so recent, I can report my initial impressions. On first listen, there was a bit of discomfort but as the album progressed, it grew on me quickly. By the second time through, it won me over big time. On some new music, there is no second time, but Picchio dal Pozzo rewards repeated listening. The discomfort vanishes as I enjoy the ride that ends most delightfully.

A winner and a great discovery. Picchio rules! 

Secret Oyster - Straight to the Krankenhaus (1976)

Steve:

Secret Oyster was a Danish band that released four superb albums in the early-to-mid seventies, Straight to the Krankenhaus being the fourth and best of the bunch. Their work sits somewhere at the intersection of progressive rock and jazz fusion; the music is entirely instrumental, and sax and guitar solos occur frequently.

I first discovered Secret Oyster in my post-college years in the 1990s, around the time I became involved with a progressive rock newsletter named Exposé. My friend Rob and I regularly received tapes of bands we'd never dreamed existed from our overlords in California where the main guys in Exposé were based. Rob had received the tapes of Secret Oyster's Straight to the Krankenhaus and Astarte, and I made copies of those tapes during one of my visits to his apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite the fact that these albums weren't extreme in any way (at the time, I was more attracted to dissonance and "difficult" music), I was very much drawn to them.

A typical track on Straight to the Krankenhaus establishes a main theme, often built around a descending chord progression played out in arpeggios. The theme provides an easily digestible base, upon which the soloists - Karsten Vogel on sax, Claus Bøhling on guitar, and Kenneth Knudsen on electric piano - both establish the main melody and play impeccably structured solos. At times, as in "Rubber Star", the theme and the written melody are sufficient without a need for improvised solos. Nothing is wasted in their compositions and solos; each player exhibits maximal efficiency and grace, and the entire performance is incredibly well executed.

Secret Oyster plays tuneful fusion/prog instrumentals, carried to completion by the extremely skilled soloists and composers. Without stealing the show, each band member does exactly what is needed for each piece. For example, listen to Claus Bøhling's solo in the middle of "My Second Hand Rose". After Karsten Vogel establishes the main melody of the piece using every means available to wring meaning from the written notes, Bøhling enters with a dark, overdriven solo that progresses logically over its 32 bars, gradually rising to its ecstatic climax before fading back to allow Vogel to take over. For another example, on "Traffic and Elephants", Vogel takes control of the entire piece, riding a gradually climbing chord progression over a fast tempo, executing a well-paced, extended sax solo with increasing intensity over six minutes. It's easy to take such efficiency of effort for granted, but when executed at its best, sometimes you can't help but be awed by it.

Given the relatively modest format the band chooses - instrumental fusion over repetitive patterns - it takes exceptional players to not only pull it off authoritatively, but also to make this one of the favorite albums in my collection.

Dan:

My discovery and appreciation of Straight to the Krankenhaus came in two steps. Steve loaned it to me a few years ago, but it didn't stick. Perhaps I was put off by the cover art, which provoked thoughts of fascist medical incarceration (krankenhaus in German translates as hospital in English). Since we began working on the blog together, I wanted to re-listen to it, and this time it stuck right in the sweet spot between my ears. I still don't get the title* or cover art. 

I completely agree with Steve's take on this album. Secret Oyster's methods are very close to jazz, particularly fusion which was the direction jazz headed in the mid 1970s. It sounds like superior fusion to me, unlike many of the funkier attempts to reach a larger audience in the U.S. at the time (e.g., late Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock). It's a bit like Weather Report and Pierre Moerlen's Gong with a smattering of Chick Corea and Al DiMeola. It's also reminiscent of the instrumental work of the prog band Happy the Man. Obviously, comparisons can be disputed and may underestimate the originality of Secret Oyster, which really doesn't sound like any of my comparable examples. In fact, I'd rather listen to Straight to the Krankenhaus than many other fusion albums of the time.

As I investigated the band, the name Mads Vinding caught my attention because he is listed as the bass player on Secret Oyster's self-titled debut album (1973). Vinding is one of the best of a long line of Danish jazz bassists. Not known especially for fusion, Vinding became a professional bass player in 1965 at age 16 and has played on hundreds of straight-ahead jazz albums in addition to 26 of his own. His association with Secret Oyster speaks well for the band's jazz credentials. 

*[Steve: I believe the title originated from a band in-joke, referencing how worn out they felt after extensive touring, when they would ask to be taken straight to the hospital (krankenhaus) to recover]. 

