Listen up, Lily Collins: Genesis's sixth album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, marked a pivotal point in their career. Originally released 50 years ago this week, it's considered a hallmark of its time and one of the great prog rock albums in history — so, naturally, they're giving it the expanded reissue treatment for its 50th anniversary.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) is out March 28 through Rhino on 5LP and 4CD, as well as digitally. It features a new version of the double album remastered at Abbey Road Studios, a concert recording from 1975, three previously unheard demos, a new Dolby ATMOS mix on Blu-ray and more, in addition to a 60-page coffee table book with Alexis Petris's liner notes (and interviews with all five members of Genesis) included with the physical editions.
"Perhaps it makes sense that an album as complex as The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has an equally complex history," her opening paragraph reads. "The saga of its making is a strange and lengthy one, involving rat-infested country houses, uncanny presentiments of the future — or at least the future of rock music — Hollywood directors, personality clashes and inflatable penises."
Petris's liner notes continue:
It's also occasionally controversial: Talking to the former members of Genesis about The Lamb… nearly half a century on, it's hard not to be struck by the fact that they seldom agree about it. Some members of the band have said they think it's the best album of their career. Others think of it as a brave but flawed experiment. Some people view it as the absolute apotheosis of early-'70s progressive rock: a double concept album filled with dense, intricate, ever-shifting music, featuring a plot so knotty and strange even some members of the band didn't understand it ("Ask Peter — I'm just the drummer," shrugged Phil Collins when a journalist quizzed him about it shortly after release) and subject to one of the most famously theatrical live presentations in rock history. Some people think it presages the arrival of punk rock. In fact, there's every chance that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is all those things — flawed experiment, career highlight, prog masterpiece, weirdly prescient precursor of punk — at once, which might account for its longevity.
Find the full tracklist details for the deluxe edition of the 1975 album below.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition):
1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2. Fly on a Windshield
3. Broadway Melody of 1974
4. Cuckoo Cocoon
5. In the Cage
6. The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
7. Back in N.Y.C.
8. Hairless Heart
9. Counting Out Time
10. The Carpet Crawlers
11. The Chamber of 32 Doors
12. Lilywhite Lilith
13. The Waiting Room
14. Anyway
15. Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist
16. The Lamia
17. Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats
18. The Colony of Slippermen (The Arrival · A Visit to the Doktor · Raven)
19. Ravine
20. The Light Dies Down on Broadway
21. Riding the Scree
22. In the Rapids
23. It.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – Live from the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA (January 24, 1975):
1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2. Fly on a Windshield
3. Broadway Melody of 1974
4. Cuckoo Cocoon
5. In the Cage
6. The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
7. Back in N.Y.C.
8. Hairless Heart
9. Counting Out Time
10. The Carpet Crawlers
11. The Chamber of 32 Doors
12. Lilywhite Lilith
13. The Waiting Room
14. Anyway
15. Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist
16. The Lamia
17. Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats
18. The Colony of Slippermen (The Arrival · A Visit to the Doktor Raven)
19. Ravine
20. The Light Dies Down on Broadway
21. Riding the Scree
22. In the Rapids
23. It.
24. Watcher of the Skies (Encore)
25. The Musical Box (Encore)
The Headley Grange Demos:
1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield (Take 1)
2. The Chamber of 32 Doors/The Lamia (Takes 1-2)
3. In the Cage [Strange Vocals] (Take 1)
Pre-order The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition).