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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: Orbert on October 24, 2012, 09:18:47 PM
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The history of Genesis is not as long or dramatic as that of Yes, nor does it feature nearly as many personnel changes. But we do have to start somewhere, so without further ado:
From Genesis to Revelation (1969)
(https://i.imgur.com/HBVszHl.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Lead Vocal, Flute, Percussion
Anthony Phillips - Guitars, Vocals
Michael Rutherford - Bass, Guitar, Vocals
John Silver - Drums
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Where the Sour Turns to Sweet
In the Beginning
Fireside Song
The Serpent
Am I Very Wrong?
In the Wilderness
The Conqueror
In Hiding
One Day
Window
In Limbo
Silent Sun
A Place to Call My Own
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In 1966, Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks were 14 years old, students at The Charterhouse School in Godalming, England, and played in various bands with guys from school. One such band was The Garden Wall, in which Peter sang, Tony played the piano, and Anthony Phillips played guitar. The drummer and bassist were schoolmates named Chris Stewart and Rivers Job. Rivers had played in a band called The Spoken Word with Peter, who played drums in that band. Anthony had played guitar in another band with Rivers called The Anon, and Michael Rutherford was the other guitarist in that band.
The group of friends experimented with various combinations of instruments, and eventually, in 1967, they arrived at the relatively stable lineup of Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Michael Rutherford, and Chris Stewart. They called the band The New Anon. 15 years old and with stars in their eyes, they recorded a six-song demo tape which caught the attention of Jonathan King, who was himself an alumnus of The Charterhouse School, and currently a producer at Decca Records.
King took them under his wing and became their manager. He convinced them that they had the talent to make a real record, but they would have to get a better drummer. He also suggested the name Genesis for the band. They recorded a single called "The Silent Sun" which did not do very well, and followed it with another single, "A Winter's Tale" which did not do any better. The songs were simple, 60's folk-rock type songs. They weren't bad; they just didn't have much to distinguish them. Also, King did not actually have a lot of clout with Decca, so the singles did not receive much in the way of promotion.
Still convinced of the potential in the band, King told them to keep writing songs, with a grand concept in mind: The Bible. By the time they had an album's worth of songs, and with a bit of arranging by Mr. King, and a little imagination, the first album by Genesis could actually be considered one of the earliest concept albums. He called it From Genesis to Revelation.
Bearing the original cover shown above, it was released to record stores in England, who had no idea what to do with it, so most filed it under Religious recordings.
By the time the album was done, another drummer had been brought in, a session player named John Silver. King also took it upon himself to add strings and horns to the songs, much to the band's chagrin. But they were teenagers making their first record, he was their manager, and that's just how things were done in those days. It was recorded during summer break in 1968, and released in spring 1969. It did not sell very well. Genesis considered abandoning their dreams of becoming recording stars and concentrating on their studies, but first decided to try one last thing: firing their manager and doing things on their own terms. This turned out to be the best decision that they could possibly make.
To this date, Jonathan King retains all rights to this album, and he has re-licensed it and re-released it many, many times over the years, on countless labels. Often, there are "bonus tracks" included, although sometimes these bonus tracks are just the original mono singles, but there were some unused tracks from the original recording sessions which also appear sometimes.
Genesis themselves never played any songs from this album once they began performing regularly. This is probably because they did not legally own the songs.
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It's not a bad album at all. It most definitely has the late 60's "mod" feel to it, similar to early Moody Blues. It isn't really my cup of tea, but if you like this type of music, From Genesis to Revelation is about as good as it gets.
The lyrics are very sophisticated, especially considering how young the band was when they wrote them. The creation of the earth and beginning of life on the the planet, the arrival of evil, the choices man must make, each of these topics is presented poetically, but shrouded in 60's psychadelic imagery.
Also quite impressive is how well the music flows. There are brief musical interludes at the beginning or ending of many of the songs, but they're actually bridges between the songs. The music is nearly unbroken across each side of the original LP, and the strings and horns, despite the band's objections, really do add a lot to the music, including adding to the overall cohesiveness of the album.
If you happen to find a copy, or one of its many re-releases, From Genesis to Revelation is well worth a listen.
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Here is an odd little fact about my music listening history.
Genesis is the first band I'd call prog I ever got into. Picked up on them around the time Abacab came out, started working slowly backwards through their discography until, by the middle of the 80s, they were my favorite prog band, and my favorite of the classic 70s prog bands. I love Genesis to death, as my comments on the REST of the albums in this thread will attest.
I have never heard From Genesis To Revelation. Never once. Not a note. I heard Trespass during my early days of my Genesis fandom, but dismissed it because of the lack of Phil Collins and Steve Hackett-a position that changed earlier this year, I might add-but this one I never got around to. Probably because I was aware, due to my reading on the band, the story of the album and how Genesis as we knew them didn't really come into being until later. (For what it's worth, I pinpoint that moment now as being "The Knife".) I probably should get around to doing that someday, but now it's almost as if I'm using that as a calling card for my Genesis fandom. :lol
Gotta say, if you thought I participated a lot in the Yes thread, oh, look out. I like Yes but I adore Genesis. :biggrin:
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While I consider myself a pretty diehard Genesis fan, I've always bracketed out FGTR because I barely like it. Too 60s.
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This album has come and gone...and come again for me. It's a good album, and you really get a sense of just how YOUNG these lads are, and it's amazing that they came up with what they did at the time! There was so much potential within them (especially a fledgling Peter, Tony and Mike).
I haven't given this album a spin in awhile, but with this thread, I may have to revisit each and every album you bring up here! Last I recall, I remember enjoying this album thoroughly, it's endearing, and Peter's voice is so young and pure and ready! There's also some great performances from Tony. Outside of those two, though, I don't recall anything else that great about the album, except for the concept-album idea.
I'll give this album a couple spins over the next few days and maybe I'll come back with more thoughts!
-Marc.
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While I consider myself a pretty diehard Genesis fan, I've always bracketed out FGTR because I barely like it. Too 60s.
I have to say, I'm not a big fan of this album, either. But I do have to admit that it's very good, in a 60's way.
It's weird; the first couple of Yes albums were also very firmly rooted in the 60's, but in a different way. They were more mature, recorded by a band that had been gigging for a while, playing covers and playing originals, for money. From Genesis to Revelation was recorded by high school kids between their junior and senior year. But to me, that's just amazing, and even if I'd heard nothing else about the album, I'd have to check it out just for that reason. I think of the garage bands I was playing in when I was in high school. Could we have recorded anything approaching this quality? Hell no.
And don't forget, other than the drummer, this is the same band that recorded Trespass a year later.
So it's gonna be the same deal here. I'll listen to each album at least a couple times through, then come on here and blab about them, and see what others have to say. I like Genesis almost as much as I like Yes. I just wish there was more of it.
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Yeah, Genesis is one of my favorite bands, but this is easily my least listened to album of theirs. So I really don't have that much to say at the moment but I look forward to future discussions!
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Yeah, Genesis is one of my favorite bands, but this is easily my least listened to album of theirs. So I really don't have that much to say at the moment but I look forward to future discussions!
I agree with this. I've barely listened to this one, although I remember In The Wilderness being a favourite.
I will check out this album tonight and give it an honest listen. I love 60s music so I can't see why I shouldn't like this one.
Great idea btw for doing this thread like you did with Yes :tup
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I love Gabriel's Genesis, but the only song I'm familiar with on FGTR is Where the Sour Turns to Sweet--like that one a fair bit, though.
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I've only ever listened to the debut once, but I remember liking a few songs from it, actually. Still, never was into that kind of musical style, and never really went back to it.
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I've never heard it either. For some reason I didn't think Peter was involved in it, probably because I've seen the 1970-75 boxed set marketed as the "Peter Gabriel era". I'm a bit more interested in hearing it now.
I don't know the Genesis catalog as well as I should. I own almost all of it, but mostly on vinyl which I don't get to spin too often with 2 little kids at home.
Still, this should be a fun read. I really enjoyed the Yes thread as I am a huge Yes fan.
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A question for Orbert:
Will you be including the key Live albums as we go along with this:
Live, Seconds Out, Three Sides Live, The Way We Walk, and Live Over Europe
Also, compilations? At least the one including "The Carpet Crawlers 1999". And what about videos?
-Marc.
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I'll be including Genesis Live, Seconds Out, and Three Sides Live (both versions). I've played each of those many, many times.
I think I may have the two The Way We Walk releases somewhere, but if I do, I think I've played them maybe once each. Once they became "Genesis Starring Phil Collins", they kinda lost me. I continued to buy all their studio albums, as they always threw the old proggers a bone or two, but I didn't feel the need to experience them in a live setting. Phil is a very charismatic front man, and not my style at all. Still, if I can get my hands on them and give them proper listens, I'll include them.
I have the first two DVD-A boxes, and may include a word or two about them. I hadn't really thought about that. Compilations tend to slip my mind, since I tend not to buy them. If I like a band, I already have all of their albums, but Amazon accidentally had all three boxes for sale one time for the price of a regular CD and I snatched the first two. I didn't grab the third one because I wasn't that interested anyway, but realized that I might as well grab it, since it's such a great deal. By time I'd logged back into Amazon.com a few hours later, they'd fixed the price error.
I remember seeing a video for "The Carpet Crawlers 1999" and thought it was pretty bad. I didn't even realize that it was part of some compilation. Let me guess, it was included as the one track which might get completists to buy what is otherwise a collection of songs they already have?
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I've never heard it either. For some reason I didn't think Peter was involved in it, probably because I've seen the 1970-75 boxed set marketed as the "Peter Gabriel era". I'm a bit more interested in hearing it now.
Every fan of Peter Gabriel and/or early Genesis should at least listen to it a few times. The material from the first album never gets included in any compilations because Jonathan King alone owns all rights to it, and it's really his one claim to fame, his golden goose. He's probably afraid that if the better or more well-known tracks from it make it into a compilation, people will have no reason to keep buying his repackagings of it. But yeah, Peter was a founding member. His mark is all over the first album.
I don't know the Genesis catalog as well as I should. I own almost all of it, but mostly on vinyl which I don't get to spin too often with 2 little kids at home.
I feel your pain. My kids are older now, my youngest is in high school, but I'm not sure if music listening time will ever return to BC levels. If it does, it will be after the kids are out on their own.
Still, this should be a fun read. I really enjoyed the Yes thread as I am a huge Yes fan.
Thanks!
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The Carpet Crawlers re-recording was, indeed, intended to get people to buy something they already owned all of, and it didn't work with me, because it really sucked compared to both the original and the live version on Seconds Out.
Thanks to Spotify, I finally, finally, listened to From Genesis To Revelation, and I agree; it's an amazingly impressive achievement for a band of school kids. It's basically rooted in British folk rock and psychedelia, with only the barest hints of what was to come-I love the piano intro to Fireside Song, because even at that early age, Tony Banks was Tony Banks; his playing is just so identifiable to me. And it's downright amazing how mature as a singer Peter Gabriel already was. It still remains an oddity to me because they never worked this sort of music again after this, but for the standards of the time it's a very competent album, and by the standard of a band of kids putting out music, it's pretty amazing.
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The band themselves have nothing bad to say about either the album or their former manager Mr. King. He gave them their start, gave them their name, and for that they are grateful. He helped them cut not one, but two singles, and even after they didn't go anywhere, he got them studio time to record an album. Okay, so he was also completely exploiting them; any monies from any of that early material goes directly to him and Genesis never see a penny of it, but that wasn't exactly an unusual arrangement in 1969. They chalk it up as a positive experience, one which gave them the confidence to actually dump him and do things their own way. But first, they had to get back and start their senior year of high school.
