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Selling England By the Pound: +DVD | 
| Artist: Genesis
Label: Virgin
Category: Music
This item is no longer available
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 110028
Format: Sacd
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
EAN: 5099951955922
ASIN: B0019KC4UE
Release Date: September 15, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
This is IT! November 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This could be the one truly essential Genesis CD/DVD that you have to own/experience before you die, if you want to fully understand the course of popular music over the past 38 years of popular music.
I'm not talking about the "Selling England" album itself, as great as it is, but this particular package with the bonus DVD. If any one item is going to convert the sceptics...if anything is going to show the Genesis "haters" (who don't actually know much about the band) just what all the fuss was about, it's this!
Because the bonus DVD finally brings into the public domain - after decades of bootlegging - the legendary "Shepperton Studios" concert film.
This film is the set text for Genesis-ologists - the one that all the decent tribute bands learned their stagecraft from, the one that they all seek to copy (actually the one that they do copy when they're getting their stage-clothes and set-dressing custom-built). The full Peter Gabriel Experience: with the legendary masks, makeup and headdresses, with those strange stories introducing the songs - oh, yes, and he was near the peak of his powers as a singer at this stage, too! But as we were saying...watching the "beheading" preamble to "The Musical Box", or his convincing transformation into an arthritic-but-still-horny old man in the last part of the song, it's hard believe he didn't have some mime training - he's easily a better musical character-actor than David Bowie.
The sound and vision quality here and on the other visual extra (a French TV broadcast where the songs are badly edited and the interviews are in French, but at least we get to see the "fox in a red dress" costume) aren't top-notch, it must be said. It's a shame they weren't able to give these films a fresh lick of digital paint - instead they seem to have "booted the boots" in the absence of the original source-tapes.
But it really doesn't matter! The fact is, these films - or the Shepperton one, at least - are in a way the single most essential Genesis documents: they show you exactly what the band's enduring cult appeal is based on, whereas the greatest-hit albums definitely don't!
As to the "Selling England..." album - well, a lot has been said already about it. I'll just add this: Those who argue that it's their finest hour are generally the same people who are less fond of the "incomprehensible lyrics" on the studio albums either side of it. If, therefore, it's the most accessible album of the Gabriel era, it must be because - as we can see, with hindsight - they were already simplifying their music, and this album unusually has simple lyrical subject-matter to match - rampant consumerism and the disappearance of England's cultural identity [you think that's bad?! - say I]; 1950s American dating rituals; a well-remembered mass-brawl amongst East End gangsters; even the first instalment in the saga of Phil Collins's lousy relationships (pity it wasn't the last!)
They were losing some of their musical uniqueness already - the songs aren't quite as chock-full of tempo-changes and diverse instrumental timbres as they used to be. But you're not likely to be conscious of that when listening to the album - just about every track is a classic. Composition-wise and performance-wise - it can hardly be faulted.
Great memories of early Genesis performances in the UK September 8, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
As somebody who saw Genesis several times during their Steve Hackett / Peter Gabriel "town-hall-and-college" touring days and as someone who endured the scratch, crackle and pops of those well-worn vinyls in bedsit land, I have to say that I think this remastered stuff sounds great. I love the sound. How I tried everything I could to get a good, clear punchy sound from my original Pioneer turntable, Trio amp and Goodmans speakers way back then.
Along with "Foxtrot", this always was a fabulous album that trips many memories for me, and to hear this remastered version in all its glory brings them all back! Yes, it might be a high on EQ but for my eardrums, having taken a battering at gigs over the years, it's just about right.
Lovely stuff.
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