Selling England by the Pound
Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the English progressive rock band Genesis, released on 28 September 1973 on Charisma Records.[1] It reached No. 3 in the United Kingdom and No. 70 in the United States. A single from the album, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", was released in February 1974 and became the band's first top 30 hit in the UK.
Selling England by the Pound
The album was recorded in August 1973 following the tour supporting the previous album, Foxtrot (1972). The group set aside a short period of time to write new material, which covered a number of themes, including the loss of English folk culture and an increased American influence, which was reflected in the title. Following the album's release, the group set out on tour, where they drew an enthusiastic reception from fans.
Critics and the band members themselves have given mixed opinions of the album, though guitarist Steve Hackett has said it is his favourite Genesis record.[4] Its reputation has improved over time, appearing on various critical and fan-voted rankings of the best progressive rock albums.[5][6] The album has continued to sell and has reached Gold certification by the British Phonographic Industry and the Recording Industry Association of America. It was remastered for CD in 1994 and 2007. Several of the album tracks became fan favourites and featured as a regular part of the band's live setlist into the 1980s.
Background[edit]
In May 1973, the Genesis line-up of frontman and singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist and guitarist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins completed their 1972–1973 tour supporting their previous album Foxtrot (1972). The tour marked the band's first full-scale North American tour, which drew positive responses,[7] but journalists were still criticising the band and comparing them to other progressive rock bands of the time such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd.[8] Charisma pushed to release new Genesis material to capitalise on the band's newfound commercial success despite the band's wishes against it, and released a compilation of live recordings from early 1973, originally intended for broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show in the US, as their first live album Genesis Live (1973).[9][10] This budget-priced release also compensated for the cancellation of a proposed gig at Wembley Arena in May 1973, which was cancelled due to the inability to print tickets in time, and to act as a bridging album in between Foxtrot and the next studio album.[11] It became their highest charting album in the UK at the time, peaking at No 9.[10]
The group were too busy touring to write new material, so after coming off the road they set aside time to create new songs. Due to the success of Foxtrot, the group's record label, Charisma Records, allowed them two to three months to come up with a new studio album, which Rutherford considered to be "the kiss of death".[10][12] Early into the sessions Collins formed a pick-up band with former Yes guitarist Peter Banks for a few gigs, and Rutherford revealed in an interview to Sounds in 1976 that "there had been worries that Phil might want to leave the group".[11][13] Despite this, Gabriel recalled this time as a "relatively happy and calm period".[14]
Writing and recording[edit]
The album was not written in a single session or location, and Banks recalled the group had some difficulty in coming up with musical ideas.[15][16] The extra time that Charisma allowed caused the band to adopt a more relaxed pace of working at first, which included periods of unproductive work, such as the constant reworking of ideas to the point where they no longer worked or those that led them back to where they started.[17][10] The first sessions took place in what reporter Jerry Gilbert described as "a rambling old stately home" in Chessington, Kingston upon Thames,[11] the group practising in the living room causing the neighbours to complain about the noise and impose a curfew.[18][19] Collins did not remember the album being particularly difficult to put together, but said the Chessington sessions was where the basis of "The Cinema Show" was put together. He had been listening to the jazz fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra which influenced him to play more complicated time signatures on the drums for "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" and other parts on the album.[20] Rehearsals then moved to London in a space beneath the Una Billings School of Dance in Shepherd's Bush,[17] during which "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" was developed further.[21] Hackett had not contributed a great deal of material to the group at this point, which was made difficult by the breakdown of his first marriage going on around the same time. Rather than pitch whole songs he instead devised guitar licks, all of which were used, and believed it gave the album a jazz fusion feel yet still remained very English.[22]
Two sections that were brought into the sessions from the start were a simple guitar riff that Hackett had been playing that the band liked and wanted to develop further and became "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", and three bits from Banks that he initially thought were for different songs but were instead used in the final arrangement of "Firth of Fifth". The third section developed early on became the opening of "The Battle of Epping Forest", and the band repeatedly performed these three pieces daily for a short while which Banks thought resulted in the latter song being too overworked.[15] Despite the setbacks, biographer Robin Platts wrote: "There were enough magic moments and inspired jam sessions to produce such enduring compositions".[10]