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Thanks for the explanation. I see you are a fellow Chicagoan, cool. Any chance you were at PG's show at United Center a few weeks ago? (Not to derail the thread topic).
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Gotta admit, I really like this album. I don't love it as much as anything from Trespass to And Then There Were Three, but I do really like it. It has charm.
That said, I prefer the version of Where The Sour Turns To Sweet that doesn't have the damn strings and horns overdubs. They cut out the most striking bit of piano.
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I see you are a fellow Chicagoan, cool. Any chance you were at PG's show at United Center a few weeks ago? (Not to derail the thread topic).
No, I don't do many concerts these days, not for bands and artists. Too broke from raising kids in the Chicago suburbs. Closest I get is junior high orchestra concerts, for which every parent should receive combat pay.
I prefer the version of Where The Sour Turns To Sweet that doesn't have the damn strings and horns overdubs. They cut out the most striking bit of piano.
I didn't even realize that it's different. I usually just listen to the 13 original tracks because I'm obnoxious that way. I think I've picked up a few alternate or single versions over the years, in some of the endless repackagings, but probably never listened to them.
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Genesis: Trespass (1970)
(https://i.imgur.com/6Vc63A2.jpg)
Tony Banks – Keyboards, Guitar, Backing Vocals
Peter Gabriel – Lead Vocals, Flute, Accordion, Percussion
John Mayhew – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Anthony Phillips – Guitars, Dulcimer, Backing Vocals
Mike Rutherford – Bass, Guitars, Cello, Backing Vocals
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Looking for Someone
White Mountain
Visions of Angels
Stagnation
Dusk
The Knife
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The second Genesis album, Trespass, is a quantum leap forward from their debut. Where the first album had a dozen three-minute pop songs, here we have six progressive songs averaging seven minutes apiece and topping out at nine. While many fans consider the main Genesis sequence to begin with the next album, Nursery Cryme, there's no question that the classic Genesis sound was fully formed as of this album.
The album opens with Peter's voice, a capella. He is joined by the keyboards, bass, and guitar, one at a time. Finally the drums kick in, providing contrast, which seems to be the name of the game here. Quiet, contemplative sections are juxtaposed with louder, uptempo parts. Each song on this album goes through several changes of mood. There aren't a lot of instrumental fireworks here, but this is definitely progressive music. In the course of a single album, Genesis had somehow kept the essence of their sound and completely redefined it at the same time.
The overall mood is rather pastoral and contemplative, but with moments of anger and frustration. Four of the six pieces run the gamut from acoustic guitars and piano to full band instrumentals with electric guitars and Hammond organ, and each builds up to a big ending. The fifth song, "Dusk", is the mellowest, with only incidental percussion; it is also the shortest song on the album. The closing opus, "The Knife", turns things inside out, starting and ending at full speed, with a quiet section in the middle. It is the longest song on the album.
Each song feels like an exploration, a meditation on a thought or idea. The drums always wait to come in, usually not until a pensive mood has been established, though on the closer, "The Knife", they come in shortly after the keyboards have set the rhythm, and on "Dusk" not at all. Throughout the album, Peter Gabriel's poetry is backed by a tapestry of patterns and textures provided by the guitars and keyboards, delicately interwoven into what would become Genesis' trademark sound for the next several albums. The instrumental sections provide contrast and a chance for the musicans to flex their chops. Peter's flute, another Genesis trademark, makes an occassional appearance, and Mike Rutherford's cello makes its first appearance here as well.
The cover art is by Paul Whitehead, who started it before the album closer, "The Knife", had been recorded. Upon hearing it and its driving tone and violent message, he felt that his painting no longer reflected the overall mood of the album, so he literally slashed the canvas with a knife. The final version of the cover art is below.
(https://i.imgur.com/Nx6j4tI.jpg)
The first two Genesis albums are rather like the first two Yes albums. They get considerably less attention than the others, because the classic lineup was not yet complete. In the case of Yes, it was Steve Howe's arrival on The Yes Album and Rick Wakeman's on Fragile. With Genesis, it was the arrival of both Phil Collins and Steve Hackett on Nursery Cryme. Both bands really took off starting with their third albums, and people tend to overlook the first two.
Frankly, that's a damned shame. This album is actually very close in sound and overall quality to Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, and overall, Trespass is a fine album. John Mayhew does a decent job on the drums here. Sadly, John was but the latest in a string of temporary drummers for Genesis.
The real overlooked gem is Anthony "Ant" Phillips here on guitar. Ant set the mold for the guitar sound in Genesis; you can hear how similar his style is to Steve Hackett's, but Ant came first. Steve emulated Ant, and Ant's quiet, distorted lead lines here sound pretty much like what Steve did on the next several Genesis albums, and even what Mike would continue to do after Steve's departure. Unfortunately, once Genesis began to gain popularity and started playing more and larger gigs, Ant developed crippling stage fright and could not play live at all. He left the band, and Genesis asked John to leave as well. They were once again uncertain as to the future of the band. Mike and Tony both played guitar, so there was the possibility of continuing as a trio, though it seemed more likely that they should find a drummer and continue as a quartet. I'm sure the task of finding both a drummer and guitarist seemed rather daunting at the time, but that is what they ended up doing, all while writing music for what would become their next album. But we'll cover that in the next installment.
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I love this album. Stagnation is one of their best songs IMO.
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"Looking for someone! ...I guess I'm doing that." I love this album. White Mountain is one of my favorite Genesis songs.
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This is a really fine album. Many of the songs are great, but my two favourites are The Knife and White Mountain.
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I'm not as familiar with Trespass as I should be. :blush
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Love this album. My third fav album from my fav band. Looking For Someone is a top 5 song.
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In my younger days, I dismissed Trespass because it lacked Hackett and Collins, and I went no further back into the band's discography than Nursery Cryme when I went on a mad Genesis binge when I got my first job.
My younger self did some stupid things. :lol
Trespass is a quantum leap forward for Genesis over the debut, the album where their sound started to take shape. It's not quite there yet-a lot of the album is far more acoustic and, for lack of a better term, pastoral than the band would later be (though both aspects existed in their sound even through the early Collins led days) and Gabriel's lyrics hadn't quite reached the surreal heights that were coming, but the foundation is there. And I simply can't praise The Knife enough; I'd had some contact with it via Genesis Live, but it didn't really connect with my younger self for some reason. Hearing it earlier this year, as the last song on a Genesis 3 CD set I own, made me revisit Trespass, and while the rest of the album fared much better, The Knife was a complete and total revelation. Genesis arguably never got quite this heavy again-sections of songs on Nursery Cryme rival it, but this song rocks from one end to the other. I like the story Peter Gabriel told, of how the band was playing concerts and they really lacked a rocker to get the crowd going, like the Nice had. So in honor of the Nice, they went out and wrote The Knife. :lol The Knife is awesome and is now firmly in my Genesis top ten.
Don't be like younger Jaq. If you've been giving Trespass a miss because it doesn't have Hackett and Collins, rectify that right now. A very good album.
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I'm not as familiar with Trespass as I should be. :blush
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It's an awesome album, but, uh, isn't there cello on Foxtrot too? I'm pretty sure it's credited on there.
I particularly like the organ parts played on this album, some of them among my favourite of Tony Banks's organ parts, and that guitar solo on The Knife is so good, but my favourite bit is the 12 string stuff on White Mountain. I love that song so damn much.
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Btw my Genesis Top 5 albums
1.Nurcery Cryme
2.Selling England
3.Trespass
4.The Lamb
5.Foxtrot
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It's an awesome album, but, uh, isn't there cello on Foxtrot too? I'm pretty sure it's credited on there.
You are correct! I don't think I've ever heard it on Foxtrot. It must either be in with all the textured stuff, or I thought it was either guitar or synth.
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Trespass is a great album. I really like Anthony Phillips' playing on this album. Has anyone heard any of his solo stuff?
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Trespass is amazing, and for me, is where the classic Genesis sound begins. It's one of the biggest leaps any band has taken after their debut, more so than Rush-Fly By Night, or WDADU-IAW. It's with this album that we hear what it is they will truly become on the next three albums, and we get glimpses of their greatness to come. The album opens with a capella Gabriel, much like on SEBTP, and the opening track is a strong one. With the average song length now doubled, you can tell this band was meant for long-form songs, and from here on out, til The Lamb, each album had at least 2 songs that were over 6-7 minutes in length!
Great album, great performances, and pretty much every song is well crafted. They really matured by the time they got this under their belt! It's a shame they didn't do just ONE more album with Anthony Phillips...
...but at least we'd get Steve Hackett in exchange!
-Marc.
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I really like Anthony Phillips' playing on this album. Has anyone heard any of his solo stuff?
I went on an Anthony Phillips binge a while back and tried to collect all of his Private Parts & Pieces releases, but stopped when I got to VIII and realized that there were still a bunch to go. I also have some of his "regular" solo albums, like The Geese and the Goat and Tarka. It's all really good stuff. For me, though, it falls into the "background prog" area. Most prog demands my attention and you really have to actively listen to it to appreciate it. Ant's stuff is mostly pretty mellow, and since there's a ton of it (I stopped when I got to 16 albums), I usually just put it on as background music while I surf the web or something. I couldn't quote you a single song or melody from any of it.
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I really like Anthony Phillips' playing on this album. Has anyone heard any of his solo stuff?
I went on an Anthony Phillips binge a while back and tried to collect all of his Private Parts & Pieces releases, but stopped when I got to VIII and realized that there were still a bunch to go. I also have some of his "regular" solo albums, like The Geese and the Goat and Tarka. It's all really good stuff. For me, though, it falls into the "background prog" area. Most prog demands my attention and you really have to actively listen to it to appreciate it. Ant's stuff is mostly pretty mellow, and since there's a ton of it (I stopped when I got to 16 albums), I usually just put it on as background music while I surf the web or something. I couldn't quote you a single song or melody from any of it.
Thanks for the response. I like mellow prog but I think I'll hold off on buying anything.
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This is where it gets interesting. I really like this album, even if the following four are on a completely different level. I do however think "The Knife" is a bit overrated. It's good, but it just never really clicked with me on the "Genesis masterpiece" level for some reason. My song ranking:
1. Stagnation
2. Looking for Someone
3. The Knife
4. White Mountain
5. Dusk
6. Visions of Angels
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Ooh, so we're doing this now? Great idea, Orbert, I can't wait to sink into this gorgeous music again and learn some new stuff - for example, I had no idea about the origin of the knife on the album cover. :tup
Haven't listened to Trespass in a while - this is the first time I gave it a spin in a couple of years. I think this is a fine record, and it certainly marked the beginning of their classic sound. The band realized what they wanted to do, but didn't yet quite manage to do it right. It doesn't move me like their later albums, although The Knife and White mountain are highly enjoyable and very interesting songs.
And man, I honestly didn't know Hackett didn't play on this album. :facepalm:
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It's an awesome album, but, uh, isn't there cello on Foxtrot too? I'm pretty sure it's credited on there.
You are correct! I don't think I've ever heard it on Foxtrot. It must either be in with all the textured stuff, or I thought it was either guitar or synth.
I've never quite worked out where it is on it either, I'm either going to guess it's likely to be either Supper's Ready or Can-Utility, but there could be some in the intro to Watcher. Either way, there is at least one thing that they used to use the cello on live (as Rutherford once bowed after a performance and accidentally lifted up someone's skirt with the top of the cello.)
Damn, I am reminded of my desire to have a cello again, damn it.
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Genesis: Nursery Cryme (1971)
(https://i.imgur.com/DepH54Y.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Guitar, Backing Vocals
Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Lead Vocals, Flute, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Guitars, Bass
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, Guitars, Backing Vocals
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The Musical Box
For Absent Friends
The Return of the Giant Hogweed
Seven Stones
Harold the Barrel
Harlequin
The Fountain of Salmacis
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After Trespass, Anthony Phillips left the band, and the remaining members asked drummer John Mayhew to leave as well. They were never really happy with his work, and it seemed as good a time as any to regroup and rethink the direction of the band.
