I first heard Genesis in the late 70s. Never understood their rampant inventiveness, which I mistook for overt pomposity at the time of punk. Rookie mistake. I encountered them again and again in the 80s, hating what they did to soul classics. “Peter Gabriel isn’t Phil Collins,” I was admonished. “Go and listen to The Lamb.” Yeah, but Gabriel sounds like Collins, I would retort. Oops.
Forty years later, The Lamb, Genesis’s sixth studio album and their last with original lead vocalist Gabriel, is magnificent – deranged and spooky and full of unexpected songs about sexual peccadillos, the sound of milk bottles clanking, screeching and moments of unashamed beauty (c.f. Carpet Crawlers). Of course, initially it failed to sell as much as its predecessors, and even now former members of Genesis are divided as to its worth. “Ask Peter – I’m just the drummer,” Collins shrugged when asked about its content. “A brave but flawed experiment,” was another view. Not so!
With all its unswerving pretentiousness and ever-shifting focus, it’s one of the Great Progressive Albums of its era, equal to Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds and Pink Floyd’s troubled Atom Heart Mother.
Released in November 1974, the double album tells a surreal story of self-discovery about the rebel youth Rael, as conceptualised by Gabriel and inspired by disparate texts such as The Pilgrim’s Progress, West Side Story and the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. There are spoken interludes, stoned-out passages of alienation, and youthful discovery. There’s not a moment where the listener cannot take delight in the dark humour and unexpected musical twists and turns.
For every Anyway or upbeat Counting Out Time there are the baffling time signatures of Here Comes The Supernatural Anaesthetist or an absurdist The Waiting Room. For every sorrowful Empty Boats there is the anticipatory Broadway Melody Of 1974 and the stormy title track, Gabriel screaming and carolling like a man possessed.
While it might be pushing it some to claim it, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is a “weirdly prescient precursor of punk”, as Alexis Petridis suggests in the sleevenotes to this reissue. And there is no doubt as to its influence or longevity.
The 50th Anniversary Edition comes in multiple formats – five LPs/Blu-ray audio, four CDs/Blu-ray audio, digital – and includes The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway live at the Shrine Auditorium in LA from January 24, 1975, plus a handful of previously unreleased demos from the Headley Grange sessions.
