Abacab

Abacab, released in 1981, is the eleventh studio album by British band Genesis. It reached the top of the UK album charts, remaining in the charts for 27 weeks. In the US, the album sold over two million copies, and thus was certified double platinum by the RIAA.[citation needed]



Contents
[hide]  *1 Background and recording  ==Background and recording[ edit] == The group initially wrote an album's worth of material which they subsequently discarded because they saw themselves as becoming, in Mike Rutherford's words, "a caricature of ourselves". In what he saw as a major turning point for the group, they made a decision to throw out any songs which sounded like anything they had done before.[1]
 * 2 Release
 * 3 Reception
 * 4 Track listing
 * 4.1 B-Sides and non-album tracks
 * 4.2 2007 SACD/CD/DVD Release
 * 5 In popular culture
 * 6 Working titles for the album
 * 7 Personnel
 * 7.1 Additional personnel
 * 8 Tour
 * 8.1 Set list
 * 8.2 Personnel
 * 8.2.1 with
 * 9 References

The album continued the band's sharp stylistic shift towards post punk, new wave music and also a radio-friendly pop music sound. Influences of Brian Eno(Phil Collins had played on his albums frequently), Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel's solo material are evident. "No Reply at All" features the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section (as did Collins' solo album Face Value earlier in 1981).[2]

Genesis produced Abacab solely by themselves. Engineer Hugh Padgham, who had assisted Collins on Face Value, continued to work on Genesis and Collins recordings through the end of the 1980s.[citation needed]

The album takes its name from an early arrangement of the title track. Rutherford said on the US radio show In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlightedDuke and Abacab in one episode): "There were three bits of music in 'Abacab', and we referred to them as 'section a', 'section b', and 'section c'... and at different times, they were in different order. We'd start with 'section a' and then have 'section c'... and at one point in time, it spelled Abacab. On the final version, it's not that at all, it's like 'Accaabbaac'."[citation needed]

Three songs from the Abacab sessions—"Paperlate", "You Might Recall", and "Me & Virgil"—were issued on the 3 X 3 EP. They were also issued on the non-UK releases of 1982's Three Sides Live. Two other songs from the sessions, "Naminanu" and "Submarine", appeared as B-sides on the "Abacab" singles, but were originally intended to be part of "Dodo/Lurker", where the order would have been "Naminanu/Dodo/Lurker/Submarine".<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The keyboard sound on "Who Dunnit?" is the result of Banks constantly changing the presets on his Prophet synthesizer as he plays. Live performances of this song featured the novelty of Rutherford playing drums alongside Chester Thompson (although Collins played drums on the studio version, as usual.)

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">"No Reply at All" was performed live by Phish as a tribute to Genesis at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 2010 induction ceremony.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[3] ==Release<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The album was released with four different embossed covers simultaneously across the country, all depicting the same collage but with the paper shapes in different colours. The four different cover variants are usually identified by the colour of the largest upper shape adjacent to the title lettering; this shape being coloured navy blue, red, peach, and yellow.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] ==Reception<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Rolling Stone praised the album for shedding the "ivory-tower artistry" of their previous albums, turning to sparse arrangements and "highly rhythmic interplay" and drawing inspiration from popular contemporaries such as XTC and The Police.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Stone_review_6-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6]  Allmusic's retrospective review echoed this sentiment with greater emphasis, declaring "Duke showcased a new Genesis... but Abacab was where this new incarnation of the band came into its own." They also argued that although the album is far richer in pop hooks and accessibility than the band's previous works, at its heart Abacab "is truly modern art rock."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-allmusic_4-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[4]  However, Genesis were booed at during the touring of this album at the Leiden, Holland show, 3 October 1981. ==Track listing<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">All songs written by Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford, except where noted. ===B-Sides and non-album tracks<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === ===2007 SACD/CD/DVD Release<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">A new version of Abacab was released in the UK and Japan on 2 April 2007. It was released in the US and Canada as part of the Genesis 1976-1982 box set on 15 May 2007. This includes the entire album in remixed stereo, the entire album in surround sound, and related video tracks.