The decision was made to find a new drummer first, then see about finding another guitarist. After all, Mike played both guitar and bass, and after acquiring a set of bass pedals, he could conceivably cover both parts. Tony also played guitar and was amassing keyboards, and they discovered that his Hohner electric piano, with distortion applied, made a reasonable electric guitar substitute, and it only took one of Tony's hands, leaving his other hand free to play something else. Writing therefore commenced on what would become Nursery Cryme, keeping in mind the possibility that they might ultimately be performing as a four-piece.
Meanwhile, drummer auditions were held at Peter Gabriel's family home. Phil Collins arrived early, before they were ready to begin, so they asked him to wait. Peter told him he could take a dip in the pool in the backyard if he wanted, and Phil did that. At some point, the auditions began, with Phil still outside. Phil listened to each of the other drummers, and by the time he came inside for his audition, he knew the music and his audition was excellent. He was offerred the job, and became the first permanent drummer for Genesis.
The guitarist issue was solved when Peter saw an advertisement in trade magazine Melody Maker by a guitarist seeking musicians "determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms." Peter contacted the guitarist in question, Steve Hackett, who it turns out had seen Genesis perform and was interested in auditioning. Steve auditioned, and with writing finished on the new album and recording actually beginning, they didn't feel the need to look any further. The classic five-piece Genesis lineup was complete.
Just as Trespass was a huge step forward from their debut, From Genesis to Revelation, so was Nursery Cryme yet another huge step forward. The songs were becoming more sophisticated; some were actually short musical plays with the lyrics being parts by different characters within the play. Peter's sense of theater was finding an outlet. In those days, Peter was the only one standing during their performances; Mike, Steve, Tony, and Phil all played while seated. Peter began creating costumes to wear onstage so that he could more convincingly portray the characters, and the sense of theater was further augmented by Peter telling stories, sometimes strange or downright bizarre, between songs. They were actually ad-libbed, and necessary, to give the guitarists an opportunity to tune their guitars between songs. But the overall effect was that of rather unique introductions to the songs, and it became an integral part of the show.
The music was also becoming more complex. Even though most songs on Trespass ran the gamut from acoustic to full band, most impressions are that it is quite mellow, finally breaking loose with the closer, "The Knife". This is partly due to the production, but also due to John Mayhew's rather tentative style of playing. Phil Collins was anything but tentative in his playing with Genesis. When the drums finally enter in the opener "The Musical Box," they are explosive. The dynamic range which was actually quite impressive on Trespass is doubled again on Nursery Cryme.
Steve Hackett's playing also contributes to this, beginning where Ant Phillips left off. Steve was capable of intricate acoustic playing, and also had a lead sound not unlike Ant's, but he had a few more weapons in his arsenal. The intro to "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" -- played by Steve and Tony -- is one of the first known examples of "tapping", a technique later made more famous by Eddie Van Halen. (Supposedly Eddie got the idea after seeing a Genesis concert.)
And finally, Nursery Cryme features the debut of Phil on lead vocals, "For Absent Friends." The song, as with all songs written during this period, is credited to Genesis, so it's hard to tell exactly who wrote what. On paper, all songs are credited to Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford.
As with Trespass, the cover art is by Paul Whitehead, who again drew his inspiration from the album itself. In this case, the murderous little girl from "The Musical Box" is depicted on the cover, surrounded by the heads of her victims.
(https://i.imgur.com/8RJz09J.jpg)
Wow, this took longer to write than I thought it would. I'll let others comment first, and come back later.
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For me, NC is mostly well represented by it's 3 longest songs, and as you said Orbert, it's yet another leap forward in writing and production. The addition of Steve and Phil brought the music up another step, their intensity and ferocity gave their music a new edge, a harder edge, and the music also became a bit more complex.
This is a great album with a lot of different music. While the songs got longer between their debut and Trespass, much of the music on their sophomore effort was a bit the same, even the song-lengths. On Nursery Cryme, we're treated to tracks whose lengths span 1:44 to 10:24! Quite a change of pace, and all the songs are pretty unique and different from each other.
For me, the opening track will always stand out as a top-10 Genesis tune, and it's really exemplifies that classic Genesis sound, full of English-ness and changes throughout the piece.
I will definitely give this album a couple spins in the coming days!
-Marc.
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I've never thought The Musical Box was that great. It has some nice parts, but is merely a good song, not great.
The Fountain of Salmacis and The Return of the Giant Hogweed are both fantastic for sure though.
I don't remember anything else from the album.
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I'm really only familiar with Harlequin and Harold the Barrel, thanks to an old Genesis mix tape my brother made for me back in the mid-late 90s. Love both of those songs though, and I should again... be more familiar with Nursery Cryme. :facepalm:
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My favorite album of all time.
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Their first great album, I would consider it a near classic if it wasn't for Seven Stones and Salmacis which haven't really clicked with me.
Top Tier: For Absent Friends, The Return Of The Giant Hogweed, Harold the Barrel
Middle Tier: The Musical Box, Harlequin
Bottom Tier: Seven Stones, The Fountain Of Salmacis
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The first of the "God tier" albums. And my third favorite Genesis album!
Song ranking:
1. The Musical Box (My 3rd favorite genesis song)
2. The Return of the Giant Hogweed
3. The Fountain of Salmacis
4. Harold the Barrel
5. Seven Stones
6. For Absent Friends
7. Harlequin
Keep in mind that the distance between 2 and 7 is very small. I actually consider this one of genesis most consistent albums.
Also, Deb, you need to fix that ASAP :o
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I worked my way backwards through the Genesis discography in the mid-80s, and arrived at Nursery Cryme in late 1985, buying it and Foxtrot on the same day with a gift certificate I'd gotten for Christmas. I also bought Grim Reaper's See You In Hell with the certificate, but that's nowhere near relevant to the conversation. I was already familiar with a tiny bit of the album thanks to already owning Seconds Out, which featured the closing section of The Musical Box after The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, so I was eager to hear the entire song, but in truth, I was more eager to play Foxtrot, and in fact, listened to that before I got to Nursery Cryme. More on that later.
Nursery Cryme, though, when I played it, was still pretty fantastically interesting. Genesis hadn't quite arrived yet, as some of the ideas on the album, especially The Musical Box, were composed with Anthony Philips, and some elements of the band's sound weren't quite in place. In particular, Phil Collins' drum sound wasn't quite that solid WHAP that he was come to be known for, and Hackett's lead sound was a bit more distorted than it wound up being in later years. But all the pieces are there, and were being assembled. The Musical Box was a statement of intent for the band, with it's long, suite like direction and off-kilter theatrical story, and it's the blueprint for Supper's Ready. Hearing Phil sing For Absent Friends was a bit of a revelation for me back then, as I'd assumed his only lead vocal credit before then was More Fool Me. (As for the songwriting credit on that song, I've seen a video interview with the band where Phil says he and Hackett wrote the song as sort of a way to introduce themselves to the songwriting for the band.) There's so much going on with the album, but the thing I want to cite is Phil's drumming. Phil Collins takes a lot of smack for how his commercial solo career ruined Genesis, and as such, his skill as a drummer tends to be forgotten, or failing that, reduced to That One Drum Fill From In The Air Tonight. But listen to him on The Musical Box, in particular his bass drum work. The first time I heard it, I honestly thought he was doing it on double bass, but no, it's just one foot. Phil's single foot bass drum speed rivals some of the best single-bass drumming in rock history, and is a skill that is largely forgotten by a lot of people today.
The album just moves from strength to strength, even on the second side, which doesn't have the benefit of the two classic epics on side one. Seven Stones is magnificent, with some lovely keyboard work, especially the mellotron at the end. Harold the Barrel is a weird little ditty that goes in a lot of directions in a few minutes, and Harlequin harkens back a bit to the earlier, more pastoral Genesis. And Fountain of Salmacis is a sprawling closer that packs a ton of drama in its eight minute run. Nursery Cryme is one of the best prog rock albums of the genre, and the band was only going to get better.
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Dammit Jaq, I had a post all ready to go, but you've said a lot of the same stuff as I did, and better.
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Ha ha, sorry man, but I love the hell out of Genesis, so I can get a bit wordy about them. :lol
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I remember when I first heard this album. I'd known that Genesis had been considered a prog band and that Peter Gabriel had sung for several years before hearing it. The first actual classic lineup Genesis I heard was The Lamb, but that was a lot to take in, and not a good choice for the first thing to hear from the band. Fast forward about 6 years and I was still interested in seriously giving this band a chance.
My brother and I used to go to a lot of record shows and would travel quite a bit for them. We went to one in Kalamazoo, MI and I set forth just browsing. I never go into these with an idea of what I'm going to buy; instead I look and if something piques my interest I buy it. Someone had a bunch of old cassettes and as I was looking through them I saw NC. For $0.99 I felt it was worth it. I listened to it, then I listened to it again. At that point I was hooked. I can't explain what got me, but the whole thing was just amazing. Fountain of Salmicis, The Musical Box, Harold the Barrel, all great songs. I really liked the way that the lyrics to the songs told a story, sometimes grim, always fanciful. To me this is the epitome of what a progressive rock band should be.
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This is my favourite Genesis album. I absolutely love it, and it was one of the first albums I ever owned (my father gave it to me for my 13th Birthday, along with Foxtrot). I love how it has the lovely accoustic sections and some of the most insanely bombastic stuff they ever did pretty much running from one to the other in the same song. I've always loved that bit where the organ chords come in at the beginning of the first solo in The Musical Box, all the interplay between the fuzz piano and the guitar in various things, the long form of many of the songs, the mellotron solo in Seven Stones, the whimsy of Harold The Barrel and everything about The Fountain Of Salmacis. I just love this album.
Oh, and can't forget the flute. In short, the entire album is truly amazing. I love it so damn much.
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Ha ha, sorry man, but I love the hell out of Genesis, so I can get a bit wordy about them. :lol
No problem! I have the same issue. :lol
It's interesting how many times we see this album and Foxtrot mentioned together. In the late 70's, when I was first getting into Genesis, I was filling in the back catalogue and found a repackaging of these two together as a double LP. No cover art, and only some liner notes.
(https://991.com/newGallery/Genesis-Nursery-CrymeFoxt-155570.jpg)
Later, just because I'm a completist, I picked up imports of each, with full cover art and liner notes. Their jackets "opened up". For some reason, that was always very important to me. But to me, and apparently others here, these two albums are some kind of unofficial pair.
Anyway, I focused a lot more on the music than the vocals back then, and had no idea that Phil didn't actually sing much lead when Peter was still in the band. I figured that they shared lead vocals, as they're both obviously great singers. Their voices were even rather similar back then, so much so that I tended to get them mixed up if I wasn't paying attention. "For Absent Friends" doesn't get a lot of love, which I guess is understandable, but I like the song a lot. A nice little slice of life. Yeah, that's Phil singing, but as I said, it never occurred to me that that was unusual on a "Gabriel-era" album.
Other cool things about this album:- The intro to "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" with Steve tapping and Tony on fuzzed Pianet.
- The break in that same song, with Tony's 12/8 piano gliding seamlessly into Steve's 6/8 solo.
- The "sudden death" of Harold the Barrel!
- The intro/hook to "The Fountain of Salmacis" and how it seems a descendant of the "White Mountain" keyboard riff. That arpeggiated thing that Tony does.
