Quote:
Originally Posted by Trollheart
One thing I find about SEBTP is that lyrically it's terribly dated. I mean, puns that were clever in 1973 are not so now. Who today knows what Green Shield Stamps were? Or what a Wimpy is/was? It's kind of like looking at an old sitcom whose jokes are rooted in the phraseology of the time.
Example: The Young Ones. Mike opens a paper, a load of fruit and stuff falls out. He watches it fall in his lap, looks up at the camera and says "I never knew there was so much in it!" Big laugh, because back then the slogan for the "TV Times" was exactly that. Today, nobody who has not lived through that era will get that.
On the other hand, lyrics in "Trick of the tail" and even "Trespass" still work today, and are still relevant. I'm not saying ALL of "Selling England" is out of date lyrically but a lot of it is.
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This is the problem when a band centres itself around a local colloquial lingo for their lyrics, especially if those lyrics are an important aspect to the band. For that reason the band becomes a product of their time and that is exactly what Genesis under Peter Gabriel were. Hell even I had problems remembering what Green Shield Stamps were.