Project 1001: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis
When it's cold, it comes slow / It is warm, just watch it grow
With some of the members of Genesis enmeshed in severe challenges in their personal lives outside the band, the group experienced great upheaval and chaos during the making of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and “it was a wonder an album was made at all.”1
This is a concept album and one of the best I’ve heard. Peter Gabriel’s lyrics create a genuine landscape and real characters, especially the protagonist, Rael. You want to find out, maybe even need to find out, what happens to Rael and how the story ends. To me, that’s a mark of something wonderful.
Gabriel’s voice is strong and distinctive, and he is able to create multiple characters with his voice that sound different from each other. One might even think each part was sung by a different singer. But Gabriel did them all. His bandmates, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Steve Hackett, and Phil Collins are in top form throughout the entire album matching Gabriel’s evocative, haunting, and poignant lyrics with music to match on every level. And I must say that I’ve never, in my mind, thought of Phil Collins as one of the best drummers. Great, sure, but an all-time great? Never crossed my mind really. But something about his work here caught my ear like never before. I think Collins might actually be one of the essential rock drummers.
The cover design very much matches the music found inside. Maybe one of the best album covers ever?
My Rating:
“Stop bitching about the demise of rock and roll and the dire lack of anything new. ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ sticks out of the present vinyl rubble like a polished diamond.”2
“(The album) is a forceful, imaginative piece of work that showcases the original Genesis lineup at a peak.”3
“One of rock's more elaborate, beguiling and strangely rewarding concept albums.”4
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Daryl Easlea wrote:
“Whether anyone, (lead singer Peter) Gabriel included, really understood what it was about is open to conjecture, but the double album features some of his most consistent writing and the band’s pithiest playing.
“It is a vocalist’s record, which is why the musicians hated it, and Gabriel loved it. Clear that he would never again be allowed quite so much leeway on a Genesis album, at the end of the grueling world tour to support the album, he was gone.5
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #416
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: Gold | April 20, 19907
Released on November 22, 1974. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: Whatever Gets You Thru The Night by John Lennon With The Plastic Ono Nuclear Band8
• Number one album: Walls and Bridges by John Lennon9
• Number one movie: The Trial of Billy Jack by Tom Laughlin10
• Most watched TV program: All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man11
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Centennial by James Michener12
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot13
Other albums released that month
• Autobahn by Kraftwerk
• Cantamos by Poco
• Fly to the Rainbow by Scorpions
• Silk Torpedo by The Pretty Things
• Elton John's Greatest Hits by Elton John
• Nightlife by Thin Lizzy
• Saturnight by Cat Stevens
• Sheer Heart Attack by Queen
• Stormbringer by Deep Purple
• Propaganda by Sparks
• Country Life by Roxy Music
• Desolation Boulevard by Sweet
• Goodnight Vienna by Ringo Starr
• Wish You Were Here by Badfinger
• The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast by Roger Glover
• The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis
• Get Up with It by Miles Davis
• John Dawson Winter III by Johnny Winter
• Woman to Woman by Tammy Wynette
• Relayer by Yes
• Fire on the Mountain by Charlie Daniels Band
• Slade in Flame by Slade
• 7-Tease by Donovan
• Bluejeans & Moonbeams by Captain Beefheart
• Brujo by New Riders of the Purple Sage
• Country Heart 'N Soul by Freddie Hart
• Fire by Ohio Players
• Got to Find a Way by Curtis Mayfield
• Heart Like a Wheel by Linda Ronstadt
• Highly Prized Possession by Anne Murray
• Kung-Fu Fighting and Other Great Love Songs by Carl Douglas
• Live by Mott the Hoople
• Miles of Aisles by Joni Mitchell
• Myopia by Tom Fogerty
• Out of the Storm by Jack Bruce
• Sedaka's Back by Neil Sedaka
• Soon Over Babaluma by Can
• Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) by Brian Eno
• There's the Rub by Wishbone Ash
• Where We All Belong by Marshall Tucker Band14
Sport
• Nov 13 Dodgers Steve Garvey wins NL MVP.
• Nov 23 Alexis Argüello of Nicaragua knocks out Mexican defending champion Rubén Olivares in the 13th round at the Forum in Inglewood, California, to claim the WBA world featherweight boxing title.
• Nov 24 24th NASCAR Sprint Cup: Richard Petty wins.
• Nov 24 CFL Grey Cup, Montreal Alouettes defeat Edmonton Eskimos, 20-7.
• Nov 25 Rangers' Mike Hargrove wins AL Rookie of Year.
• Nov 27 MLB St. Louis Cardinals OF Bake McBride wins NL Rookie of Year.
• Nov 28 Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspends NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for two years because of his Federal conviction for illegal contributions to political campaigns.
• Nov 29 39th Iron Bowl: Alabama beats Auburn 17-13 in Birmingham.15
Notable Births
• Nov 14 David Moscow, actor (Big)
• Nov 15 Chad Kroeger, Canadian singer, guitarist, and songwriter (Nickelback), born in Hanna, Alberta.
• Nov 16 Eric Judy, American rock bassist (Modest Mouse), born in Issaquah, Washington.
• Nov 17 Leslie Bibb (Iron Man, Iron Man 2), American actress.
• Nov 18 Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don’t Cry, American Psycho, Big Love), American actress, born in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• Nov 20 Marissa Ryan, American actress (Elizabeth MacGillis-Major Dad), born in Manhattan, New York.16
Historical Events
• Nov 16 1st intentional interstellar radio message sent, Arecibo telescope towards M 41, a cluster of stars some 25,000 light years away.
• Nov 20 The US files antitrust suit to break-up AT&T.
• Nov 21 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act broadening public access to US government actions passed by Congress over President Gerald Ford's veto.
• Nov 21 Birmingham pub bombings: 21 civilians killed when bombs explode at two pubs in Birmingham, England (deadliest attack in England during "the Troubles").
• Nov 22 UN General Assembly recognizes Palestine right to sovereignty.
• Nov 24 Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev agree to a framework for the SALT-II treaty to reduce each side's number of nuclear weapons, at the Vladivostok Summit.
• Nov 24 Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy, Australopithecus) discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
• Nov 25 Irish Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following deaths of 21.
• Nov 26 Approximately 140 die when suspension bridge collapses in Nepal.17
Notable Deaths
• Nov 19 Louise Fitzhugh, American author and illustrator (Harriet the Spy), dies at 46.
• Nov 23 Cornelius Ryan, Irish war reporter and historian (Bridge too Far), dies at 54.
• Nov 25 U Thant, Burmese politician and 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations (1961-72), dies in NY of lung cancer at 65.
• Nov 29 James Braddock, American boxer (World Heavyweight champion 1935-37), dies at 69.18
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime playlist: 122. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis
Full video playlist: You're Welcome 122; The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis
Easlea, Darryl; 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, ed by Robert Dimmery; p. 316.
Ibid