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I had the US Atlantic records release of Nursery Cryme, which bothered me because most of the rest of my Genesis vinyl was gatefold with the lyrics on the inside and that one wasn't. I always liked when bands would put out single albums with gatefold covers because then the artwork was usually pretty epic, inside and out, as you'll hear when we get to Trick of the Tail, which might be my overall favorite album cover ever.
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- The intro/hook to "The Fountain of Salmacis" and how it seems a descendant of the "White Mountain" keyboard riff. That arpeggiated thing that Tony does.
I always liked how the keyboard part acts as a motif in the song. It's in the intro and the verses, and it leads back to the mellotron swells at other points in the song :hefdaddy
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Also, Deb, you need to fix that ASAP :o
Yeah, I know... :blush
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Gotta say: I really like For Absent Friends. It does get rather overlooked.
I love that bit of Fountain where Peter sings "Some creature has been stirred" and the backing vocals sing "Niadd Queen Salmacis has been stirred". I love that.
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It's on of those albums where I know it's really good, but even after listening to it a thousand ties the only tracks I can really ever remember are the first three. The Musical Box is my favorite track though, for both the slow build up and the rock out section.
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Gotta say: I really like For Absent Friends. It does get rather overlooked.
:tup
I love that bit of Fountain where Peter sings "Some creature has been stirred" and the backing vocals sing "Niadd Queen Salmacis has been stirred". I love that.
There's a couple of places in that song where the lyrics overlap, with the narrator saying one thing and the character saying something similar at the same time. When he first gets lost, he says "Where are you, my father?" while the narrator says "Then he could go no further." It is neat trick which doesn't quite work IMO, but it's clever and I give them points for trying it anyway.
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That bass playing too. I need to get round to learning that song again. It's so fun to play (or at least the parts that I learned).
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Nursery Cryme is an awesome album
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There's something magical about this album, I can't put my finger on it, though. I just know it makes me happy, as it contains some of the most gorgeous melodies in the world of progressive rock. My favorite Genesis album without a doubt and one of my favorite albums of all time.
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Genesis: Foxtrot (1972)
(https://i.imgur.com/NyN6Q3P.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Lead Vocals, Flute, Oboe, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, Acoustic Guitar, Cello, Backing Vocals
Watcher of the Skies
Time Table
Get 'Em Out by Friday
Can-Utility and the Coastliners
Horizons
Supper's Ready
I. Lover's Leap
II. The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man
III. Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men
IV. How Dare I Be So Beautiful?
V. Willow Farm
VI. Apocalypse in 9/8 (Co-Starring the Delicious Talents of Gabble Ratchet)
VII. As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet)
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With this, their fourth album, Genesis finally had the relative luxury of making a second album with the same lineup. Much of Nursery Cryme was written by the time Phil and Steve had joined the band, and they had worked with session drummers prior to that, so this was actually the first time that five current members sat down to create the new album.
The result was yet another step forward in their sound and musical sophistication. Perhaps not as great a step as the previous two, but a step forward nonetheless. Where Nursery Cryme pushed in all directions, establishing and announcing the Genesis sound (and doing a fine job of it), Foxtrot shows a more mature band, a band more certain of its strengths and idiosyncracies, and more comfortable using them to best effect. As with Nursery Cryme, all tracks are credited to all five members.
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"Watcher of the Skies" opens the album with a full minute and a half of Mellotron, building and modulating in ways that only Tony Banks can, forcing one to sit down and listen. If you were already sitting, then that's good, because you're in for a treat, not just this song but the entire album. "Watcher" is something of a philosophical piece, looking at our planet, and mankind, and mankind's work on this planet, from the point of view of someone outside of it. The Watcher of the Skies watches over all planets and peoples, including ours. He sees how we evolved, and how we now look to the stars, even though there is still much work to do here. We can only ask that he not judge us too harshly.
Yes has been accused of copying the syncopated, one-note riff from this song, or at least the idea of it, for their song "Mind Drive". I don't think they're really that similar, and never even made the connection until it was pointed out. Interesting then, ironic even, that Genesis originally came up with this riff as something of an homage to one of their influences: Yes.
"Time Table" is one of those songs which takes a simple idea and sets it to music, and nothing more. It is the shortest song on the album (not counting Steve's acoustic solo "Horizons"), and does not overstay its welcome. The idea is simple: A beautiful carved oak table, which once sat proudly in the home of an English noble and hosted feasts in the time of knights and chivalry, now sits forgotten, covered in dust, hosting only feasts for rats. The lyrics include parallels emphasizing how the table is still serving its function, though in completely different surroundings. The passage of time is indicated by an instrumental interlude, which returns at the end and fades out, indicating the the story is not yet over.
I know some people don't like this song, or think of it as one of Genesis' "lesser" songs. Mostly because of the lyrics. I guess I understand that, but I don't share the opinion. I think it's important to remember that Genesis were still quite young when they wrote this, and so was Rock and Roll. Maybe it's a bit trite now, but this was 1972. Everything was new. You don't blame a toddler for not being able to operate heavy machinery.
"Get 'Em Out By Friday" was the latest mini-opera by Peter, with different parts performed by different characters. Thankfully, Genesis always provided lyrics and liner notes so you could follow along. It wasn't quite impossible to follow without them, but it was certainly easier when you knew the names and roles of the different characters in the story.
This time it's actual science fiction. People are being relocated "in the interest of humanity" so that their property can be torn down, and new flats erected that can hold more people in the same area. In the early 1970's, overpopulation was constantly in the news, the way global warming is today. Eventually we move into "the future" (2012, as it happens) and Genetic Control has issued a new "four foot restriction on humanoid height". This is so more people can be fit into the same space.
"Can-Utility and the Coastliners" is based on the legend of King Canute, who so believed in his own power that one day he chose to demonstrate it by commanding the ocean tides, with all his subjects as witnesses, and learned a lesson in humility.
Another underrated and often overlooked Genesis song, I like this one a lot. I like the way it starts quietly and tells its story. I like the way the first break has a Mellotron playing the lead, and while the acoustic guitar is technically in a support role, it is the acoustic guitar which provides the rhythm and motion, and is actually the more interesting part. The song was mostly written by Steve, and the Mellotron break was originally much longer.
And finally, I like it simply because it was yet another Genesis song to break the mold. Most of the music being made at the time, and today for that matter, was "verse - chorus - verse - chorus - break - final chorus", with a possible verse before the final chorus. Genesis clearly felt no obligation to follow this form. The only song which even comes close to following the AABA pattern is "Watcher of the Skies" which has no real chorus or refrain, and few would accuse it of being a standard pop song. But I digress.
"Horizons" was Steve's proper welcome to the band, an acoustic piece based loosely on a theme from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 but which quickly takes a left turn and finds its own way. Something that a lot of early Art Rock bands (we call them Prog now) were very proud of was that their guitarist and/or keyboard player had classical training, and their songs tended to show them off when they could. But the ultimate honor was being granted a solo acoustic piece on an album, and this one was for Steve.
"Horizons" originally opened Side Two of the LP, which gave it some prominence, and also made it something of an introduction to the work that followed, the epic "Supper's Ready".
Very little can be said about "Supper's Ready" that hasn't already been said. At just under 23 minutes, it certainly qualifies as a side-long epic, and it probably would be on most other albums. But Genesis albums tend to be longer than average, and "Supper's Ready", as mentioned, shared an actual LP side with another piece.
Peter said that the lyrics came from something which actually happened. He and his wife Jill were in their sitting room, and when he looked at her, there seemed to be another face momentarily superimposed over hers, an evil face which was quite disturbing. He looked out the window and thought he saw some figures walking across the lawn, seven men, with the foremost carrying a cross. This somehow inspired him to write most of the lyrics for "Supper's Ready", which is about the struggle between good and evil, specifically the triumph of good over evil. The "Willow Farm" section was previously written as a separate song which Peter and Tony found did not stand well on its own, but worked rather nicely as comic relief within the larger, more serious work.
Many have noted that the penultimate movement, "Apocalype in 9/8", is really in 9/4 time. It has a steady, even beat to it. 9/8 is more commonly attributed to faster pieces, usually with the nine beats subgrouped as threes or otherwise. Here the beats are subgrouped 4+3+2, but are relatively slow and thus the time signature would more likely be called 9/4. Also notable is the fact that Tony's Hammond solo is not actually in 9/4. Tony chose to solo in 4/4, saying that he wasn't ready to attempt 9/4 at the time. The result is that he seems to be working in and around the 9/4 beat quite masterfully, when he is in fact ignoring it completely.
Paul Whitehead provided the cover painting, his third in a row, and he once again drew inspiration from the lyrics of the songs. In this case, "the fox on the rocks" is mentioned in the closing epic "Supper's Ready", and the seven figures can be seen walking up the beach. The entire scene takes place at the seashore, a reference to to "Can-Utility and the Coastliners". The cover painting for Nursery Cryme can be seen included as a miniature in the background.
(https://i.imgur.com/iD5Fc5W.jpg)
This is a longer writeup than most, because I went ahead and incorporated my comments into the writeup itself. Gotta mix things up a bit, you know.
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Probably my second favorite of the Peter Gabriel Genesis albums, minus Get 'Em Out By Friday (never got into that one - it seemed out of place on the album IMO).
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Amazing album, and I like it more than NC, and just as much as SEBTP. Every track is pretty good-to-great, and while I haven't spun it in awhile, I can say that I still recall enjoying each track on the album (even though I don't remember "Time Table" as well as the others).
Also, a side-note to the band calling "Apocalypse In 9/8" as being in "9/8" when it's really 9/4 is funny because in countless video and written interviews with Rutherford/Collins/Banks, they labelled "Turn It On Again" as being partly in 13/8, which is unlikely as the groove is more like 13/4. I suppose they never did quite get it right, even after a few more albums after "Supper's Ready". :lol
EDIT - I also recall loving the intro to "Watcher Of The Skies" so much that I remember learning the introduction on keyboard, playing it using orchestral-string sounds. I have the sheet music somewhere but it's been so long since I've played it, I only remember the opening chords. It was fun to play, though, for the whole minute-and-a-half that it is. Interesting chord changes - and being a music major student at the time I learned it, I did some chordal analysis on it and found it even MORE interesting!
-Marc.
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Ahh, Foxtrot.
Bought this one along with Nursery Cryme on the same day, and actually was so stunned by how good Nursery Cryme was that I didn't get to Foxtrot for a few days, though I do recall my best friend remarking "hey, it's the Nursery Cryme!" as he looked at the cover of Foxtrot while we were listening to NC together; I always liked the use of the previous cover in the background of Foxtrot's. It was, in fact, an album I blasted at a friend of mine's New Year's Eve party (while sneaking the occasional kiss from his sister, I will admit I had no shame during my drinking days.) I came to Foxtrot as "the album that had Supper's Ready on it" but, bizarrely enough, for me, it was operating at a distinct disadvantage. As I'll explain further when we get to Seconds out, that live version of Supper's Ready was my first side long song, and you never forget your first love. It took a while for the studio version, which felt clunkier and sometimes slower than the far more upbeat, almost sleek version of Supper's Ready on Seconds Out, to really work for me. But, of course it did, and it took its place amongst the legendary epics of the period.
As for the rest of the album-all you need to know about Watcher of the Skies is that the company that makes the mellotron sells a "Watcher mix" tape set based on the sounds Banks used here. One of the more musically complex pieces Genesis ever made, just an awesome opener to an album. Time Table serves as a break between the two longer tracks on side one, with some nice lyrical imagery. Get 'Em Out By Friday is the song where Gabriel really starts digging into the more theatrical side, with the lyrics telling a story using multiple characters, and the band fully embraces the oddly British theater style of Peter Gabriel. Can-Utility does defy the verse-chorus-etc structure as Orbert said, with the first couple of minutes being lovely before it turns into several completely different ideas at once. Shame it took me years to get the pun in the title :lol
And at last, there's Horizons. I remember, in the mid 80s when Hackett and Steve Howe formed GTR, there was special about the band that, amongst other things, had Hackett performing Horizons, which prompted a cheerful FUCK YEAH from me, amusing my best friend to no good end. Horizons is my favorite solo guitar piece, that should sum it up nicely. Foxtrot is sheer brilliance, and my favorite Genesis album if you lined up their entire discography.
