By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

GENESIS – INVISIBLE TOUCH (1986)

I figure it has been a while since I’ve run straight forward into another act of musical blasphemy…so why not get it out of the way this week!
You know there are two distinct styles to the music of Genesis, right? There’s the pop hits edition that sold millions of albums and led hit videos as well. Of course, that means critics mostly deride this version of the band. And then there’s the art-rock version of the band that was led by Peter Gabriel that seems to still endear itself to the fan base and critics alike.

The thing is, I’ve NEVER really gotten into that art-rock version of the band. See…MUSICAL BLASPHEMY!

Nope, for my own personal tastes it is all about the version of Genesis that featured singer/drummer Phil Collins, guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks (the latter two played the bass parts on the Invisible Touch album.) Whether rock and metal or pop music, the music of the 1980s is what has always hit home the most for me.

And the Invisible Touch album definitely hits all the right notes for me. But what kind of amazed me as I researched the album is that the band went into the studio with nothing in the way of advance material written for what would become a six times platinum release in the US. That is just incredible, especially when you are always reading or hearing about how bands will usually go into a studio with at least some material ready to work on. (By the way, check out the Wikipedia page for the Invisible Touch album. It is incredibly detailed about the creation of the album.)

There are only eight songs on the album (nine if you count the fact that “Domino” is a song in two parts) and amazingly enough, Genesis released five songs as singles. More eye-opening is that all five of the songs hit the Top 5 on the singles charts. Four of those singles make up the first side of the album.

The leader of that particular pack of songs is the album’s title track. It hit #1 (the band’s only #1 hit) and it leads off the album. Phil Collins has reportedly said it is his favorite Genesis track and while I’m sure there are other contenders in my own personal song ranking, this one has to be near the top at least. It’s got this fun bouncy hook-laden sound to it that just gets my foot tapping every time I’ve heard the song over the ensuing years since I first heard it. I also like how uptempo the music is. Not just speedy for a pop song but there’s some real fast moving music going on here and I love the way the vocals come together with the music to give you just a great pop -rock song!

The song “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” has an almost eerie kind of tone to it as the song starts but over the course of its relatively long run time, the song grows into more of a rocker with a coinciding intensity coming into play as well.

“Land of Confusion” is a pretty damn good song all on its own. It’s got a fast beat to it with some pretty interesting guitar work (from Mike Rutherford) on it. And the lyrics are pretty pointed here as well. Of course, the song drew more interest because of the video that was made for the track. It was all done with puppets including versions of the band members themselves. Even all these years later, that video remains a superbly done bit of film work.

The first side of the album comes to a close with the ballad “In Too Deep”. Now, this is where I’d typically write about my disdain for ballads of the 1980’s because they don’t hold up. But not this time. In fact, not only does the song still remind me of when I first heard it, I actually found myself humming along during the chorus when I was listening to the album for this article. It is just damn good and even a cranky SOB like me can admit it.

The second side of the album opens with what I think is one of the band’s better, in completely unappreciated rock songs. Seriously…”Anything She Does” just has a full-throttle feel to it with the band running through the song in almost a fast and furious kind of way. It bursts out of the speakers right from the start, with an additional bit of musical fuel provided by a horns sound deepening the sound. It’s got a driving hook to the song throughout, but I loved the way Phil Collins attacked the lyrics with his vocal performance on this one. And that chorus…KILLER!
The song “Domino” has two parts to it and it is a song that is almost certainly overlooked a lot because the combined running time for the song is over 10 minutes long. You definitely weren’t going to hear this one on the radio or see a video for it on MTV.

According to the Wikipedia page, guitarist Mike Rutherford thinks it is one of the best things Genesis ever did. And kudos have to go out to Tony Banks who wrote the lyrics. Because this is some really deep sounding stuff the band is saying here. It sweeps you up as a listener and carries you along throughout the song(s) as a whole. The first part, “In The Glow of the Night” starts off a bit slow then drops a killer thump on you powered by the drums. The tempo switches back and forth throughout before fading out as soft as it started. And then the 2nd half of the track, “The Last Domino” kicks in and it has a smoking delivery to it. So good that you almost forget it is part of a bigger whole and not simply a song that stands out on its own. When I listen to this song, I can’t help but get caught up in it.

After that, Genesis slows things down a bit with the hit ballad “Throwing It All Away”. Now I can’t remember exactly why but when this was getting a lot of airplay back in the day, I remember really liking it a lot. I can recall singing along to the song. Not that it is any kind of groundbreaking track or anything. It’s pretty much a straight up love song. But I loved the intro on the song and I remember just thinking the song sounded great back then. As I listened to it in the here and now, I can’t say anything has changed about my thoughts on the song. It’s just a really solid ballad track that still holds up well.

Now, in the 1980’s, I wasn’t really much of a fan of instrumental tracks. And the first time I head “The Brazilian”, the final track on Invisible Touch, my thoughts were something akin to “Why the hell are they putting an instrumental track on the album?” I didn’t know much about the band’s past at that point so I think it might be understandable that I would ask that question. I just really didn’t get the song initially. But over the years, as I played the song through each time I put the album on, something happened and I found myself getting into the track more and more. Back in the day, Dokken’s “Mr. Scary” was probably the only instrumental I could honestly say I liked right off. But time has made “The Brazilian” a track I greatly enjoy when I hear it.

So while I’m likely to face some slings and arrows for not being much of a fan of the first part of the Genesis musical journey, I’m okay with that. I am an unashamed fan of their more radio friendly pop music and the Invisible Touch album is undoubtedly a master class of how to make classy hit music/songs and have them stand the test of time!

NOTES OF INTEREST: As mentioned above, the Invisible Touch album sold 6 million copies in the U.S. The album got reissued in 2007 with a couple of different mixes added.

While all three members of the band co-wrote the music together, each of them provide lyrics for various songs on their own. They had three songs that got cut from the album (“Do The Neurotic”, “Feeding The Fire” and “I’d Rather Be You”) that were used as B-sides for the singles that were released and later included on a couple of Genesis box sets.

While “Invisible Touch” hit #1 on the singles chart, “Tonight, Tonight Tonight” hit #3, “Land of Confusion” hit #4 and “In Too Deep” hit #3 on the chart. Oh, and the video for “Land of Confusion” won a Grammy Award.

While it wasn’t officially released as a single, there was apparently a video made for the song “Anything She Does” as well. At the time of the writing this article, I hadn’t yet gone online to find it but I’m sure I will have done so by the time the article posts.