Okay, I did it. I listened to
Invisible Touch all the way through twice in my car over the past two days. What follows is a combination of my first impressions upon first hearing the album and listening to it in 1988, and my more recent attempts to understand why people actually like the album today. In 1988, Genesis were one of my favorite bands due to their progressive albums in the 70's, and also how they'd managed to balance achieving popular appeal with appeasing their prog fanbase throughout the 80's. Each album was more popular than its predecessor, and though they always kept one foot firmly in prog, the prog:pop ratio was shrinking.
"Invisible Touch" (the album and the song) opens with a snappy, up-tempo hook and the first word out of Phil's mouth is "Well..." and I am already disappointed. You do not
ever begin anything by saying "Well..." and expect people to take you seriously. The live version of one of Genesis' coolest songs to date, "Turn It On Again," is incredible, nearly perfect. The one thing, the one note, the one
syllable, that keeps the live version from perfection is that Phil inexplicably chooses to weaken the first line by adding "Well..."
I'm sorry, but the line is "All I need is a TV show" not "Well, all I need is a TV show (shrug)."
"Well, I've been waiting, waiting here so long..." Right now, Phil might as well be singing "Look, we're a pop band now, so just deal with it, alright?" What follows is a three-and-a-half-minute pop song about some girl he doesn't even know, but she's reached right in and grabbed ahold of his heart, as though she has some kind of...
invisible touch! Mercifully, the title track is the shortest on the album, and one of the shortest in the Genesis catalogue. It repeats and fades, because that's what pop songs do, and the last thing you hear is falsetto background voices going "oh-oh-oh!"
Then things turn around with the dark, brooding "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight". At nearly nine minutes, it is the second-longest track on the album, and features a long instrumental break. The break itself is quite simple, a repeating rhythmic pattern with understated keyboard vignettes played over them, but it successfully builds up some tension, finally releasing in a vocal bridge, then the song returns for a final verse which feels a bit anticlimactic at that point, but which is pretty much the only way to finish the song. The song ends with a repeat and fade. So it's a longish song, but really more an extended "regular" song than anything prog. But at this point, you'll take it, and overall it is a pretty cool song.
"Land of Confusion" grabs you from the top with its percussion and staccato hook in both the keyboards and guitars, and around this time you realize that everything you've heard sounds really, really good. This song is their latest venture into social commentary, a new thing for Genesis (if not for Phil) about all the troubles in the world, but it manages to work in a half-tempo break where he held her tight all through the night, because that's what pop songs do. At least the song has a proper ending. And what was that hook, anyway, a guitar or a keyboard?
"In Too Deep" slows things down, and gives us another straightforward love song. He loves her, she knows that, but he's scared. Bleah. Again, a great-sounding song, well crafted, and completely void of substance. Nice keyboard patches. A lot of 80's keyboards sound dated today; I think most of Tony Banks' sounds manage to avoid that.
"Anything She Does" opens Side Two the same way the title track opened Side One, with an uptempo hook and poppy electronic beat, then ups the ante by suddenly modulating up a step just as the vocals come in. It's another short, poppy love song, well written, perfectly produced, and meaningless. It doesn't really end so much as it simply stops, as though Hugh Padgham or some other objective party on the other side of the glass had the good sense to pull the plug.
Then, as with Side One, we go from the catchy opener to a longish tune. "Domino" is the longest track on the album and is a suite of two songs, "Part 1 - In the Glow of the Night" and "Part 2 - The Last Domino". With a couple of tempo changes and mood shifts, and a somewhat dark feel, it is the closest thing to prog on the album. In 22 years, I've never figured out what the words are about, but at least they don't seem to be about some girl he loves but is currently having trouble relating to.
"Throwing It All Away" is another nice-sounding love song. Honestly, there are only so many things that can be said about the love songs on this album. There are four of them altogther, half the album by number. They all sound nice, but don't exactly have much depth to them. Phil's atypical harmonies make their only appearance on the album, during the verse rather than the chorus, which is an interesting choice.
"The Brazillian" finishes the album. It's an instrumental, their first since "Duke's Travels" and first standalone instrumental since "After the Ordeal" well over a decade earlier. This piece sounded a lot better cranked out in my car than I remember it sounding on our crummy stereo in 1988. It was quite a revelation, hearing a number of little licks throughout that I never heard (or at least never noticed) before. My opinion of this piece is a bit higher now than it used to be. Still, it takes a while to get its refrain, and then can't seem to step away from it.
Closing RemarksIf I had to guess, I would say that this is Genesis' most popular album. Every song is in straight 4/4 time. Four of its eight songs are standard love songs. Five of its eight songs received radio play that I know of. Six of the eight songs are in standard verse-verse-break-verse format. Even the two longer tracks aren't really very prog. "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" never wavers in mood or tempo, and is really just a long pop song; and "Domino" has some changes, but no real instrumental acrobatics to speak of. There are almost no solos in any songs.
It's not that "prog = good" and "pop = bad." It's that popular songs by definition have much wider appeal, and that generally means taking fewer risks, sticking to a formula. Just look at the structure of the songs, even the structure of the album itself in terms of song order and arrangement. Genesis insist that it was always their goal to become a popular band; they just didn't figure out how for a while. As the band shrunk and their sound streamlined, it seems the immense talent still in the band became concentrated, and they cranked out some good solid pop.
I do understand why people like this album. It sounds fantastic. The songs are brilliantly crafted, and the playing is superb. Banks, Rutherford, and Collins are excellent musicians and songwriters, so when they put their minds to creating popular music, they succeed, and it's
really good popular music. It may be cynical, but I believe that "The Brazilian" was included as an attempt to please the disenchanted prog fans, but placed last to allow the hordes of pop fans the option of skipping it.
Overall, I still can't say I like this album. I tend not to like things that are specifically and obviously created to appeal to me. I'm aware of the manipulation and resent it, causing me to dislike it even as I determine that it's very good. And this is a good album; this is actually a great album. But it's literally painful for me to listen to, because I know what these guys are capable of. I saw them live, playing incredible, complex pieces of music in real time. Mike is an incredible bassist and underrated guitarist; Tony is known for his lightning-fast 16th-note runs and complex chord shifts and key changes; Phil used to play jazzfusion with Brand X. And here they are, playing pop songs in 4/4 time.
Topic: Genesis Appreciation/Discussion (Read 145698 times)