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Horizons is the first Genesis song I heard
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I... don't really like Foxtrot all that much. I mean, Watcher Of The Skies, Time Table and Can-Utility And The Coastliners are all fine songs, but not really all that memorable to me. And Supper's Ready. Hoo boy, I know I'll get flak for this, but with the exception of the "Hey, babe..." section, I don't care for the song. It's a bit too all over the place for me, and at 23 minutes it just drags on and on.
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You're insane.
Anyways, one of the best albums ever. Supper's Ready and Can-Utility and the Coastliners are their two best songs.
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Yup, great album. My second favorite by them. Album Ranking:
1. Supper's Ready
2. Can-Utility and the Coastliners
3. Watcher of the Skies
4. Get Em Out by Friday
5. Time Table
6. Horizons
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Another great album. I love all the songs except Can-Utility, it has never "clicked" for me. Supper's Ready is a epic track in every sense of the word, Time Table is a wonderful song, Horizons is a beautiful acoustic instrumental. Watcher Of The Skies works great as an opening song, with that Mellotron intro setting the scene. Get Em Out By Friday is another of Peter's story-telling songs with different characters.
Track rating:
1. Supper's Ready
2. Time Table
3. Horizons
4. Get Em Out By Friday
5. Watcher Of The Skies
6. Can-Utility and the Coastliners
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As I mentioned at previously, I got this at the same time as I got Nursery Cryme, and while the former is my favourite, I love this album a hell of a lot. At one point I tried to learn Time Table on piano, but then I got distracted. Either way, I love everything on this album, especially Watcher and Supper's Ready (which my stepfather once made play on the music players at home to signal that it was time to eat).
Eh, whatever, it's all amazing.
A Flower?
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Best Genesis album by far, IMO.
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I found the cello!
During the very opening part of "Supper's Ready". That bass line you might have thought was bass or pedals if you're like me and had a cheap LP and crappy stereo back in the late 70's... is actually a cello. I was listening to it yesterday on earphones and it jumped out at me.
Now... sigh... to find the oboe. I just noticed Oboe in the credits when I was writing this one up. Anyone?
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Been trying to find the oboe on this album since I bought the vinyl copy and saw it credited. Your guess is as good as mine. :rollin
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Supper's Ready has replaced "Cygnus X-1" (the entire piece...both books 1 & 2 together) as the single greatest piece of music ever recorded by anyone...ever...
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Been trying to find the oboe on this album since I bought the vinyl copy and saw it credited. Your guess is as good as mine. :rollin
Yeah, still not found that. I'm guessing it's probably in Supper's Ready or possibly Get 'Em Out By Friday. Not quite sure though. But yeah, I thought Supper's Ready probably had the cello in that first part.
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Rankings -
Supper's Ready
Can-Utility and the Coastliners
Watcher of the Skies
Time Table
Horizons
Get Em Out By Friday
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I think the cello might also be in Willow Farm. Or that could be keyboard, but I'm not sure.
EDIT: Nevermind, pretty sure it's keyboard.
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Also, a side-note to the band calling "Apocalypse In 9/8" as being in "9/8" when it's really 9/4 is funny because in countless video and written interviews with Rutherford/Collins/Banks, they labelled "Turn It On Again" as being partly in 13/8, which is unlikely as the groove is more like 13/4. I suppose they never did quite get it right, even after a few more albums after "Supper's Ready". :lol
Maybe it's a British thing, or just a thing the guys in Genesis do, but I've heard them refer to the "Turn It On Again" riff as 13/8 as well, when I would certainly call it 13/4. True, you can technically call it a slow 13/8 with the eighth note getting the beat, but it's customary to assign the beat to the quarter note; you use /8 when there are obvious subgroupings. Note quite a written rule, but certainly an unwritten one, and definitely the norm.
Bought this one along with Nursery Cryme on the same day, and actually was so stunned by how good Nursery Cryme was that I didn't get to Foxtrot for a few days, though I do recall my best friend remarking "hey, it's the Nursery Cryme!" as he looked at the cover of Foxtrot while we were listening to NC together; I always liked the use of the previous cover in the background of Foxtrot's. It was, in fact, an album I blasted at a friend of mine's New Year's Eve party (while sneaking the occasional kiss from his sister, I will admit I had no shame during my drinking days.) I came to Foxtrot as "the album that had Supper's Ready on it" but, bizarrely enough, for me, it was operating at a distinct disadvantage. As I'll explain further when we get to Seconds out, that live version of Supper's Ready was my first side long song, and you never forget your first love. It took a while for the studio version, which felt clunkier and sometimes slower than the far more upbeat, almost sleek version of Supper's Ready on Seconds Out, to really work for me. But, of course it did, and it took its place amongst the legendary epics of the period.
And at last, there's Horizons. I remember, in the mid 80s when Hackett and Steve Howe formed GTR, there was special about the band that, amongst other things, had Hackett performing Horizons, which prompted a cheerful FUCK YEAH from me, amusing my best friend to no good end. Horizons is my favorite solo guitar piece, that should sum it up nicely. Foxtrot is sheer brilliance, and my favorite Genesis album if you lined up their entire discography.
I think the Nursery Cryme cover might be included because of the reference to "The Musical Box" in the "Willow Farm" lyrics. Interesting that it should be mentioned at all in a song on the next album, and maybe Whitehead threw it in there for the same reason, because it's mentioned in the lyrics, and the cover reflects the contents of the album itself.
I've mentioned it before, but I too started with Seconds Out and worked backward, thus I was quite familiar with the live version of "Supper's Ready" by time I acquired Foxtrot (at the same time as Nursery Cryme). The studio version felt much drier at first, and it still does. Peter relies more upon the intensity of his voice and the emotion he puts into it. Phil is more one to belt it out with lots of echo and bombast. The part with "Six six six is no longer alone!" is a perfect example. Peter states it; it has some force to it, but the words themselves make their impact. Phil is wailing by this point; the buildup of Tony's Hammond solo has come to a head and it's truly the Apocalypse.
I would've liked to have seen that GTR special you mention. Steve and Steve. I always thought it was kinda cool that the guitarists from my two favorite prog bands were both Steve H., and they even formed a band together later. I got more into Genesis in college, and my roommate introduced me to a bunch of prog bands I'd never heard of, including Khan and Gong, both featuring Steve Hillage on guitar. Another Steve H.
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The funny part about the whole bit where Gabriel blasts out "666 is no longer alone!" for me is a story I saw in a video about the making of Foxtrot, where there was a bit of a creative conflict over how the song should go. Tony Banks wanted the part after the organ solo to be instrumental, with maybe wordless choir vocals, but Peter Gabriel started singing over it and Banks went, "okay, that works." In the Gabriel days, there was a lot of times where Banks wanted to do lengthy, of course, keyboard sections, but Gabriel would come in with an idea that made things a lot better. In the case of Supper's Ready, what Gabriel added worked big time. I've seen live versions of Supper's Ready with Gabriel singing on Youtube, and they're pretty good, but the Seconds Out version will always have a high spot on my Genesis lists. Gabriel once said that Phil sang Supper's Ready better but Peter understood it better, and I agree with that.
The worst thing about the GTR special? I owned a VCR, had blank tapes, and didn't have the sense to tape the damn thing! In addition to talking about the entire album, it had Howe playing his solo piece from the album, I think one of his Yes solo pieces, and Hackett playing (well, syncing) his instrumental Hackett To Bits from the GTR album. Why I didn't tape it I'll never know.
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I think Tony just likes to write music, not necessarily "songs". I know there are parts in The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway that were originally conceived of as instrumental, but Peter came in with piles and piles of lyrics and started fitting them in the best he could. I'm of two minds regarding that. First, I think it's really cool that he listens to music like that and come up with a vocal line (words, melody, everything) that works. The music sounds complete to me, but Peter listens to it and hears a canvas for him to paint upon. It's a gift, for sure.
On the other hand, I sympathize with Tony. It seems like it would be frustrating to have what you consider to be a finished piece, and someone decides that it needs words on top of it. Not all the time, but I'm sure it happened often enough that Tony would sometimes wish a piece could've stayed the way he'd written it.
Bummer about the GTR special. But it's for the best. If you had recorded it and still had the tape, I would be jealous. This way, there's no reason for jealousy, and jealousy is bad, so it's really better this way.
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There did come a little tension in regards to how Gabriel saw the lyrics working with the music later, but I'll save that story for the next time, when we get to the song that really summed the problem up best. Hint: it ends in Epping Forest. :lol
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Funny. Apocalypse in 9/8 sounds a lot more like 9/8 than 9/4 to me.
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Oh.. This album.. I remember always seeing it everywhere a couple of years ago. Never really gave it a listen..
For a yes-fan like me, how do you think it would be if I listened to it?
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Oh.. This album.. I remember always seeing it everywhere a couple of years ago. Never really gave it a listen..
For a yes-fan like me, how do you think it would be if I listened to it?
Orgasmic.
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My dad has this album in Vinyl and I remember the first time I listened to it I sat down in the living room and played it. I was immediately blown away by Watcher in the skies and at that moment I knew I had to check out more of Genesis. That song still remains as my favorite Genesis song.
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Oh.. This album.. I remember always seeing it everywhere a couple of years ago. Never really gave it a listen..
For a yes-fan like me, how do you think it would be if I listened to it?
Orgasmic.
I better give it a shot then.
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I would've liked to have seen that GTR special you mention. Steve and Steve. I always thought it was kinda cool that the guitarists from my two favorite prog bands were both Steve H., and they even formed a band together later. I got more into Genesis in college, and my roommate introduced me to a bunch of prog bands I'd never heard of, including Khan and Gong, both featuring Steve Hillage on guitar. Another Steve H.
Canterbury Scene <3<3<3
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Funny. Apocalypse in 9/8 sounds a lot more like 9/8 than 9/4 to me.
What about "Riding The Scree"?
-Marc.
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Funny. Apocalypse in 9/8 sounds a lot more like 9/8 than 9/4 to me.
You can count it either way, and if Genesis says it's 9/8, then it's a slow 9/8. It's just that the convention calls for beats to get the quarter note, and you use /8 when the beats are subdivided and grouped, especially when grouped unevenly as they are here. There is the 4+3+2 grouping going on, so that would be an argument for 9/8.
I would've liked to have seen that GTR special you mention. Steve and Steve. I always thought it was kinda cool that the guitarists from my two favorite prog bands were both Steve H., and they even formed a band together later. I got more into Genesis in college, and my roommate introduced me to a bunch of prog bands I'd never heard of, including Khan and Gong, both featuring Steve Hillage on guitar. Another Steve H.
Canterbury Scene <3<3<3
Yeah, that's some cool stuff. We listened to a bunch of Gong and National Health and Hatfield and the North and a bunch of stuff I don't even remember. This was the roommate who would hit the used record store and come home with a bunch of LPs he'd paid $2 each for, we'd check them out for a week or two, then he'd sell them back for 50 cents each and grab another batch. He thought of it as "renting music". This was 1980, pre-Internet, and it was the best way to check out music for cheap.
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Supper's Ready and Can-Utility and the Coastliners are top 10 Genesis songs in my book.
Watcher of the Skies is awesome musically, especially the intro, but the vocal melodies are fairly ordinary; just a bit too jumbled, like they jammed too many words into a small space or something. It's just not a song you want to sing along to.
