Genesis: Invisible Touch (Japanese Pressing) CD Track Listing

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Genesis Invisible Touch (Japanese Pressing) (1986)
Invisible Touch (Japanese Pressing)\n1986 Atlantic Recording Corporation\n\nOriginally Released June 1986\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: With Invisible Touch, Genesis' transition from prog rockers to pop superstars was completed. Filled with slick, synth-heavy, radio-friendly numbers, the record was their biggest seller. Artistically, the record's merits are more dubious. Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford contribute little of imagination to the musical mix, while the most of the lyrics lack imagination. The sappy ballads "Throwing It All Away" and "In Too Deep" could easily have come off a Phil Collins solo album, as could the horn-driven "Anything She Does." That's not to say they are bad songs per se, but considering what the group was capable of, they are comparatively slight. "Land of Confusion" throws some well-needed grit into the mix, but the best material here is the tracks that show some signs of adventure. The album version of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" is far superior to the single release, with its soaring chorus augmented by a long, dark instrumental passage. Meanwhile, "Domino" finds a nice blend between a pop-friendly sound and a progressive structure. The wistful "The Brazilian" could fit on any previous Genesis album, and with interesting percussion and keyboard sounds is a reminder of how good the band could still be. -- Geoff Orens\n\nAmazon.com Editorial Review\nThere no doubt exists a school of rock purists who consider Invisible Touch the album where Genesis officially kissed street credibility goodbye and said hello to beer commercial anthems and puppet extravaganza videos. True, perhaps, but on the other hand, it's great to sing along to a good pop song, too. And this record has good pop songs in spades, from rock-solid I'm-not-so-tough-I-can't-cry-style tearjerkers ("In Too Deep," "Throwing It All Away") to zingy, gurgly pop confections ("Land of Confusion," "Anything She Does"). A few slightly more sprawling tracks are also included ("Tonight, Tonight, Tonight," "Domino," and the instrumental "The Brazilian"), but compared to the band's earlier attempt at art-rock opuses, even these feel a bit candy coated. We are talking about 1987, after all. Thin synth lines weren't retro. They just were. And we loved it. --Bob Michaels \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nDo You Know What You've Begun?, January 13, 2007\nReviewer: Tom Emanuel (Deadwood, SD USA)\nINVISIBLE TOUCH (1986) is probably the most divisive album in Genesis' entire catalogue. Fans of the band's 80s work acclaim it as one of their crowning achievements, while adherents of the band's 70s prog period generally see it as the album where Genesis officially "sold out". \n\nNow, as someone who was introduced to the band via their 70s repertoire, I'll be the first to admit that INVISIBLE TOUCH is far more pop-oriented than anything the band had done up to that point. But they hadn't left their progressive roots behind entirely. In its nine-minute album form, Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is a cautionary epic with a brooding middle break, and the atmospheric instrumental The Brazilian caps the album in exotic fashion, climaxing in a Hackett-esque guitar solo from Mike Rutherford. The big treat for prog fans, however, is the ten-minute-plus Domino. I've been led to believe this song is about some kind of nuclear nightmare, but whatever its true subject matter it's absolutely stunning, building dramatic tension through multiple movements to a harrowing climax in classic Genesis fashion. \n\nAs good as these progressive flourishes are, however, the poppier side of INVISIBLE TOUCH is just as good, if not better. The title track is irrepressibly catchy (it went to #1); Land of Confusion achieves just the right balance between danceable rock and searing political commentary (not to mention that brilliant video); and Anything She Does bounces along like an over-excited puppy (to cop a phrase from a review of an ELO album). But it's the ballads that hit me the hardest, both the desparate In Too Deep and the crushingly bittersweet Throwing It Away; for whatever reason, those two songs really strike a chord with me. \n\nBy the time 1986 rolled around, Genesis really wasn't the same band that recorded art-rock classics like SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND and FOXTROT. They had lost two key members, and their sound had changed drastically with the drastically changing face of rock music. But in spite of its more mainstream aspects, INVISIBLE TOUCH is proof that they were still willing to evolve, still willing to explore, and still willing to take chances. And that's really the spirit of progressive rock after all, isn't it?\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nI like it a lot better now than I did 15 years ago, October 21, 2002\nReviewer: woburnmusicfan (Woburn, MA United States)\nI hated this album! When it first came out in 1986, I hated this album with a passion. It had thrown away the fantastic sound of "Three Sides Live" and "Genesis" in favor of synthesizer blips and bleeps, way-too-glossy synth strings, and drums that sounded like drum machines even when it was Phil Collins playing up a storm (rather than playing real drums, he's playing pads that trigger electronic drum sounds), and all in the service of a bunch of songs that sounded like pure sellouts.\nFrom today's vantage point, I have to give this album its due. It made Genesis, for a moment, one of the most popular bands in the world, something I'd always hoped for. Some of the singles, especially "Land of Confusion" and "Throwing It All Away" ARE very good. The former is probably Genesis' best social comment song. And "Domino" is the last of the great Genesis long songs; "Driving the Last Spike" and "Fading Lights" are jokes by comparison. I still have trouble listening to the title track -- while it has an impossibly catchy riff, it's coupled to one of the most insufferable lyrics this side of "Who Dunnit?". The lyric is a rehash of Collins and Philip Bailey's single "Easy Lover". "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" is a good song about addiction, even if it is a couple of minutes too long and comes with the Michelob commercial association. "Throwing It All Away" is a melodic ballad centered on a great Mike Rutherford guitar riff. The slow ballad "In Too Deep" is one song I think MUCH more highly of today than when it was new (by the way, it was the opening theme in the movie "Mona Lisa"). "Anything She Does" is a catchy nothing of a song, with a lively horn part and a lyric about a man who falls in love with a painting. "The Brazilian" is a slight instrumental, with Rutherford's bass and Collins' drumming much more interesting than Tony Banks' synth leads. Its highlight comes at the end, when Rutherford dares to use Steve Hackett's trademark wailing guitar sound for an all-too-brief solo. This type of guitar wail is great for cutting through the Genesis wall-of-keyboards sound, and it's a shame Rutherford didn't feel comfortable using this more often in the post-Hackett period...