For some, time and perspective is a huge factor in enjoying an album, and Abacab is one such album for me. Other than their first and last albums, every other album but Abacab was fairly enjoyable for me when I first got into the broader Genesis catalog. Every other album had their hits and misses with me, but were at least GOOD, but when Abacab came along, I really disliked it. Maybe only 3 or 4 of the 9 songs were enjoyable for me at the time, and even the 3x3 B-Sides weren't that great.
It wasn't until a couple years after I got into Genesis, when I started discovering their B-Sides and non-album tracks and starting making my personal re-trackings of songs for albums/sessions that I started to really dive into what made Abacab tick (since song order was pretty important for me in terms of adding those 5 leftover tracks back in). Given a couple more years with it, I finally grew to appreciate what the band were trying to do with everything on this album, even "Who Dunnit?", which is REALLY weird, but coming from a purely experimental standpoint, the song has some unique charms to it that really make it stand out against pretty much anything else the band had and would do.
Side 1 of the original album is REALLY strong, with the rocking title track, the super-catchy "No Reply At All" with those amazing horns, the sublime "Me And Sarah Jane" (a standout track), and the punchy and syncopated "Keep It Dark" (which uses 6/4 in interesting ways with it's off-beat rhythms). Side 2 gets REALLY weird, but it still sounds interesting to my ears, even now.
For anyone who cares, here's how my personal Abacan Complete track list goes, if anyone wanted to try it out. I took inspiration from both the final album and the "Abacab Complete" bootlegs out there, which had some good ideas, but I didn't like the flow, and I wanted to create a faux-double-vinyl track list:
Side 1 - Abacab, No Reply At All, You Might Recall
Side 2 - Me And Sarah Jane, Keep It Dark, Me And Virgil
Side 3 - Naminanu/Dodo/Lurker/Submarine, Who Dunnit?
Side 4 - Man On The Corner, Paperlate, Like It Or Not, Another Record
I spread out the 5 B-Sides across the four sides/parts of my imaginary double vinyl, with 1 on each (except the whole suite on side 3), and it fills out the album quite well. The "Naminanu/Dodo/Lurker/Submarine" suite is pretty amazing, and I wish they had released it that way. It makes for a far more interesting near-16-minute adventure of 80's Genesis, and I like it more than, say, "Home By The Sea". Hearing all of these songs together make for a great look into what the band was feeling and thinking at the time, with all of their varied influences coming together. At first glance, it really is just a cobbled together mess of different-sounding songs, but when I realized how they were all crafted together, how the performances and forms and instruments were handled, things stood out to me differently than before, and my appreciate for 1981 Genesis grew. I'd even go so far as to say I enjoy this album, original or even my expanded one, more than their self-titled follow-up.
-Marc.