Genesis - A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Steve:

A Trick of the Tail is one of the best examples of "coming through in the clutch" in progressive rock history. Following several years of the band gaining incredible momentum as one of the leading originators and guiding lights in progressive rock itself, frontman Peter Gabriel shocked everyone by deciding to leave the band. He had just guided the band through its most ambitious project yet, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, one of the most thematically complex and fascinating concept albums I have ever heard. With A Trick of the Tail, any doubts as to the viability of the band without Gabriel were quickly put to rest with what many people (myself included) still consider one of their finest efforts.  

If anything, the departure of Gabriel emphasized the incredible technical skill and abundant compositional imagination that each member of the band brought to the table. What most fans didn't know was that Peter Gabriel was not the most prolific composer in the band, and that the band still had keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett, and drummer Phil Collins at their creative peaks. Banks and Rutherford (arguably the most prolific composers in the band) continued to deliver their sophisticated chord changes, and extended compositional forms, produced in a way that was no longer subservient to the lyrical concepts of the Gabriel era. I would also argue that A Trick of the Tail is the most sonically impressive Genesis album to date. I often put on "Dance on a Volcano" as an audiophile test-piece, as when I purchased a new amplifier for my stereo system last year. It's a hell of a way to start an album, and one of the most impressive pieces of their career. 

Steve Hackett was given a bit more room to shine on this album compared to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but it's pretty clear that he is still underutilized. His finest contribution is what might be my favorite track on the album, the rich psychedelic folk harmony-feast of "Entangled", co-written with Tony Banks. Hackett's unique guitar tone also provides "Dance on a Volcano" and "Los Endos" with much of their power. In retrospect it's not surprising that he would leave the band the following year for a solo career, and this defection turned out to work well for everyone involved. Hackett had too much talent and creative fire to be "third banana" in Genesis, and his solo career remains fruitful and productive to this day. In addition to a steady stream of new original material, he has done more than any other Genesis member to present the band's groundbreaking early material in a live concert setting. Banks, Collins, and Rutherford, of course, would fill the 1980s with some of the best-selling Genesis albums in their history.

As for Phil Collins, today he is a household name, but at the time he was the last person people expected to fill the lead singer slot in the band. Reportedly, about 100 applicants were auditioned before the band decided to go with Collins, which was an inspired albeit risky decision. As the band's drummer, it would be difficult for him to fill the "frontman" shoes vacated by Gabriel. To compensate for this, Collins drummed in the studio for the albums, but for live shows Chester Thompson (recently of Frank Zappa's band) played as a backup drummer, leaving Collins free to work the crowd as needed. Collins also helped continue Gabriel's legacy for story-songs, playing a multiplicity of characters on "Robbery, Assault and Battery". In addition to shouldering the additional vocal/frontman duties, Collins contributed some of his finest drumming on this record as well. "Dance on a Volcano" alone deserves its own exhibit in the imaginary Drummers' Hall of Fame. 

In all, a phenomenal album, and one that exceeded all expectations, considering the band's major shift in personnel. Even fans who bemoan the loss of Peter Gabriel and whine about Phil Collins mostly agree that A Trick of the Tail is on the same level as Genesis' earlier peak years.

Dan:

As I was discovering Genesis back in the early 80s, I found it rather easy to settle on my favorites. Selling England by the Pound is my top choice, followed closely by A Trick of the Tail. I have a dozen of their albums in my collection (thanks to Steve), including some from the 80s and early 90s, and I don't think I've missed anything (not even the dismal Calling All Stations... from 1997). So I'm pretty sure about my personal ranking. After the top two, I would go to Wind & Wuthering and work backwards toward Trespass before moving forward in time toward And Then There Were Three. 

This is a roundabout way to proclaim my admiration for A Trick of the Tail. I don't miss Gabriel; Collins' is an excellent singer especially on slower-tempo songs like "Entangled," "Mad Man Moon," and "Ripples." The orchestral-like arrangements on the album enhance his vocals beautifully. I also love the whimsey relating to the storyline, especially the narrative about Squonk encountering humans who, surprisingly, have no tails. The sadness of the trapper opening up the sack and finding only a pool of tears is poignant. I'm not sure that all of the narratives relate to each other, but I don't really care. The album plays coherently from start to finish and is, in the final analysis, a brilliant work of prog art. Bravo to Phil and the survivors!