{"id":22412,"date":"2023-08-19T12:06:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T17:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=22412"},"modified":"2023-08-19T12:06:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T17:06:10","slug":"40-years-ago-today-genesis-releases-mama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=22412","title":{"rendered":"40 Years Ago Today: Genesis Releases &#8220;Mama&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forty years ago today, August 19, 1983, Genesis released their self-titled album (their twelfth), and &#8220;Mama&#8221; was the first single released off that.<\/p>\n<p>As a fairly new convert to classic Prog Rock Genesis at the time, I wasn&#8217;t a fan of Genesis&#8217; move toward more mainstream pop, but &#8220;Mama&#8221; caught my attention, as it&#8217;s a pretty interesting song. And far from being an average pop song, it was <i>weird<\/i> and <i>sinister<\/i>. <\/p>\n<p>And it has perhaps the most memorable laugh in any song, ever. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7lXH0nwirio\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Peter Gabriel-era Genesis had a lot more overtly sinister songs (&#8220;The Waiting Room&#8221; comes to mind), but &#8220;Mama&#8221; was distinctly different from Genesis&#8217; 1980s output, or indeed, just about anything else on mainstream radio in 1983. Between the sparse drum loop, the eerie high synthesizer wash, and Collins&#8217; urgent, hungry vocals about a young man&#8217;s unrequited love for a prostitute, it still has power four decades on. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forty years ago today, August 19, 1983, Genesis released their self-titled album (their twelfth), and &#8220;Mama&#8221; was the first single released off that. As a fairly new convert to classic Prog Rock Genesis at the time, I wasn&#8217;t a fan of Genesis&#8217; move toward more mainstream pop, but &#8220;Mama&#8221; caught my attention, as it&#8217;s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,12],"tags":[2088,2668,369,1982,894,1974],"class_list":["post-22412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-video","tag-1980s","tag-2668","tag-genesis","tag-music","tag-phil-collins","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22412"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22514,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22412\/revisions\/22514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}