Time Table and Get 'Em Out by Friday are both enjoyable, but neither really stands out.
Horizons is a good instrumental.
Overall, Foxtrot is really, really good, but it's not a top 3 Genesis studio album, for me.
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Ranking:
Supper's ready
Horizons
Watchers of the skies
Can-Utility and the Coastliners
Get Em Out By Friday
Time Table
I rarely return to the bottom three songs. Those are the ones preventing this album from being one of my favorite Genesis records. Nothing wrong with them, they just haven't left an impression on me, no matter how many chances I give them.
The upper half, on the other side... :heart :hefdaddy
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Oh.. This album.. I remember always seeing it everywhere a couple of years ago. Never really gave it a listen..
For a yes-fan like me, how do you think it would be if I listened to it?
Yes is my favorite band, with Genesis a close second. I recommend checking out Foxtrot, but don't expect it to be anything like Yes. They're both amazing bands, but very different in both their approach to songwriting and their overall sound.
Also, as with all prog, listen to it a minimum of two times, and if at all possible, a third time, six to 24 hours later.
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Foxtrot is an awesome album AND IT HAS A FOX ZOMG
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Also, as with all prog, listen to it a minimum of two times, and if at all possible, a third time, six to 24 hours later.
Like a doctor explaining a prescription. :lol
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Exactly! Your system cannot absorb it all at once. Take too much new prog at once, and you risk your system rejecting it outright. You have to let it work, then take another dose. Only then can you grok it in fullness.
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Foxtrot is an awesome album AND IT HAS A FOX ZOMG
:lol
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Love this album, Supper's Ready is one of the greatest things ever.
Supper's Ready
Coastline
Watcher
Time Table
Horizons
Get 'Em Out
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Mosh, your rankings are exactly the same as mine! :metal
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Mosh, your rankings are exactly the same as mine! :metal
:metal :metal
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Love this album, Supper's Ready is one of the greatest things ever.
Supper's Ready
Coastline
Watcher
Time Table
Horizons
Get 'Em Out
Switch Time Table with Get 'em out and that's my list! By the way, Can Utility is one of my favorites.
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Funny. Apocalypse in 9/8 sounds a lot more like 9/8 than 9/4 to me.
Dammit. Last night I was playing the bass part in my mind, and it's in 9/8, no question. Then I played the drums, and they're in 9/8. Then I looked over at Tony (in my mind) and there he sat, ignoring all of us, playing in 4/4. Silly git.
9/8 it is. I've been misled by this bad sheet music book I got 30+ years ago that had it transcribed in 9/4, so I've always thought of it as 9/4 despite all evidence to the contrary.
But finally, I have seen the light! It really is in 9/8!
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Funny. Apocalypse in 9/8 sounds a lot more like 9/8 than 9/4 to me.
Dammit. Last night I was playing the bass part in my mind, and it's in 9/8, no question. Then I played the drums, and they're in 9/8. Then I looked over at Tony (in my mind) and there he sat, ignoring all of us, playing in 4/4. Silly git.
9/8 it is. I've been misled by this bad sheet music book I got 30+ years ago that had it transcribed in 9/4, so I've always thought of it as 9/4 despite all evidence to the contrary.
But finally, I have seen the light! It really is in 9/8!
I mean, I've always heard it as a very fast 9/4, especially considering how the Tony's part feels like it's in 4/4 where the same quarter-note beat is the same duration as in the 9/4 part. But to each their own, I suppose!
-Marc.
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Genesis Live (1973)
(https://i.imgur.com/EMv3dmq.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, 12-String Guitar, Backing Vocals
Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Lead Vocals, Flute, Tambourine
Steve Hackett - Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, 12-String Guitar, Backing Vocals
Watcher of the Skies
Get 'Em Out by Friday
The Return of the Giant Hogweed
The Musical Box
The Knife
----------
In the 70's, it was the norm for bands to release an album per year, sometimes more. Thus, when it became apparent that the next album Selling England by the Pound was not going to be ready any time soon, Charisma Records got nervous. It was very important to keep your big-name acts out there in the public eye and ear. The solution was usually to release a live album or a "greatest hits" album, so that you had some kind of new release to fill the gap.
As it happened, The King Biscuit Flower Hour had recently made a recording from the Foxtrot tour for radio broadcast. The King Biscuit Flower Hour was a radio program based in the United States showcasing live music from popular bands. They made good-quality live recordings, then sold them to radio stations for broadcast. In this case, however, Charisma purchased the recording and released it as the next Genesis album, Genesis Live, therefore the recording was never aired.
The good news is that the performances on this album are stellar. Genesis had hit their stride and were playing extremely well, reproducing their intricate arrangements live and gaining both critical and popular approval. The sound is clean, considering the equipment and conditions of the time, and the mix is very good.
The bad news is that there was not enough material for a double album, which was the norm for a live album. King Biscuit broadcasts were typically an hour, including commericals, and although they had recorded just over an hour's worth of material, that was only enough for about 1 1/2 LP sides. The decision was made to cut "Supper's Ready" and release Genesis Live as a single LP.
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It really does sound great, and the band was in top form. Somehow including their epic "Supper's Ready" would have made this a five-star release, easily. For many years, there were rumors of bootlegs from this show, but none turned out to be authentic. Finally, an odd "test pressing" of Genesis Live was found. Apparently, someone had experimented with spreading the contents across four LP sides. Since details are scarce, everything is handwritten, and no song titles are given, it's impossible to tell what the proposed track listing was going to be, but the important thing is that the recording exists.
Here (https://www.genesismuseum.com/vinyl/livetp.htm) is a link to the page at The Genesis Museum (https://www.genesismuseum.com/) where the curators have actually made available an mp3 of the famous recording. It's only 128kbps, variable, but it's definitely genuine. If you're like me (which is actually a scary thought, but anyway...) you'll put this on your iPod following "The Knife" for a complete version of Genesis Live.
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I *love* Genesis Live, and like many, I do wish that "Supper's Ready" had made the cut, but at least we now have the Rainbow live show (though some fans are harder to please as they still want a version from the Foxtrot tour). Still ironic that the album cover depicts a performance of "Supper's Ready" without actually having the track on the album. Whoops :lol
The track list is a hit, and it's got all of their (other) epics and long-form tunes from their 2nd-4th albums. As Orbert said, great performances, and "The Knife" absolutely smokes. It's a great way to end the record, and the band is just on FIRE the whole album. Had this been a FULL double album (meaning about 80-100 minutes of music), it would certainly rival Yes' Yessongs as one of the greatest prog live albums of the 70's.
As a single LP, though, it's still got a lot to offer, but Charisma really missed the boat on not trying to get a whole show, and THEN some.
-Marc.
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I always thought that Seconds Out was the sole live album of the Peter Gabriel days. Guess I was wrong. :facepalm:
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I always thought that Seconds Out was the sole live album of the Peter Gabriel days. Guess I was wrong. :facepalm:
Peter Gabriel wasn't on Seconds Out, which was released over 2 years after Peter left the band.
And up until Genesis Archive 1, Live was the only officially released live material featuring Peter Gabriel in the band.
-Marc.
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Gah! I was completely mistaken all the way around then. :lolpalm:
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Seconds Out was mostly from the Wind & Wuthering tour, with a little bit from the A Trick of the Tail tour. It's basically a chronicle of the four-piece era, after Peter had left but while Steve was still in the band.
Marc is correct; until the Genesis Archive 1 came out, there was no other official live material with Peter. And sadly, Peter insisted on overdubbing some of the vocals on the live material, so in my opinion, they're "tainted". Overdubbing over 20 years later? His voice doesn't even sound the same.
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It's entirely possible that I was thinking of Peter's solo live album. :loser:
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Genesis Live was purchased out of sync with my buying Genesis albums backwards and was actually the last Gabriel album I bought because it was live, and only a single live album to boot by a band I already owned two double live albums by, so why bother? But on the day I bought GTR's sole album (there's GTR again, Orbert!), I saw an import copy of Genesis Live in my local record store and said, what the hell, it'll complete the set.
I was rather silly as a younger man.
These days, getting Genesis with Gabriel live is pretty easy to do. Hell, there's complete versions of Supper's Ready with Gabriel singing floating around on Youtube. But for the longest time, this was the sole document of Genesis live with Peter Gabriel, and it is a totally ripping one in fact. Yes, it's lacking Supper's Ready, which had it been on the album would have made it the best prog rock live album of the 70s, but what is left is brilliant. Genesis might have been a theatrical band in terms of presentation in concert with Gabriel, but they smoked as musicians live. This is an awesome live document of a great period for the band. If only it could have been a double live album. Returning to it now, with my new found appreciation for The Knife, man, does Phil totally KILL it on drums. There's some parts where it sounds like he's playing fast double bass, but with only one foot. Man, Phil's such an underrated drummer.
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Yeah, I love this version of "The Knife". I think my favorite part is the great ad-libbing by Peter on flute, which is pretty rare. I was listening to the live version of "Supper's Ready" from this show, and there's a lot of flute in there, too.
Nowadays there's YouTube and other "long lost" video sources, but back in the 70's, this is all we had. You had to imagine Peter and his costumes, acting out the parts, while the rest of the band sat and played. What I'd really love to see is a high-quality release of video from the Gabriel era. As far as I know, there really isn't any.
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HD quality of a Gabriel show is one of those holy grail things for me. Pretty sure if it existed it would have turned up by now, so I make due with what I find on Youtube. I suppose if I could tell my younger self that I could someday SEE Genesis play in the 70s live, I would have been too excited to care that it was low def. :lol
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I think these guys are as close as you are gonna get.
https://www.themusicalbox.net/
(Seriously, if you have the chance, go see them. They are stunning.)
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I think these guys are as close as you are gonna get.
https://www.themusicalbox.net/
(Seriously, if you have the chance, go see them. They are stunning.)
Apparently their current tour may be their last, or so I've heard. They plan on retiring after they wrap up their current tour (which I think is another tour of TLLDOB).
-Marc.
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much like the Yes thread (purchased Tales and Close to the Edge), this one is inspiring me to pick up something from Genesis. I take it Foxtrot is as good a place as any to start?
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I think these guys are as close as you are gonna get.
https://www.themusicalbox.net/
(Seriously, if you have the chance, go see them. They are stunning.)
Apparently their current tour may be their last, or so I've heard. They plan on retiring after they wrap up their current tour (which I think is another tour of TLLDOB).
-Marc.
:sadpanda: I was hoping to see them again. The Lamb was magical.
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much like the Yes thread (purchased Tales and Close to the Edge), this one is inspiring me to pick up something from Genesis. I take it Foxtrot is as good a place as any to start?
Definitely. Each Gabriel-era album is good to excellent, and while there are obviously similarities, each is rather different from the others as well. The two which are most similar to each other are probably Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, with Foxtrot IMO being slightly better. But because they are so similar, and Nursery Cryme came first, you might want to start there if you intend to move through the catalogue more or less chronologically. That's just an option, of course.
The only one I would not recommend starting with, other than the debut (for hopefully obvious reasons), is The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It's amazing and epic, but also sprawling, self-indulgent, and probably too much to take in all at once, especially for starters. Any of the others would be fine.
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much like the Yes thread (purchased Tales and Close to the Edge), this one is inspiring me to pick up something from Genesis. I take it Foxtrot is as good a place as any to start?
Definitely. Each Gabriel-era album is good to excellent, and while there are obviously similarities, each is rather different from the others as well. The two which are most similar to each other are probably Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, with Foxtrot IMO being slightly better. But because they are so similar, and Nursery Cryme came first, you might want to start there if you intend to move through the catalogue more or less chronologically. That's just an option, of course.
