“I’ll do anything if you’ll just help get me out of here”
The Mama Tour consisted of 65 arena and stadium dates from November 6 1983 in Bloomington-Normal Illinois through February 29 1984 in Birmingham (England not Alabama). Most if not all of the shows started with Dodo/Lurker from the previous Abacab album. The setlist got rejigged a bit throughout the tour but for the most part full songs were all from the Phil Collins led era, and most of those post Hackett. The only songs not performed from the album were Taking It All Too Hard, Silver Rainbow and Just A Job To Do. The shows featured two Medley’s to try squeeze in parts of songs from the Gabriel and Hackett eras as well as placate fans who had followed them from earlier, pre-hit singles days. The Old Medley of the 1983 leg included Eleventh Earl of Mar, Squonk, Firth Of Fifth while the 1984 leg included in various iterations Eleventh Earl Of Mar, Behind The Lines, Firth Of Fifth, The Musical Box and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. The Cage Medley included parts of In The Cage, The Cinema Show, In That Quiet Earth, The Colony Of Slippermen and ended with Afterglow and was basically the same at all shows.
The only Genesis show I’ve seen was Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on November 23 1983 and it was pretty awesome. The Light show from that tour was also particularly impressive as they have come to be known for. They even played Who Dunnit? at that show so clearly my night was made. I’m not sure if it was the case on many shows but for this leg of the tour they ended with Turn It On Again that included snippets of Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, The Last Time and I recall there being a lot of flak about wasting time playing covers when they could have used that time to play…I don’t know…Watcher Of The Skies or The Carpet Crawlers. I was probably complaining about it myself. Here is what I’ve come to think, though, over the years. Every band wants to play new stuff. It is exciting and fresh for them. They want the recognition that what they are doing is liked and that they aren’t resting on past accomplishments, which is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and most musicians though they feed off it, it is a double edge sword. They want the reaction but don’t want to feel obsolete at the same time. So is a 10 minute R&B review at a Genesis show something everyone wants to hear? Probably not, but bands need to do what makes them feel good on stage. They need to have fun especially after many years of touring and playing the same songs. Out of sheer boredom or a sense of obligation to play specific songs, they need to do something they want to do because they like it. I now go to shows and never complain about what a band decides to play. It is their show and their choice. I may want to hear things and be disappointed not to hear specific songs, but at this point I never complain about it. I just try to enjoy the music and be happy I even have the opportunity to experience it at all. Life’s too short to get fixated on what you want a band to provide vs what they are willing or interested in doing.
Maybe that’s a good place to pivot to Invisible Touch. After the Mama tour the band again took a break and worked on outside projects. Phil Collins released No Jacket Required which pretty much made him the biggest star on the planet. Tony released Soundtracks and Mike formed Mike + The Mechanics which ended up becoming quite a successful unit. This was the longest break the band had taken to date and they didn’t reconvene until October 1985, almost 20 months later. Tours were had, money was made, money was spent and their studio, The Farm, was upgraded. Again they decided to continue with their jam only approach to new music and worked on ideas through February 1986 again with Hugh Padgham on board. The only thing individuals contributed in full were the lyrics with Phil providing them for Invisible Touch, Tonight Tonight Tonight and In Too Deep, Mike providing Land Of Confusion and Throwing It All Away and Tony scribing Domino and Anything She Does. Tony also added an Emulator to his arsenal of tricks on this record, which possibly pissed off staunch progressive rock fans if any were even still around. I mean seriously…as I’ve stated before prog rock should never change – What makes it great is that it is almost static. The reality, however is that by this point Genesis had progressed their way right out of that category and were by now primarily a radio friendly pop/rock band with little flourishes of what came before, and who managed to succeed partly due to the MTV generation and some very high rotation videos.
