23 December 2013

23rd December - Genesis' Wind & Wuthering


Artist – Album: Genesis – Wind & Wuthering
Released: 23rd December 1976
Sounds Like: Driving home for Christmas

We are well into the festive period now – today is my first day of the Christmas holidays, festive films are showing up on the telly, and my Yuletide Special Playlist Blog© has been posted (check it out! But come back!). Today I’m driving down to the Kentish coast to spend Christmas with my family and I quite like the idea that I’m heading down to see my Mum whilst listening to one of her favourite bands.

Whether Wind & Wuthering is one of her favourite albums I’m not sure, but it’s from the right era. Selling England by the Pound and ‘Carpet Crawlers’ were released only a few years before (in the Peter Gabriel days), whilst the same year’s Trick of the Tail was an important part of our record collection when I growing up. Like those other releases, Wind & Wuthering consists of lengthy, pastoral rock built around swirling keys and Steve Hackett’s epic guitar play. Peter Gabriel’s departure was not yet being keenly felt as Phil Collins was an excellent stand in and the group still immersed themselves in prog rock, although the first indications of their poppy 80’s selves can be seen here – whilst the first three tracks clock it in at a highly impressive 24 minutes, the remaining six zip by at a relatively quick-fire 26 minutes, and ‘Your Own Special Way’ was the closest they’d come yet to a genuine pop song.

Genesis may have been a band in transition during Wind & Wuthering, but they still had the quality to make a very good album, one to give me cheer on this festive pilgrimage to Kent.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Eleventh Earl of Mar – 7:43
2.       One for the Vine – 10:00
3.       Your Own Special Way – 6:17
4.       Wot Gorilla? – 3:20
5.       All in a Mouse’s Night – 6:39
6.       Blood on the Rooftops – 5:27
7.       Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers… – 2:19
8.       …In That Quiet Earth – 4:54
9.       Afterglow – 4:14
 
Listen to ‘Your Own Special Way’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyuT9bNPQXw

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