One of the ideas that Gabriel wanted to convey with the album was the idea of looking at "Englishness in a different way". This included his suggestion of the album's title,[23] itself a slogan adopted by the Labour Party manifesto, to ensure that the British press would not accuse the band of "selling out" to America.[4] Rutherford later deemed the title to be among the band's best album titles.[24] Overall, it represented a decay of English folk culture and an increase in Americanisation.[4] Banks said the English theme across the album was not an intentional idea at first, but merely the way the songs naturally developed.[25] Gabriel later said he wrote all his lyrical contributions to the album in two days.[26]
Having rehearsed and written enough material for an album, the group entered Island Studios in London in August 1973. As with Foxtrot, John Burns helped with production.[13] Burns' technical skills resulted in a good recorded sound and environment, and this motivated the group to play better and tackle more complex arrangements.[4] Gabriel was conscious of the greater use of lengthy instrumental sections on the album which he thought presented the risk of the material becoming boring.[27]
Songs[edit]
Side one[edit]
"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" evolved from a number of short piano pieces composed by Gabriel, which was combined with some of Hackett's guitar figures to make up the track.[13] Gabriel added English-themed lyrics to counter the impression from the music press that Genesis were trying too hard to appeal to the American audience, including references to Green Shield Stamps.[4] Banks had upgraded to a new model of Mellotron and used the choir sound on the track.[30] The track ends with a series of 12-string guitar figures that were originally supposed to segue into "The Cinema Show" to make a piece around 20 minutes in length, but this idea was dropped as the result was too comparable to the 23-minute "Supper's Ready" on Foxtrot.[4] Its original working title was "Disney".[31] Rutherford thought the song's opening provided a good start to the album, but felt less enthusiastic towards it overall, calling it "a bit busy".[32]
"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" came out of a jam session by the group around one of Hackett's guitar riffs. He had presented the riff to the group previously, but it had been rejected because it sounded too much like the Beatles. Gilbert described an early listening of the song as "Hints of quaint English romanticism" that, according to Gabriel, was initially intended to have more of a folk-oriented melody.[25] The percussion sounds heard at the beginning are Gabriel playing with a talking drum that Burns had purchased from Nigeria.[33] It was released as a single from the album, which became the first of the group's to chart in the UK.[13]
Banks wrote most of "Firth of Fifth" on his own, and had presented it to the group for Foxtrot, but it was rejected. He reworked some sections of the song for Selling England by the Pound, where it drew a more positive reception.[13] The track opens with a solo piece for piano, that is repeated by the band later in the song. Banks recalled the difficulty to remove the noise created by the piano pedal in the studio, so he played the passage without it which he found difficult.[34][35] Hackett took one of Banks' piano figures and rearranged it as a guitar solo, which dominates the latter part of the track.[36] Banks later deemed the lyrics, to which he contributed with assistance from Rutherford, as one of the worst he had worked on. He had aimed to follow "the idea of a river and then I got a bit caught up in the cosmos and I don't quite know where I ended up".[37][35]
"More Fool Me" is the second of two songs, the other being "For Absent Friends" from Nursery Cryme, to feature Collins on lead vocals before he became the band's lead singer in 1975. Uncharacteristically for the group's output at the time, the song was a tender, romantic ballad. It was written quickly by Collins and Rutherford while sitting on the steps outside the recording studio.[38] Gabriel considered the pair's contributions "quite a breakthrough".[25]
Sleeve design[edit]
The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick titled The Dream.[36] Swanwick had designed posters for London Transport between the 1930s and 1950s.[30] The original painting did not include a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the track "I Know What I Like" because Swanwick told them she did not have enough time to paint a new picture for the cover.[36]
Release[edit]
Selling England by the Pound was released on 28 September 1973,[1] reaching No. 3 in the UK charts[46] and No. 70 on the U.S. Billboard Pop Albums chart.[47] The album's success in the U.S. benefitted from a switch from Buddah Records to Atlantic.[48] "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" was released as a single, with "Twilight Alehouse" on the B-side, in February 1974.[49] It was the band's first single to enter the UK chart, and peaked at No. 21.[3] It was successful enough for Genesis to be invited to perform the song on the British television show Top of the Pops, which the band declined.[50] In 2013, the album was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry for selling 100,000 copies.[51]
The album was digitally remastered for compact disc in 1994[52] and again in 2007 by Rhino Records.[53]
Adapted from the album's 1973 sleeve notes.[79]
Genesis
Production
DVD Media