Genesis - Selling England By The Pound [Charisma Records CAS 1074] (13 October 1973)

Released: 13 October 1973
Country: England
Label: Charisma Records
Catalog: CAS 1074
Genre: Rock, Progressive Rock

Item# SR-CHCAS1074
Ratings: C=VG+; LP=VG+


T R A C K L I S T:
01 Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
02 I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
03 Firth Of Fifth
04 More Fool Me
05 The Battle Of Epping Forest
06 After The Ordeal
07 The Cinema Show
08 Aisle Of Plenty




Selling England By The Pound
Genesis


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Album Review

Stephen Thomas Erlewine [allmusic.com]

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn't follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn't so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. For even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as ''Watcher of the Skies,'' Genesis hasn't sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot: they've married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that's been their calling card since the beginning. This, combined with many overt literary allusions -- the Tolkeinisms of the title of ''The Battle of Epping Forest'' only being the most apparent -- gives this album a storybook quality. It plays as a collection of short stories, fables, and fairy tales, and it is also a rock record, which naturally makes it quite extraordinary as a collection, but also as a set of individual songs. Genesis has never been as direct as they've been on the fanciful yet hook-driven ''I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)'' -- apart from the fluttering flutes in the fade-out, it could easily be mistaken for a glam single -- or as achingly fragile as on ''More Fool Me,'' sung by Phil Collins. It's this delicate balance and how the album showcases the band's narrative force on a small scale as well as large that makes this their arguable high-water mark.