So here we go. I’m going to try to be objective and not too pissy. I know this album really well and I’m going to listen through and just go with what I think. I know a lot of people love this record and the fact that it sold like 10 million copies would support that. We’ll see how I do. First up is the title track which was clearly an attempt to write a simply structured song. Electronic drums are front and centre from the get go. It’s upbeat and poppy and catchy as shit. It sounds like it should be a hit single and lo and behold it would end up being the band’s first and only number 1 hit in the USA as it paved the way for another 4 songs to propel the band into the stratosphere as far as sales are concerned. The instrumentation is fine. Other than Mike’s guitar riff pretty much everything else feels like it is there for support…there’s not a lot of meat on them bones if you know what I mean. It also has what I believe to be the first key shift in a Genesis song when the chorus jumps – something I’m always suspect of, as it tends to be an overused technique to try to elevate the energy of a song. Sometimes it works great. The song is already pretty energetic and I guess it’s relative simplicity required something to keep people’s interest. Clearly it worked but It feels contrived to me. The video for the song really really bothered me. It kind of oozes of desperation to show how zany they were. Also you can totally tell it is pre-recorded, cause Phil’s sticks never hit a drum once. Mike called it a wonderful song and Phil is on record saying it is his favourite Genesis song. I’m thinking someone might have spiked their drinks but hey everyone has to have a favourite even if it is Invisible Touch.
Three minutes in and things are looking…well…something. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight starts out pretty eerie sounding but not nearly as effective as Home By The Sea. This is one of the “epics” of the album at almost 9 minutes in length. It has lots of synthetic noises and plinky plonky sounds that Depeche Mode would have been proud of, and plods along for the first 3 minutes until it kind of ungracefully shifts to the instrumental section which is also pretty plinky plonky. You can tell from this song that the band is clearly experimenting with sounds on this album. This section is OK, but it suffers from a distinct lack of focus and for me is really not that interesting considering what these guys can do with texturing and building instrumental sections. It is a bit of a flat line creatively and doesn’t really go anywhere. It was cut out of the single version and I think from the live airings as well. The post musical interlude just repeats what came before both musically and lyrically. I think it is about either monkeys or drug addiction. I might have liked it more if I knew it was about monkeys. It is possibly, with the exception of some of the stuff on We Can’t Dance, the most uninteresting long song the band ever wrote. It was, however, a huge single so what do I know. They made a ton of money and I’m writing about it on social media. Advantage Genesis. It was the fourth single and hit number 3 in the US and 18 in the UK in its truncated form.
Next up is single number 3 from the album, Land Of Confusion, which was top 10 in the US and top 20 in the UK charts. This one is supposed to be a protest song about Nuclear War. I remember it really bugging me at the time lyrically cause it is pretty basic in it’s approach. If I had to summarize the entire lyric it would be “The threat of Nuclear War is bad…somebody should do something about it”. The music, like Invisible Touch, is up-tempo and has a toe-tapping appeal but like Tonight, Tonight, Tonight it doesn’t reel like it goes anywhere. Maybe I’m being too critical. It’s fine. Lots of people love it. For me the best thing about it is the video which you can’t see on vinyl. Apparently Mike had a fever and was bedridden and had Phil come over to transcribe the lyrics. Maybe he should have rested instead.
The last song on side 1 is In Too Deep which I believe was originally written for the blockbuster movie Mona Lisa…remember that one? Me neither. I have to say I’m a sucker for a nice Genesis slow song. I love pretty much every slow song they have written and this one is no exception though it is a bit on the shmaltzy side. The drums sound like they might actually be real but they probably aren’t. This is Tony’s song musically in execution. Mike adds some little flourishy things that are nice but almost superfluous. He could probably go for a pee if they play this live on the reunion tour and no one would know any different. Darryl could probably cover the bass and guitar if necessary. Phil sings it well though it could easily have been from one of his solo albums if you didn’t know otherwise. So while it is a pretty love song it also lacks a distinctive Genesis component which at least the preceding songs have. I mean let’s not kid ourself, none of this is Riding The Scree but then again…time and place.
OK side 2 – ROCK ON with Anything She Does and the really really bad horn sample. Actually I think I’ll sit this one out. For me this is the worst song on the record. Apart from a tiny bit of the chorus which sounds like something palatable if I squint, it really isn’t very good in my opinion. They should have replaced it with Who Dunnit or even Illegal Alien. My god the horn sound is terrible and I love horns but not like this. The best thing about it is when it ends.