The only one I would not recommend starting with, other than the debut (for hopefully obvious reasons), is The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It's amazing and epic, but also sprawling, self-indulgent, and probably too much to take in all at once, especially for starters. Any of the others would be fine.
What he said, but when I started, I started with getting Trespass and Nursery Cryme first, and THEN got Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound. If you can only get two at a time, I'd suggest doing it this way if you like going chronologically. If you can get 3 at once, get NC/FT/SEBTP. And if you can get all 4, go for it!
-Marc.
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much like the Yes thread (purchased Tales and Close to the Edge), this one is inspiring me to pick up something from Genesis. I take it Foxtrot is as good a place as any to start?
Sure - though, you could probably just as well start with Nursery Cryme or Selling England By The Pound.
I also would NOT recommend starting with The Lamb, simply because you need proper context first. Even though it IS my favorite of the Gabriel era albums, I'd say to familiarize yourself with Foxtrot (or whatever you decide to get first) and THEN dive in.
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Seconds Out was mostly from the Wind & Wuthering tour, with a little bit from the A Trick of the Tail tour. It's basically a chronicle of the four-piece era, after Peter had left but while Steve was still in the band.
Marc is correct; until the Genesis Archive 1 came out, there was no other official live material with Peter. And sadly, Peter insisted on overdubbing some of the vocals on the live material, so in my opinion, they're "tainted". Overdubbing over 20 years later? His voice doesn't even sound the same.
Aye, but it is still a really good collection (I got given it for completing my A-levels), and it is what made me really appreciate The Lamb.
Anyway: back to Genesis Live. I have to admit I've only heard this one a couple of times, as I generally tend to stick to studio stuff, but I do like to give live albums a blast to see what they're like. I do remember this album being really good (well, of course, it starts with Watcher and has The Musical Box on it). That said, I do have to admit, I would have liked the album more if it were to have Can-Utility on rather than Get 'Em Out By Friday. I just enjoy the middle section a hell of a lot more, but GEOBF is still pretty awesome.
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I'm not really into live albums overall, so I haven't given this that many spins. I can't really argue about what's included, more than what ISN'T included. I would have loved to see more songs, like Supper's Ready, Harold The Barrell, and some songs from Trespass (Looking For Someone, White Mountain).
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^ Harold The Barrel gets not enough love.
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He just can't jump.
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Said you couldn't trust him, his brother was just the same.
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His shirt's all dirty. There's a man here from the BBC!
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What I'd really love to see is a high-quality release of video from the Gabriel era. As far as I know, there really isn't any.
The 1973 Shepperton film is pretty awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBcz3tBH74
Its history:
https://www.planetnana.co.il/shepperton/
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Wow, thanks! I'll watch it later :tup
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Wow! Thank you for that. I think I've seen that footage before, but not at this quality. Man, I feel like burning that to a DVD or something.
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The only one I would not recommend starting with, other than the debut (for hopefully obvious reasons), is The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It's amazing and epic, but also sprawling, self-indulgent, and probably too much to take in all at once, especially for starters. Any of the others would be fine.
Interestingly enough, Lamb was my very first Genesis album. I think it also helped that before getting to it, I was also in the midst of drowning in the amazingness that was Transatlantic's first two albums.
As for this live record, my only comment is this: holy fuckballs, the musicianship is crazy good.
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If you're okay with epics and extreme prog (whatever that means) then The Lamb can work as a starting point. But you have to admit, starting with the double concept album really doesn't work for most people. Also, it is musically atypical of that period of Genesis. Gabriel-era Genesis had lots of longer songs, mini-epics if you will, but mixed them up with shorter songs, almost vignettes. The Lamb is a series of scenes, some of which have been fleshed out into full-blown songs, but mostly vignettes. Also, the song-to-instrumental ratio is much higher because there's so much story to tell. I consider it a masterpiece, their apex, but I never recommend anyone start with it. It's too much, too over-the-top. Most people have to work up to it.
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As for Genesis Live, yeah, those guys were animals. I was listening to the "Supper's Ready" again (seriously, everybody should download this (https://www.genesismuseum.com/SRTPbc3.MP3)) and it was just blowing me away what these guys could do live.
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What I'd really love to see is a high-quality release of video from the Gabriel era. As far as I know, there really isn't any.
The 1973 Shepperton film is pretty awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBcz3tBH74
Its history:
https://www.planetnana.co.il/shepperton/
I am all over this. Thanks!
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^ Harold The Barrel gets not enough love.
He just can't jump.
Said you couldn't trust him, his brother was just the same.
His shirt's all dirty. There's a man here from the BBC!
Up at the window
Look at the windooooooooooow
:heart
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Glad you enjoy it, no prob. Great thread here!
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I think the best way to describe this performance is HOLY SHIT. :metal
I'm pretty sure this is the source of the live version of Supper's Ready I've seen elsewhere on Youtube, but, wow, getting to see Genesis live in this timeframe, in this good a video quality...it's like that website about the DVD said, this is the Holy Grail's older brother. Awesome.
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I saw this article this morning and although not applying to Genesis Live directly, may be of interest...
https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec01/articles/retrozone1201.asp
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I think I learned more about the history of keyboards in prog rock from that one article than I have in all my time following the genre. :lol Also, so THAT'S how Jon Lord got his sound!
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Ditto that, incidentally, I gave Live a blast again today. It was way better than I remembered.
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Thanks for that article, Sketchy. More history about RMI than I really needed, but it did fill in some gaps and explained a few things. I played an RMI once, sitting in on another guy's rig, and it was pretty cool, but at the time, I wasn't quite ready to just sit down on a moment's notice and make the most of it (actually I was too intimidated to mess with his rig too much), so I stuck to the basic piano sound.
The reason why RMI (and Hohner and others) could get away with such crappy piano sounds was because, for the most part, they didn't actually have to sound like pianos. All they had to do was provide a "piano-like" sound to mix in with the guitars and drums. It was a different texture, vaguely piano-like, and if you ran it through a fuzz box (or just crank the pre-gain) it sounded pretty cool. Nothing like a piano, but pretty cool.
I was fortunate enough to find a used Wurlitzer for my first band, later a Rhodes, and finally went with an early Yahama back in my day. Each of these, IMO, were better choices than the RMI. We had three Genesis songs in our setlist, but "Firth of Fifth" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" weren't among them, so versatility was more important than a great piano sound.
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Genesis: Selling England by the Pound (1973)
(https://i.imgur.com/fS5CrpZ.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Acoustic Guitar, Background Vocals
Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Lead Vocals, Flute, Oboe, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, Guitar, Electric Sitar, Cello, Background Vocals
Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Firth of Fifth
More Fool Me
The Battle of Epping Forest
After the Ordeal
The Cinema Show
Aisle of Plenty
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The most successful album thus far by the classic five-piece lineup, it reached #3 in the UK and spent a total of 21 weeks on the charts. It was also the first album to have a single in the charts. "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart. Selling England by the Pound seemed to finally pull together the elements which Genesis had been developing separately on the previous albums, while still breaking new ground and taking some chances, resulting in an album with even greater artistic peaks than ever before.
The album opens a capella, for the first time since Trespass. "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" is the quasi-title track; its refrain contains the line "selling England by the pound", and if one didn't know better, one might think that that is actually the title of the song. There are many examples of wordplay on this album, including the title itself, which references dividing England and selling it a small quantity at a time, and also the fact that the pound is the standard English unit of currency. The musical theme introduced in "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" returns in the closing song "Aisle of Plenty" which also contains a number of plays on words. An "isle of plenty" refers to an island paradise where one wants for nothing; here it refers to aisles in a grocery store. The lyrics mention Safeway and Fine Fare, two grocery store chains in the U.K., and the phrase "Tess co-operates" likely refers to Tesco and The Co-op, two other grocery stores.
Mike, perhaps the most versatile musician in the band, not only plays bass, bass pedals, and guitar on this album, as he has in the past, but his cello makes another appearance, and he adds electric sitar to his resume, on the single "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)".
Tony has had acoustic piano breaks in the past, but he takes the spotlight here with his magnificent introduction to "Firth of Fifth". As with other albums from this period, all songs are credited to all five band members, but it's pretty obvious that Tony had a major hand in this one, and Mike and Steve both refer to it as "one of Tony's finest". The title, by the way, is likely a play on words based on the firth (estuary) of Scotland's River Forth, where it feeds into the North Sea.
(https://i.imgur.com/V5bxybK.jpg)
Side One of the original LP closed with Phil's second outing on lead vocals, "More Fool Me". As with "For Absent Friends" from Nursery Cryme, it is a short song with only voice and acoustic guitar. While "For Absent Friends" was written and performed by Phil and Steve, as their way of introducing themselves (Nursery Cryme was the debut for both of them), "More Fool Me" was by Phil and Mike, who also performed it as a duo on the Selling England by the Pound tour.
"The Battle of Epping Forest" is the longest track on the album and opens what was originally Side Two. While its title might seem to evoke a battle involving knights and armies, it's actually about territorial gang wars. More wordplay, perhaps.
A rare Genesis instrumental follows, Steve's composition "After the Ordeal". A somewhat uneven piece, Peter and Tony were actually against including it on the album. It was likely included because it was one of Steve's only songwriting contributions this time around.
Another mini-epic "The Cinema Show" follows. Its two characters are Romeo and Juliet, but these are not Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The lyrics, written by Tony and Mike, are instead inspired by T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland". After a flute solo by Peter and a reprise of the chorus, the song leads into an extended trio instrumental with Tony, Mike, and Phil. The trio in 7/8 is a series of musical vignettes by Tony on various keyboards with contrasting sounds. Genesis would revisit this format several times on later albums ("Second Home by the Sea" from Genesis, "Duke's Travels" from Duke, and "Fading Lights" from We Can't Dance all feature similar sections) but this was the first, and possibly the most interesting due to its unusual time signature.
The instrumental section of "The Cinema Show" switches to 4/4 and, after a few clever modulations courtesy of Tony, falls into a reprise of the opening track titled "Aisle of Plenty", bookending the album.
For the first time, the album features a cover painting not by Paul Whitehead, and not inspired by lyrics found on the album. Instead, the band commissioned a piece by Betty Swanwick called "The Dream". With a little imagination, the painting seems to reference bits of "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" but the lawnmower was added at the band's request so as to make the assocation more clear, so it was actually the other way around.
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At over 53 minutes total time, this was Genesis' longest album yet, and in some ways its most ambitious. Many Genesis fans regard it as their favorite, but that is true of pretty much every Genesis album. They are each so different, with not a weak one in the lot, that it's only natural that each one would have its champions.
Personally, I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. I recognize its brilliance, but while there's a lot of great work on this album, somehow it never quite comes together for me. It starts strong, but 5:35 into "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" when it seems to be building up to a big ending to cap off a great instrumental section, it instead downshifts and switches to a quiet, introspective bit that wanders around for another two and a half minutes.
The instrumental "After the Ordeal" just doesn't seem to work. Everything sounds quite nice, and there's some great guitar work and nice guitar-and-keyboard interplay, but it all feels rather tentative. Then halfway through, a strong melody on lead guitar finally emerges, making everything up to that point feel like an introduction. But it doesn't last; instead it falls into refrain which repeats, introduces a few variations, and fades out. It just seems rather unsatisfying, and I wasn't surprised to learn that Tony and Peter (the band's unofficial leaders) really didn't want to include it. As much as I like instrumentals, I think the album may have been stronger overall without it.
