Selling England by the Pound

Untitled

Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis and was recorded and released in 1973. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak with Peter Gabriel, hitting # 3 in the UK. It is considered by many fans to be one of the best overall albums the band produced. The album would eventually go Gold in the US in 1990.

The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called "The Dream". The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; Gabriel added it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like".

A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic Records in the US and Canada. The remastered booklet features the lyrics and credits which were missing on the original CD.

A SACD / DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and Stereo mixes) is planned for release in late 2007/early 2008.

Track listing

All songs credited to Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford.

1. "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" – 8:02
2. "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" – 4:07
3. "Firth of Fifth" – 9:35
4. "More Fool Me" – 3:10
5. "The Battle of Epping Forest" – 11:49
6. "After the Ordeal" – 4:13
7. "The Cinema Show" – 11:06
8. "Aisle of Plenty" – 1:32

Theme

Retaining the pastoral yearning for ancient or medieval England as its primary thematic material, the album focuses on traces of this past in the present. Songs about England's mythological past ("Dancing With the Moonlit Knight") co-exist with sketches of contemporary lawnmowers ("I Know What I Like"), and the centerpiece of the second side, the epic "Cinema Show", has two lovers serve as reincarnations of ancient Greek figures in a way which is almost directly out of the "Fire Sermon" scene in T.S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste Land.

Sound & Live performance

The musical performances are much more polished and tight than on the preceding LPs. Musical diversions are more often unified into the general song structure. In particular, Steve Hackett's guitar solos in "Firth of Fifth" show his unique voice on guitar at its best, while the song opens with a highly structured classically inspired piano-instrumental by Banks. As with previous efforts, unusual time signatures and shifts in key and pace continue as key structural devices, and while these formal aspects are no less present on this album, they often serve to support the general melodies of the songs, rather than dominate them. In fact, this album in general shows a focus on melody as the structural unifying force of the songs, as opposed to having the music center around Gabriel's vocal and lyrical forays.

The album contains many pieces that would become central to Genesis' live act for years to come, particularly "Firth of Fifth" and "Cinema Show," both of which use short lyrical sketches to frame extended instrumental compositions. Along with "The Battle of Epping Forest," a song based upon a gangland brawl yet full of references to the squabbles for the English countryside of the far removed past, songs such as "Firth" and "The Cinema Show" make prominent use of synthesizers, introduced to the band's sound on this album. Compositionally, "The Cinema Show" provides the climax for the album's second side, starting off with Rutherford and Hackett's trademark intertwining acoustic guitars, providing the backdrop for mythological lyrics, and leading to a long-form synthesizer solo by Banks. This anthemic solo section would later form the melodic centerpiece of the extended instrumentals at the core of the band's 'Cage Medley' (a combination of song excerpts that Genesis would perform live years after it had stopped performing other songs from the 70's), demonstrating Banks' increasing role as one of the band's primary songwriters.

Ending with the reprise of motifs from the start of the album, "Aisle of Plenty" mournfully brings the album full circle to where it began - nostalgia for old England. The album also produced the shorter track "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", which became Genesis' first single to receive any sort of chart action, hitting #17 in the UK in April 1974.

Personnel

• Peter Gabriel – lead vocals, flute, percussion, oboe
• Steve Hackett – guitar
• Tony Banks – Hammond organ, piano, RMI electric piano, mellotron, ARP Pro-Soloist synthesizer, twelve-string guitar
• Mike Rutherford – bass, bass pedals, guitar, sitar
• Phil Collins – drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals on "More Fool Me"

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1974	Billboard Pop Albums	70

Certifications

Organization	Level	Date
RIAA – U.S.	Gold	April 20 1990