Selling England by the Pound

Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis, released on 12 October 1973 through Charisma Records (Europe) and Atlantic Records (United States), though still on the Charisma label initially. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak at that time, reaching #3 in the UK where it remained on the charts for 21 weeks. The album went gold in the US in 1990, sixteen years after peaking at #70 on the Billboard 200. It was also a major breakthrough in terms of critical reception, and is considered one of the greatest albums of the progressive rock genre.

The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called The Dream. The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like."

A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic Records in the US and Canada. The remastered booklet features the lyrics and credits which were missing on the original CD, while they had been on the inner sleeve of the LP album.

A SACD/DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and stereo mixes) was released in the UK on 11 November 2008, including extensive interviews with the band and footage from concerts performed during 1973–74.

Guitarist Steve Hackett has said that this is his favourite album he recorded during his tenure with the band. (wiki)

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by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn't follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn't so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. For even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as "Watcher of the Skies," Genesis hasn't sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot: they've married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that's been their calling card since the beginning. This, combined with many overt literary allusions -- the Tolkeinisms of the title of "The Battle of Epping Forest" only being the most apparent -- gives this album a storybook quality. It plays as a collection of short stories, fables, and fairy tales, and it is also a rock record, which naturally makes it quite extraordinary as a collection, but also as a set of individual songs. Genesis has never been as direct as they've been on the fanciful yet hook-driven "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" -- apart from the fluttering flutes in the fade-out, it could easily be mistaken for a glam single -- or as achingly fragile as on "More Fool Me," sung by Phil Collins. It's this delicate balance and how the album showcases the band's narrative force on a small scale as well as large that makes this their arguable high-water mark.