\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nIf Only it Was Invisible, October 19, 2001\nReviewer: Jerry G. (shaker hts, oh United States)\nContinuing a trend of extraordinarily bad music that started with 1983's self-titled atrocity, Invisible Touch stands as the best selling album of this band's long and varied career. It's their best in sales, one of their worst in quality. The problem is that most of the songs sound ready made for your morning elevator ride. Or perhaps for walking down the aisle at the local supermarket. If I were a dentist I would certainly put this one at the top of my office play list - it's the perfect thing to listen to while getting your teeth pulled. \nThe title track has got to be one of the most irritating songs ever recorded. The industrial music folks have got nothing on Genesis here. Give me a pile of scrap metal and a hammer and I'll make a more appealing sound any day. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is another ridiculous piece of garbage. Land of Confusion is a pathetic attempt at a political statement while Throwing it All Away is an obvious remake of Taking it All Too Hard, which was the only good song on their previous album. Only this time around they manage to suck the life out of their own creation. How many songs can you make about romance? Give me a friggin' break. Most of the songs are of the type that make no demands on the listener and would never offend a member of the general public. \n\nThere are two good songs on this album that actually make it worth owning if you're obsessed with the band and have almost everything else. These are Domino, which is a long, powerful piece that blows the somewhat similar Home by the Sea (from Genesis) out of the water, and the Brazilian, a short instrumental. \n\nIt's unfortunate that this album, more than any other, has come to define what the general public remembers as Genesis. Perhaps this is unavoidable given the fantastic sales it achieved, but it makes for a great deal of embarrassment when you say that Genesis is one of your favorite bands. The smiles just fade right off of peoples' faces and they soom find someone else to talk with. And the fact is that you would want them to react that way. All thanks to Invisible Touch, the album that sealed the fate of this once great band and turned it forever into a bad joke.\n\n\nHalf.com Details \nProducer: Genesis, Hugh Padgham \n\nAlbum Notes\nGenesis: Phil Collins (vocals, drums, percussion); Mike Rutherford (guitar, bass); Tony Banks (keyboards, synthesizer, bass).\n\nRecorded at the Farm, Surrey, England in 1985 & 1986.\n\nWhen Genesis reconvened to record 1986's INVISIBLE TOUCH, Phil Collins had a thriving solo career in both music and film, Tony Banks was recording movie scores, and Mike Rutherford was doing well in Mike & the Mechanics. Though it may have seemed impossible for the band to do better as a unit, this record spun off five Top 5 hits including the chart-topping title track. By tapping into a baby-boomer market that had lots of disposable income, Genesis became an adult contemporary god.\nINVISIBLE TOUCH represented the perfect hybrid that Genesis had been striving for: a pop sound mated with prog-rock flair. "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" demonstrated this perfectly. Despite being over eight minutes long, the topic of dysfunctional relationships had enough universal appeal in it to be used in a beer commercial. "Land of Confusion," a straightforward number commenting on the pervasive greed of the '80s was one of the album's hit singles along with the soft-rock ballad "Throwing It All Away." The Domino Suite ("In the Glow of the Night," "The Last Domino") may have been a nod to the band's more progressive past, but the sweeping instrumental, "The Brazilian," truly harkened back to Genesis' art-rock glory days.\n\nIndustry Reviews\n...The production is so mid-'80s - it was nevertheless impossible to go anywhere for a good 12 months without hearing 'Invisible Touch', 'Land Of Confusion', 'In Too Deep' or 'Tonight Tonight Tonight'....the result rarely sounds anything less than ruthless in its commercialism. Mojo (03/01/2001)\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nIf ever there were a time for Genesis to abandon art rock in favor of a pure pop approach, that time would be now. The pop hits, after all, were what finally catapulted the trio out of its cultact status, and a flair for Top Ten singles has made stars of Phil Collins and Mike (and the Mechanics) Rutherford. So why not jettison the extraneous arrangements and get down to business?\n\nBecause without that tendency to orchestral pomposity, it really wouldn't be Genesis. Take, for example, "Anything She Does." The song opens with a brisk, synthesized brass figure that could easily have been copped from one of Collins's solo efforts, but instead of continuing on in that groove (as Collins would), Genesis hits the brakes, dropping back into a quirky skank that effectively halves the beat. It's a real showoff move, and entirely typical of the Genesis canon.\n\nExcept that such tricks are no longer the focus of each track. Instead, every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook. Much of the credit for this belongs to Tony Banks, whose synth style has never seemed more appropriate; it's his keyboards that set the mood for "In the Glow of the Night" and maintain the tension in "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."\n\nIn the end, though, what essentially distinguishes this from the next Phil and the Mechanics project is that no single player dominates the sound, that each member keeps his touch invisible. And that, as it turns out, is plenty pop enough. (RS 480 - Aug 14, 1986) -- J.D. CONSIDINE
This rock cd contains 8 tracks and runs 45min 47sec.
Freedb: 510ab908
Buy: from Amazon.com

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