The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - End of an Era

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway has a special spot in the band's catalog. It's a milestone representing the end of the first era of the band and a beginning for a whole new direction. It is the album that the founding member and frontman Peter Gabriel decided to leave because of the whole aggressive and emotionally exhausting process of it. After his departure, Genesis was going to have a totally different stage presence and sound- although Phil Collins was keen on maintaining the Gabriel-ish vocal style for the band. Still, this doesn't reduce the album's significance and prevent it from being one of the most accomplished works of the prog-rock history. During the previous album's tour, Peter Gabriel came up with the idea of a story about a half-Puerto Rican adolescent that one day opens his eyes in New York City and experiences several bizarre situations. Although the band wasn't keen on Gabriel writing the whole lyrics to the story, they agreed as the process went along. However, the arguments this caused would eventually fire the frictions of the band and Gabriel would feel apart from his bandmates day-by-day. Another thing to mention is that PG now was focused on the American culture rather than his tales influenced by the English, and made allusions in the stories accordingly. Musically, there was enough space for the band to be creative with their work as much as they wanted since they agreed that they had enough followers that would support them even if they'd make a double-album. So, Gabriel wanted that the others would write the music so that he'd focus on the sole lyrics. Although the band created the music based on their many jam sections, there is an intense connection between all the tracks of the album. It is hard to digest TLLDOB piece by piece in the first place, it creates a certain atmosphere that you can emphasize the story with the classic but certainly developed Genesis sound. As they followed a different writing direction with this album and experimented with many different sound effects and producing tricks, it shows a whole new side and many different influences(Avant-garde, improvisational music, etc.) of them. #ProgLoopGenesisWeek