Whew Side 2 started 1 song too early. It should have just started with Domino which is for me the best song on the album. It is a late career long song dipped in a synthetic broth but it works remarkably well. The band sound like they enjoyed writing this song and it is played with conviction despite Mike effectively playing what could be a looped bar of four for the first 4 minutes. The song kind of mimics Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea from the previous record structurally with the first half of this song titled In The Glow Of The Night and the second half The Last Domino. The second half has a certain tension and energy and is musically centered around drums and keyboard textures. Mike does show up for this one though and does a pretty decent job with some textures. Not Hackett textures…more power chords and chickity chickity stuff but at least you know he is present. I do quite like this song a lot and as a 10 plus minute long song it is pretty successful though I do prefer Home By The Sea which was the last truly great song they recorded in my opinion. This one is probably a close second or third cause I do really love the next two songs.
Throwing It All Away is, depending on your point of view, just shy of, or just on the other side of over-sentimental. For me I’m OK with it. Again it’s a love song and if you know the band’s catalog you can immediately tell this is Rutherford inspired as it is right up his wheelhouse. That being said it isn’t the best one he’s ever written but it’s pretty solid as far as love songs go. Yeah some might cringe at it, it’s pretty simple, but that’s where this album is in their evolution and the fact that it hit number 4 in the US and 22 in the UK as the album’s second single means it hit the mark it was aiming for. I’ve written a lot of songs in my life and I’d be pretty fucking happy to have a song like this be as popular as it was and still is to this day. It is the It’s Gonna Get Better from this album but not as good….but more successful.
OK can the band I love more than any other band deliver a hat trick of decent songs here? You betcha. The Brazilian is Los Endos for the 1980s. I’m not saying it is that good by any means, but it is an inspired instrumental album closer that sounds almost like maybe they accidentally put it on the record. It is a really cool sounding tune. I love the backward cymbal hits that make a swooshing sound. I also love that it kind of sounds like they made the song in a clock factory. The song delivers masterfully in all the crescendo sections. The song sings like the best instrumental music should and it leaves me with hope for what might come next. I hate it for that.
So Invisible Touch is a vastly divisive album in the Genesis canon of music. It is actually one of the most non-organic, synthetic sounding albums I’ve probably ever heard and I’m a New Wave Fan. But it isn’t New Wave music by any stretch. I mean I’d take The Hurting over this album any day of the week but in all fairness it achieved what it was meant to achieve to a degree most bands never dream of, and one that the band probably didn’t expect either. They became absolute global superstars, partly on the success of Phil Collins, but you can’t deny that on this album they wrote music that resonated with the MTV generation. Does that make it a good album? Well as I always say, it depends on the listener. For me it is fair at best. Most of it I’m not really inspired by, some of it I loathe, and some of it I think is pretty great. It doesn’t come close to any of the previous albums for me, though I can listen to it without having to turn it off. I just don’t actually turn it on again that often. I think the biggest let down for me is that they really did try to experiment with new sounds. I just wish they had utilized it on more interesting material and that Mike showed up for more of it. As a Genesis fan and a music fan willing to give everything a fair shake this one comes up painfully and disappointingly average for me.
Three additional songs written during the sessions were recorded and ended up as b-sides. Feeding The Fire was released as the b-side of Land Of Confusion and actually has a bit more balls to it, and for me is much better than a lot of the material on the actual album. It ain’t no You Might Recall but it isn’t too bad and sounds more like something from that era. I’d Rather Be You was partnered with both the In Too Deep and Throwing It All Away singles in different regions. It kind of sounds like a mix of Easy Lover and a reject from Ghostbusters. It’s peppy and…yeah…it’s peppy…let’s just leave it at that. Finally, and also on the same two singles but again different regions, is Do The Neurotic which is a jittery frantic 7 minute instrumental that kind of approaches the urgency of Anything She Does. I think this is the fastest bassline Mike ever recorded with Genesis. It is not a bad song. Some people love it. More than anything though it feels like a jamming exercise to me, and could double as the exit music for a John Hughes 80s teen flick.
Recommended Listening – In Too Deep, Domino, Taking It All Too Hard, The Brazillian
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