Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the English progressive rock band Genesis, released on 5 October 1973, by Charisma Records. The album was a commercial success in the United Kingdom, reaching on the UK Albums Chart, but less so in the United States, peaking at No. 70 on the Billboard 200. A single from the album, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", was released in February 1974 and became the band's first top 30 hit on the UK singles chart.
The album was recorded in August 1973 following the tour supporting their previous album, Foxtrot (1972). The group set aside a short period of time to write new material. It covered a number of themes including the loss of English folk culture and an increased American influence, which was reflected in the title. Following the album's release, the group set out on tour, where they drew an enthusiastic reception from fans.
Critics and the band members themselves have given mixed opinions of the album. Its reputation has improved over time, appearing on various critical and fan-voted lists of the best progressive rock albums. The album has continued to sell and received Gold certifications from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was remastered for CD in 1994 and 2007.
Background In May 1973, the Genesis line-up of frontman and singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist and guitarist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins completed their 1972–1973 tour supporting their previous album Foxtrot (1972). The tour marked the band's first full-scale North American tour, which drew positive responses, but journalists were still criticising the band and comparing them to other progressive rock bands of the time such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd. Charisma pushed to release new Genesis material to capitalise on the band's newfound commercial success despite the band's wishes against it, and released a compilation of live recordings from early 1973, originally intended for broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show in the US, as their first live album Genesis Live (1973). This budget-priced release also compensated for the cancellation of a proposed gig at Wembley Arena in May 1973 due to the inability to print tickets in time, and to act as a bridging album in between Foxtrot and the next studio album. It became their highest-charting album in the UK at the time, peaking at No 9.
The group were too busy touring to write new material, so after coming off the road they set aside time to create new songs. Due to the success of Foxtrot, the group's record label, Charisma Records, allowed them two to three months to come up with a new studio album, which Rutherford considered to be "the kiss of death". Early into the sessions Collins formed a pick-up band with former Yes guitarist Peter Banks for a few gigs, and Rutherford revealed in an interview to Sounds in 1976 that "there had been worries that Phil might want to leave the group". Despite this, Gabriel recalled this time as a "relatively happy and calm period".Gabriel, Peter. Reissues Interview 2007 at 00:54–01:01
Writing and recording Rehearsal sessions for the album took place at a doctor's house in Chessington and the Una Billings School of Dance in Shepherd's Bush, the same two places where Foxtrot was rehearsed. Banks recalled the group had some difficulty coming up with musical ideas.Banks, Tony. Reissues Interview 2007 at 01:01–02:15 The Chessington sessions took place in what reporter Jerry Gilbert described as "a rambling old stately home". The group practised in the living room, causing the neighbours to complain about the noise and impose a curfew.Hackett, Steve. Reissues Interview 2007 at 03:20–03:43 Hackett said of the setting, "Because it was a house that belonged to a family, it gave the music a sense of happy amateurishness. It made it fun because you felt you shouldn't really be there doing that kind of thing. It was designed as a canteen or a cafeteria; there was even a machine that used to dispense bubble gum for kids!" The Chessington sessions were where most of the album was written. Collins had been listening to the jazz fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra, which influenced him to play more complicated time signatures on the drums for "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" and other parts on the album.Collins, Phil. Reissues Interview 2007 at 04:02–04:25
Rehearsals then moved to London in a space beneath the Una Billings School of Dance, during which "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" was written.Collins, Phil. Reissues Interview 2007 at 04:36–04:41 Hackett had not contributed a great deal of material to the group during this time, since he found it hard to write due to the breakdown of his first marriage. Rather than pitch whole songs he instead devised guitar licks, which he believed gave the album a jazz fusion feel.Hackett, Steve. Reissues Interview 2007 at 02:15–03:02
A simple guitar riff that Hackett had been playing on stage that the band liked and wanted to develop further became "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", and three bits from Banks that he intended for different songs were pressed into a single work, "Firth of Fifth", by the other members of the band. A riff developed early on became the opening of "The Battle of Epping Forest". The band repeatedly performed these three pieces daily for a short while which Banks thought resulted in "The Battle of Epping Forest" being too overworked.
