the encyclopedic entry of Abacab

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Abacab

Abacab is the eleventh studio album by British band Genesis, released in 1981.

Overview

The album marks a sharp stylistic jump, begun by the band on its preceding album Duke, away from their progressive rock style of the 1970s and toward a radio-friendly pop music sound. As such, "Abacab" is still viewed today with mixed opinions from both fans and critics. But the bandmembers say that the change in musical direction, beginning with 1980's "Duke" and continued with "Abacab," was necessary for the band's survival in the changing musical climate they found themselves in. Despite the change, songs like the title track, "No Reply At All", "Keep It Dark" and "Man on the Corner" were all respectable hit singles. And while Abacab may have cost Genesis some fans, they earned many others, with the album hitting UK #1 and US #7, selling several million copies worldwide and becoming the band's first Platinum selling album in the US.

Another element of Abacab is drummer Phil Collins's more 80s approach of his drum sound, involving reverberation, noise gates and compression in order to achieve a loud and authoritative percussive effect. This continued a trend Collins developed along with engineer Hugh Padgham on his solo hit single "In the Air Tonight", as well as the piece "Intruder" from former bandmate Peter Gabriel's third album.

In addition to pounding rock, Abacab incorporates upbeat, accessible music - an increasingly important element in Genesis's style at the time. "No Reply At All" features the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section (as did Collins' solo album Face Value earlier in 1981), and even "Dodo/Lurker," whose adventurous lyrics recall traditional Genesis, features a funky rhythm, propelled by Tony Banks's keyboards.

After years of using outside record producers, Genesis produced Abacab solely by themselves, while limiting further than before the number of solo compositions in favor of the group-written pieces. They also had the expertise of engineer Hugh Padgham, who assisted Collins on Face Value and would continue to work on Genesis and Collins recordings through the end of the decade.

The album takes its name from an early arrangement of the musical parts that make up the title track. Guitarist Mike Rutherford said on the US radio show In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlighted Duke 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'."

Due to its daring shift in style, Abacab is generally considered one of Genesis' most important releases, and was a springboard for future hit albums Genesis and Invisible Touch. The band had been influenced by the punk/new wave revolution in Britain insofar as what they were now offering fans was a set of minimalist, bare, punchy songs, much more in step with the pop charts than Genesis had ever been before.

Three songs that were left off of Abacab---"Paperlate," "You Might Recall," and "Me & Virgil"---were soon issued on the 3 X 3 EP, which broke the top ten of the UK singles chart, on the strength of the song "Paperlate." They were also issued on the U.S. release of 1982's Three Sides Live, which hit #10.

Track listing

All songs by Tony Banks/Phil Collins/Mike Rutherford, except where noted.

Side one

"Abacab" – 7:02
"No Reply at All" – 4:40
"Me and Sarah Jane" (Tony Banks) – 6:00
"Keep It Dark" – 4:32

Side two

"Dodo/Lurker" – 7:30
"Who Dunnit?" – 3:23
"Man on the Corner" (Phil Collins) – 4:27
"Like It or Not" (Mike Rutherford) – 4:57
"Another Record" – 4:29

2007 SACD/CD/DVD Release

A new version of Abacab was released in the U.K. and Japan on April 2, 2007. It was released in the US and Canada as part of the Genesis 1976-1982 box set on May 15, 2007. This includes the entire album in remixed stereo, the entire album in surround sound, and related video tracks.

Disc 1, in the European and Japanese releases, is a hybrid SACD/CD disk. The stereo layer includes the remixed tracks, and the SACD layer is a multichannel surround sound remix.

Disc 1, in the Canadian and U.S. releases, is a standard CD, containing the stereo remixes. No SACD layer is included.

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-channel surround sound, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound, and Dolby Digital stereo. The DTS surround sound is a slightly compressed version of the surround sound on the SACD, and the Dolby surround sound is of slightly inferior quality to the DTS.

Disk 2 also includes the following video tracks:
Band interview about this album (2006).
Promotional videos: "Abacab", "No Reply At All", "Keep It Dark" and "Man On The Corner".
World Tour program, from 1981 tour (15 page gallery).

References

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 blood. A deliberate reference to one of Ed Boon's favorite bands which shared the same name as the console the code was exclusive to.

In the Kimagure Orange Road manga and anime, the restaurant ABCB was named in homage to the album. (The phonetic 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 choice exams. He claims to have usually got "about half of them right" by using this method.

Working titles for the album

Before Abacab was released, many of the songs had working titles. Below is a list of the original song working titles and finalized song titles (in parentheses):

Abacab 07:06

Jangley (You Might Recall) 05:36 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 X 3 EP, and original 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.)

Chunkey (Me & Virgil) 06:24 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 X 3 EP, and original release of "Three Sides Live")

Odd (Keep It Dark) 04:36

Spike (Me & Sarah Jane) 06:02

Westside (Another Record) 04:42

Wierdsynth (Who Dunnit?) 03:41
Lonely Man (Man On The Corner) 04:30
Don (Like It Or Not) 05:00
Paperlate 3:40 (Cut from album, but released as part of the 3 X 3 EP, and original release of "Three Sides Live")

Personnel

Phil Collins – drums, percussion, all vocals
Tony Banks – keyboards,
Mike Rutherford – bass, guitars

Engineered by Hugh Padgham
Cover by Bill Smith

Additional personnel

EWF Horns – horns

Tour

Genesis toured in support of the Abacab album between September and December 1981. Shows in New York and Birmingham, England would comprise of the Three Sides Live album released the following year.

Setlist

Behind the Lines
Duchess
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Dodo/Lurker*
Abacab*
The Carpet Crawlers
Me and Sarah Jane*
Misunderstanding
No Reply At All
Firth of Fifth
Man On The Corner*
Who Dunnit?*
In the Cage
The Cinema Show (closing section)/Riding the Scree (teaser)/Slippermen
Afterglow
Turn It On Again
Dance On a Volcano
Drum Duet
Los Endos

Encore:

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

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 the 23rd December 1981.

Personnel

Phil Collins - Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Vocals
Mike Rutherford - Electric six string Guitars, Bass guitar, bass pedals, vocals
Daryl Stuermer - Guitars, Bass guitar*
Chester Thompson - Drums, percussion

Trivia

The album was released with four different covers simultaneously aross 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 either navy blue, peach, yellow or red.