Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Illegan Alien - Genesis

Some songs are really good despite what their lyrics are about.  Case in point: Illegal Alien, by Genesis.  This was on their eponymous 1983 album, which was extremely good and for represents the high point of the Genesis brand of (by then very poppy, but still original and idiosyncratic) art rock.  It was meant as a lampoon of peoples' stereotypes, and the video really goes over the top with the concept.  This was all OK in the early 80s in both the US and the UK. But I imagine they could not put this out, at least as a band as prominent as they were in the charts back then (a totally different time in pop with totally different chart dynamics, of course).  And the song probably does not get very much air play these days because of the political correctness angle.  Which is too bad, because musically it is a really excellent and inventive piece of pop.

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