One of the ideas that Gabriel wanted to convey with the album was the idea of looking at "Englishness in a different way". This included his suggestion of the album's title,Gabriel, Peter. Reissues Interview 2007 at 00:10–00:31 itself a slogan adopted by the Labour Party manifesto, to ensure that the British press would not accuse the band of "selling out" to America. Rutherford later deemed the title to be among the band's best album titles.Rutherford, Mike. Reissues Interview 2007 at 00:31–00:36 It represented a decay of English folk culture and an increase in Americanisation. Banks said the English theme across the album was not an intentional idea at first, but merely the way the songs naturally developed. Gabriel later said he wrote all his lyrical contributions to the album in two days.
Having rehearsed and written enough material for an album, the group entered Island Studios in London in August 1973. The engineer of Foxtrot, John Burns, became co-producer. Burns' technical skills resulted in a good recorded sound and environment, and this motivated the group to play better and tackle more complex arrangements. Gabriel was conscious of the greater use of lengthy instrumental sections on the album which he thought presented the risk of the material becoming boring. Genesis had expanded their equipment with an Echoplex and an ARP Pro Soloist, expanding the range of sounds available to them.
Songs Side one
"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" evolved from a number of short piano pieces composed by Gabriel, which was combined with some of Hackett's guitar figures. The a cappella opening was influenced by Scottish plainsong. The second section and outro section consist of improvisations from the whole band, with the exception of the 12-string guitar melody played by Rutherford in the outro, which was composed. Gabriel added English-themed lyrics to counter the impression from the music press that Genesis were trying too hard to appeal to the American audience, including references to Green Shield Stamps. Banks had upgraded to a new model of Mellotron and used the choir sound on the track. The track was originally supposed to segue into "The Cinema Show" to make a piece around 20 minutes in length, but this idea was dropped as the result was too comparable to the 23-minute "Supper's Ready" on Foxtrot. The working title for the outro section was "Disney" in reference to prominent American animation producer The Walt Disney Company, because the members of Genesis thought it sounded like a cartoon. Rutherford thought the song's opening provided a good start to the album, but felt less enthusiastic towards it overall, calling it "a bit busy".Rutherford, Mike. Reissues Interview 2007 at 00:44–00:53
"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" came out of a jam session by the group around one of Hackett's guitar riffs. He and Collins often played it around the time Foxtrot was recorded; the other three members did not join initially because they said it sounded too much like the Beatles, but became more invested in it by the time of Selling England by the Pound. Banks came up with the vocal melody for the chorus, and Gabriel wrote the lyrics, which were inspired by the painting The Dream which was later adapted into the album's cover. Gilbert described an early listening of the song as "Hints of quaint English romanticism" that, according to Gabriel, was initially intended to have more of a folk-oriented melody. The percussion sounds heard at the beginning are Gabriel playing with a talking drum that Burns had purchased from Nigeria. It was released as a single from the album, which became the first of the group's to chart in the UK.
Banks wrote a piece which included what became the solo piano introduction of "Firth of Fifth" on his own, and presented it to the group for Foxtrot, but it was rejected. He reworked some sections of the song for Selling England by the Pound, where it drew a more positive reception. Banks recalled the difficulty of removing the noise created by the piano pedal in the studio, so he played the passage without it, which he also found difficult. Hackett took a theme which Banks had written for flute and piano and rearranged it as a guitar solo, which dominates the latter part of the track. Banks later deemed the lyrics, which he contributed with assistance from Rutherford, as one of the worst he had worked on. He had aimed to follow "the idea of a river and then I got a bit caught up in the cosmos and I don't quite know where I ended up".
"More Fool Me" is the second of two songs (the first being "For Absent Friends" from Nursery Cryme) to feature Collins on lead vocals before he became the band's lead singer in 1975. Uncharacteristically for the group's output at the time, the song is a tender, romantic ballad. Its music was written by Rutherford, with lyrics by both him and Collins, while sitting on the steps outside the recording studio. It is performed on the album by just the song's two writers, Rutherford playing 12-string acoustic guitar with reverb effect applied and Collins singing, frequently in falsetto range. Gabriel considered the pair's contributions "quite a breakthrough".
Side two