Genesis: Invisible Touch - 1985

 

This enormously successful album was the straw that broke the camel's back for most Genesis prog fans from the seventies. To a great-coated man they disowned it, loathing its eighties synth-pop production and ambience. 

A common comment on the album is that it is pretty much a Phil Collins solo album, and that is probably 85% true. There are just a few contributions from "the other two" to hold on to the Genesis thing. By the way, Collins plays electronic drums throughout, another thing that will have horrified purists (this time I have to agree with them). Personally, I have to admit that I quite like it, despite my reservations about eighties music on the whole. I guess the fact that I was never a "proper" Genesis fan helps too, I just take it at face value (no Collins pun intended). 

Invisible Touch, no matter what anyone says, is a great pop song, and one that is certain to make me nostalgic for the eighties (if such a thing could ever happen). Tonight Tonight Tonight is a lengthy (eight minutes plus) number about getting some drugs that would not have appeared on Collins' more wholesome solo albums. 

Land Of Confusion is a riffy Mike Rutherford upbeat rocker featuring (at last) some prominent guitar interjections and a bit of a Michael Jackson vibe to the percussion. I like it. It is stronger and punchier than some of the other songs. In Too Deep is an archetypal Collins ballad - slow paced, programmed percussion and a yearning vocal delivering those by now familiar angsty relationship-based lyrics. Being in a relationship with Collins must have been a depressing thing at the time. All that self-analysis and questioning. 

Now come two Tony Banks numbers. Firstly the lively, muscular, hooky pop of  Anything She Does. Colin's vocal, however, makes it his own. On this track, as with much of the album, despite its keyboard dominance, there exists a warmth and depth that was maybe lacking n the few albums previous to this one. It is another number that tickles my fancy. 

Next up is the ten minute plus suite of Domino (In The Glow Of the Night/ The Last Domino). Once more Collins pouts his stamp all over it, but its length and conception bear a few of those old proggy habits. I should imagine the band's new-found chart pop fans found it not up their wine bar-packed street and skipped over it (or fast-forwarded their cassette tapes). It is by far the album's most adventurous and interesting track, particularly the grinding second half, which, in spite of its eighties drum sound and synths, harks back to 1974.

Throwing It All Away is another maudlin Collins big ballad but it has a nice bassy sound underpinning it. The album ends, maybe surprisingly, with the electronic drum-dominated instrumental, The Brazilian. Once more, I have to admit to appreciating it. Anyway, as I said earlier, I do like the album. I am pleasantly surprised by its warmth of sound and general air of positivity. What do I know, eh? As a non-Genesis fan I am at liberty to make such seemingly ludicrous pronouncements. I will annoy die-hards even more by saying that it is my favourite Genesis album.