Between Prog and Pop

Perhaps Genesis' most overlooked album. "...And Then There Were Three..." has been unfairly stamped as their first pop album, but it really sounds more like "Wind and Wuthering Part 2". Check out "Down and Out", one of the most intense prog tunes Genesis has ever released, with a great Tony Banks synth solo and a ridiculous Phil collins double bass drum groove. "Burning Rope" feels a lot like W&W's excellent track "One for the Vine", and "Undertow" is one of the band's best post-Gabriel ballads. Yeah, the album includes their first pop hit "Follow You Follow Me", but it happens to be a classy song. Prog or Pop? You decide.

Genesis ... and then they lost a band member

Let me start with the fact that 'I am a fan of Genesis, good or bad (to an extent). I even liked "From Genesis to Revelation" in spite of the relatively short and generally unrelated songs therin. "...and then there were three..." contains some very imaginative writing, specifically with "Undertow", "Snowbound", "Burning Rope", and "Scenes from a Nights Dream", not to mention "Follow you, Follow me." which I believe was also release as a single.
But I feel the album has a slightly hollow sound with without Steve Hackett on-board. In spite of this, though, the album was masterfully created and ranks high on my list of much played Genesis albums.

Part of the old Genesis, not quite the new!

Obviously ATTWT is a transition album for Genesis, if not THE transition from their art rock roots to their 80's pop destiny, but many fans have a difficult time placing it within the Genesis timeline. Is it the end of the old? Is it the beggining of the new? Maybe it's a little of both?



I'm not going to go too much into a typical review here, you can read other peoples' reviews for that. This is a re-review tailored mostly for Genesis fans, and an insistance for looking at this album in a new light.



Up until this point, each Genesis album seems to have had a specific theme and atmosphere to it, whether it be rooted deep in the English psyche (as in Selling England), shrouded in a classical aura (Foxtrot, Nursery Crime), or steeped in a judeo-christian satire (Trespas, some of Foxtrot). Trick of the Tale and Wind and Wuthering both seem to fall under the Very English category, for reasons obvious to any familiar with the albums, but And Then There Were Three seems completely alien to the Genesis catalog. Indeed, while it shares a certain 'comfy' feeling with Trick of the Tale (at least on some tracks), the only other album that seems to resemble this one in its theme is The Lamb. And perhaps this is no coincidence, for both albums diverge greatly from Genesis's English mystique and venture across the pond into an aura of Americana.



It is no secret that much of the inspiration for The Lamb came from the band's visit to NYC during the Selling England tour. The Big Apple must have left an impression, for it found its way into the atmosphere created by The Lamb. Something similar seems evident in ATTWT. Absent in this album are songs accounting old classical mythologys and biblical tales, or illustrating the warm hazy landscape of a freshly mowed English lawn complete with the indistinguishable aroma of grass clippings in the air. This album sings about the New World. Take a good listen to songs like "Down and Out" and "Ballad of the Big". Or better yet, the one line from "Deep in the Motherlode" which captures this essence completely.. 'Go west young man'.



ATTWT is as much a tribute to the Americana psyche as Selling England is to the British psyche. This album is not the first of the New Genesis, it is indeed the last of the Old Genesis, answering the call to go West.. and onto newer and more profitable adventures.