==In popular culture<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == ==Working titles for the album<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Before Abacab was released, many of the songs had working titles. Below is the track listing for the originally planned double album Abacab was going to be and the original song working titles and finalised song titles (in parentheses):
 * Disc 1, in the European and Japanese releases, is a hybrid SACD/CD. The stereo layer includes the remixed tracks, and the SACD layer is a multichannel surround sound remix.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]
 * Disc 1, in the Canadian and US releases, is a standard CD, containing the stereo remixes. No SACD layer is included.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-genesis-news.com_8-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]
 * Disc 2, in all releases, is a DVD-Video disk containing both audio and video tracks. This DVD includes three audio mixes of the album: DTS 5.1 surround sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, andDolby Digital stereo.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  The DTS surround sound is a slightly compressed version of the surround sound on the SACD,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-genesis-news.com_8-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  and the Dolby surround sound is of slightly inferior quality to the DTS.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]
 * Disk 2 includes the following video tracks:
 * 1) Band interview about this album (2006).
 * 2) Promotional videos: "Abacab"; "Keep It Dark"; "No Reply At All"; and "Man On The Corner".
 * 3) World Tour program from 1981 tour (15 page gallery).
 * In 1993, when the video game Mortal Kombat was ported to the Sega Genesis, the development team made a secret code in the game that spelled out "Abacabb" (with two "B"s) on the controller pad. When activated, it would enable uncensored blood (Game Informer No. 230 Dan Ryckert p.98). This was a deliberate reference to Genesis, one of Ed Boon's favourite bands, which happened to share its name with the console to which the code was exclusive.
 * Another Sega Genesis video game has a cheat code that shares the title. 1994's Shadowrun has a secret code entered at the title screen to unlock an in-game cheat menu. The code is "Abbacab".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[11]
 * In the Kimagure Orange Road manga and anime, the restaurant ABCB was named in homage to the album. (The intended pronunciation of the letters in Japanese is similar in pronunciation to "Abacab".)
 * During an on-air discussion about the song, Artie Lange of The Howard Stern Show stated that when he was in high school he would sometimes use "A,B,A,C,A,B" to select answers on multiple choiceexams. He claims to have usually got "about half of them right" by using this method.

==Personnel<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == ===Additional personnel<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === ==Tour<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Genesis toured in support of the Abacab album between September and December 1981, beginning in Barcelona, Spain. Shows in New York and Birmingham, England comprised the Three Sides Livealbum released the following year.
 * Abacab 06:56
 * Jangley (You Might Recall) 05:36 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 × 3 EP, and original American release of "Three Sides Live")
 * Nationwide (No Reply at All) 04:47
 * German I & II (Dodo/Lurker) 07:28
 * Sub (Submarine) 04:21 (Cut from album, released as a B-Side to "Man on the Corner", Instrumental Track)
 * Vocal 3/4 (Naminanu) 03:55 (Cut from album, released as a B-Side to "Keep It Dark", Instrumental Track. The song also was created from improvising in the studio.)
 * Chunky (Me & Virgil) 06:24 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 × 3 EP, and original American release of "Three Sides Live")
 * Odd (Keep It Dark) 04:36
 * Spike (Me & Sarah Jane) 06:02
 * Westside (Another Record) 04:42
 * Weirdsynth (Who Dunnit?) 03:41
 * Lonely Man (Man on the Corner) 04:30
 * Don (Like It Or Not) 05:00
 * Paperlate 3:39 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 × 3 EP, and original American release of "Three Sides Live")
 * Tony Banks – keyboards
 * Phil Collins – drums, percussion, vocals, drum machines
 * Mike Rutherford – bass guitar, bass pedals, guitars
 * Engineered by Hugh Padgham
 * Cover by Bill Smith
 * EWF Horns – horns

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The tour also marked the first ever appearance of the Vari-Lite automated lighting system, the development of which had been paid for by the band.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] ===Set list<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Encore:
 * 1) Behind the Lines
 * 2) Duchess
 * 3) The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
 * 4) Dodo/Lurker*
 * 5) Abacab*
 * 6) The Carpet Crawlers
 * 7) Me and Sarah Jane*
 * 8) Misunderstanding
 * 9) No Reply at All
 * 10) Firth of Fifth
 * 11) Man on the Corner*
 * 12) Who Dunnit?*
 * 13) In the Cage
 * 14) The Cinema Show (closing section)/Riding the Scree (teaser)/Slippermen
 * 15) Afterglow
 * 16) Turn It On Again
 * 17) Dance on a Volcano
 * 18) Drum Duet
 * 19) Los Endos

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">"Like It Or Not" was played at a few shows on the Northeast US leg. "Me and Virgil" was played at a few shows in Europe. "The Knife" was performed at the last show in Birmingham on 23 December 1981.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] ===Personnel<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === ====with<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] ====
 * 1) "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)"
 * Tony Banks – Keyboards, Vocals
 * Phil Collins – Lead vocals, drums, percussion
 * Mike Rutherford – Electric six string Guitars, bass guitar, bass pedals, vocals, drums on Who Dunnit?
 * Daryl Stuermer – Guitars, bass guitar*
 * Chester Thompson – Drums, percussion