Part of my problem with this album -- and I freely admit that it's my problem -- is that I picked it up after owning Seconds Out for many years. While I was thrilled to discover that "Firth of Fifth" had that amazing piano intro in 13/16 (which inspired myself and I'm sure countless other pianists to spend hours learning it by ear) and flute solo by Peter, my reaction to "The Cinema Show" was the exact opposite. On Seconds out, the 7/8 instrumental makes the 4/4 transition, then switches back to 7/8 and builds up to a great ending. Here, it seems to fizzle out. True, the way it segues into "Aisle of Plenty" is actually pretty clever. But as with the opening track, we get a hint of building up to a big ending, and instead things downshift and honestly leave me feel more than a little unsatisfied.
"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" is nice enough, but again, I've been spoiled by the live version, with the tambourine dance and that great solo by Steve and its quotes from various other Genesis songs. Here, it's a single. Peter says that the band had been trying to write a hit single for a while and finally managed to do it; Tony seems rather embarassed by it and doesn't seem to hold the song in high regard.
"The Battle of Epping Forest" is another song that sounds good on paper (a 12-minute mini-epic) but it just seems to suffer from too many ideas and not enough direction. There's some great playing and some clever lyrics, but overall it just doesn't gel for me.
Okay time for me to shut up and let others talk about this album. It's not a bad album by any means, and it even has probably my single favorite Genesis track in "Firth of Fifth". But other than the debut, it's my least favorite Gabriel-era album.
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I love this album, and consider it probably their 2nd best, but I am sometimes surprised that prog fans hold it in such high regard; it is, after all, a mainstay in Prog Archives' all-time top 3. That seems strange since The Battle of Epping Forest and More Fool Me seem to get dogged a lot (I like the former despite its obvious flaws; I can do without the latter), and you'd think a consensus top 3 prog record would be one almost everyone considers flawless from start to finish (like Close to the Edge). Then again, maybe it is off of the strength of the three longer songs, which are all undoubtedly fantastic and deserving of any and all praise. I could easily make the argument that Firth of Fifth and The Cinema Show are their two best songs ever. :coolio
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Ah here we are. My favourite Genesis album and a Top 10 album overall for me. I love everything about it. This was the first Genesis album I got into when I decided to check out their early stuff beyond the later radio hits. Like KevShmev I too consider Firth Of Fifth and The Cinema Show to be their two best songs ever. Steve's solo on Firth is as close to a musical orgasm I've ever gotten. For a long time the only song I've never quite loved on this album is Epping Forest, but I've learned to enjoy it over time.
My ranking:
1. Firth of Fifth
2. The Cinema Show
3. Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
4. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
5. More Fool Me
6. The Battle of Epping Forest
7. After The Ordeal
8. Aisle of Plenty
"Can you tell me where my country lies..."
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Steve's solo on Firth is as close to a musical orgasm I've ever gotten.
Yep, pretty much ;D
So yeah, Firth of Fifth is one of my favorite songs of all time, but this album as a whole never really stood out to me as much as some of their others. Of course it's still brilliant, just not all the way through.
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Whenever I look at the track list, I'm always bothered by I know what I want, More fool me and Aisle of plenty being on this record. But when I listen to it, they don't spoil my enjoyment at all - thankfully they're very short. The rest of the album is brilliant, I adore every single one of the five remaining songs.
The Battle of epping forest is one of my favorites here, it's very amusing, too bad it's getting some criticism, but it didn't stop this album from being regarded as one of the best prog rock albums of all time. And I'd also like to add that After the ordeal has such a wonderful melody, I'm overwhelmed with joy every time the guitar solo starts. That's what prog is all about, my friends. That particular section is what prog is all about. Except for the usual instrumental craziness here and there, you can't have prog without that. ;D
One of my dearest Genesis records overall. Here's how I'd rank the songs:
1. The Cinema show
2. The Battle of epping forest
3. After the ordeal
4. Firth of fifth
5. Dancing with the moonlight knight
6. I know what I like (In your wardrobe)
7. Aisle of plenty
8. More fool me
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I think I agree with what the Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man above me just wrote. This album has some amazing parts (Firth Of Fifth, especially the intro and the instrumental section, The Cinema Show, especially all of it, Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (what is there not to love about this) and I Know What I Like (it's a damn catchy song)), but there are also parts that I just don't love as much (More Fool Me, Battle Of Epping Forest). Don't get me wrong, I think those parts are amazing too, but they're just not as magical as the rest for some reason. That said, I have been really getting into this album of late.
But yeah, much love for the three twelve-strings on The Cinema Show. Just so damn much love.
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Quite possibly one of my favorite (Top 3) Genesis albums of all time, and it has many of the recurring structure ideas of future albums, as well:
Re-introducing the opening song's themes near the end of the album, creating a bookending effect (TLLDOB, ATTOT, W&W and Duke all do this)
Putting an instrumental near the end of the album (ATOTT ends with one, W&W have 2 near the end, and Duke has Travels before the End)
This is a landmark album (and rightfully so, being a 5th album, as 5th albums are usually where a band hits its stride - Close To The Edge, A Farewell To Kings, Thick As A Brick, Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Scenes From A Memory, V, Space Revolver, etc. etc.) and this has 2 wonderfully strong mini-epics, and a pretty good longer piece (Epping Forest), which, honestly, took me a very long time to understand, let alone appreciate.
"Firth Of Fifth" and "The Cinema Show" have always been favorites of mine, while the shorter pieces are all pretty good as well. It's a strong album with a great range of highs and lows, dynamically speaking, and it will never get old for me.
-Marc.
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Masterpiece.
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My earliest memory of Selling England By The Pound came, actually, from the inner sleeve of another band's album, the debut of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Back in the day, the inner sleeve usually was blank white unless the band was a particularly successful one, and sometimes you got lyrics or band photos. But sometimes-and I get the sense this was with reissues or later generation copies of albums, since the first ELP album came out before Selling England-the band's label would advertise other albums, with a cover gallery on one side of the inner sleeve. As I bought the ELP album at a yard sale, I must also entertain the notion that in fact, the inner sleeve I wound up with WASN'T the inner sleeve for the ELP album, and some hapless fan had stuck the album down in whatever sleeve was handy, which is why an album from 1970 was advertising releases from 1973. We will never know, but the key point is, that was the first time I saw the cover of Selling England by the Pound, and the first real idea that Genesis had a history before Phil Collins was the singer, and it was apparently a LOT different than the band doing No Reply At All on MTV.
As I've grown older, Foxtrot became my favorite Gabriel era album, but when I was younger, and first working my way backwards through their discography, Selling England by the Pound was my favorite Gabriel era album on the strength of the longer songs. True, it wasn't until a lot later that I got the wordplay involved in many of the lyrics-acquiring some British friends helped in that regard-but pretty much from the day I bought it, I loved three of the longer songs without question. Moonlit Knight, Firth of Fifth, and Cinema Show would all make a Genesis top ten for me. The Battle of Epping Forest, I like, but it suffers a little from a sense of trying too hard. I've seen interviews with the band where one of the underlying tensions that had existed with the band from the start-the battle between the music the band wrote and the lyrics Gabriel brought to the song-really came to the fore with this song. Epping Forest has a LOT of lyrics, and the vocal melodies are forced to contort in odd directions to fit the lengthy lines. I don't want to paint this as a problem between Tony and Peter, who usually had the disagreement on how a song should or shouldn't have lyrics, as the interview in question I saw had Phil expressing this (and I think mentioning some of the songs on Foxtrot where the same issue cropped up.) But there was starting to be tension in the band, especially if you couple how the perfectly lovely Hackett instrumental After The Ordeal almost didn't make the album to the issues Gabriel was starting to have with the band. You can pretty much track how, in terms of the music, Tony was starting to assume control by the amount of input Hackett had; Hackett's never quite this prominent on guitar again during his tenure with the band. Which is a shame, since Hackett's work on this album is easily his best with the band, especially Moonlit Knight and the lovely, almost floating solo on Firth of Fifth.
Still, it's a brilliant album; even the two shorter tracks, I Know What I Like and More Fool Me, work well, and Aisle of Plenty is a nice bookending reprise of Moonlit Knight that ties the album together. Another thing that amazed me when I got it was how LONG it was, for 1973. 53 minutes was a long vinyl album in the 80s, but in 1973 it was rather long. While Foxtrot is now my favorite Gabriel era album (which one is my favorite overall, I really can't figure out), I have no problem with someone saying Selling England is their best album, because it's really damn good.
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I think this one would have to be my third favorite of the Gabriel era albums, behind Foxtrot in second and The Lamb in first.
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I think this one would have to be my third favorite of the Gabriel era albums, behind Foxtrot in second and The Lamb in first.
Yes, definitely something like this. Though I think Nursery Cryme might squeeze in JUST before SEBTP.
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All I know is that The Lamb is most definitely tops. :metal
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All I know is that The Lamb is most definitely tops. :metal
:metal
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The Lamb is good saturday afternoon music in winter. It fits the mood so well.
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SEBTP is probably tied with trespass as my favorite from the Gabriel years. WHole thing flows so well.
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Guess I'm kinda late to the whole Genesis party having only been able to get hold of the Gabriel era stuff this year. I picked up Selling England and Nursery Cryme the other day and having listened to all of Selling England I have to say I really like it. I think someone has already said that it will, like most prog albums probably take a few listens to really sink in but just from 2-3 listens I'm genuinely loving the album and its songs. I can't really rank the songs just yet but I'm going to go ahead and say that Firth Of Fifth is my favourite track on the disk, lyrics aside on it which I don't really care for the music is wonderful.
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All I know is that The Lamb is most definitely tops. :metal
:metal
To me Selling England tops all Genesis albums, and Images and Words is the only album, at this time, that I may prefer over this one.
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Guess I'm kinda late to the whole Genesis party having only been able to get hold of the Gabriel era stuff this year. I picked up Selling England and Nursery Cryme the other day and having listened to all of Selling England I have to say I really like it. I think someone has already said that it will, like most prog albums probably take a few listens to really sink in but just from 2-3 listens I'm genuinely loving the album and its songs. I can't really rank the songs just yet but I'm going to go ahead and say that Firth Of Fifth is my favourite track on the disk, lyrics aside on it which I don't really care for the music is wonderful.
Welcome! If Genesis has another fan, then that can only be a good thing.
While pretty much everyone agrees that the music to "Firth of Fifth" is amazing, Tony and Mike wrote the lyrics, and Tony has said that he's not particularly proud of them. According to Wiki, they were "one of the worst sets of lyrics he had been involved with".
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Guess I'm kinda late to the whole Genesis party having only been able to get hold of the Gabriel era stuff this year. I picked up Selling England and Nursery Cryme the other day and having listened to all of Selling England I have to say I really like it. I think someone has already said that it will, like most prog albums probably take a few listens to really sink in but just from 2-3 listens I'm genuinely loving the album and its songs. I can't really rank the songs just yet but I'm going to go ahead and say that Firth Of Fifth is my favourite track on the disk, lyrics aside on it which I don't really care for the music is wonderful.
Welcome! If Genesis has another fan, then that can only be a good thing.
Thanks :)
I do actually have a bit of a history with Genesis, it would have came to light later on in the thread but I may as well tell now, while this year has been the year I've actually gotten into the history of the band, Genesis were actually responsible for one of the first three albums I liked. My earliest musical memories are probably from when I was 4/5 and it was listening to We Can't Dance, Meat Loafs - Bat Out Of Hell II and Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of The Worlds.
So they've always had a special place in my heart but it's only really this year I've started to really delve into them.
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All three of those are pretty great albums. :tup
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SEbtP was the first Genesis album I bought, maybe 15 years ago. Since then, I've worked my way through a lot of their discography, and I've come to think very highly of a lot of their work. But at least for the Gabriel years, this album has always sounded like a quantum leap beyond anything that came before in their discography. I love Foxtrot, but the long songs here are just so much richer and better constructed than anything that came before, and the shorter songs balance the album perfectly.
To my ears, this is the best thing in their discography, by far the best thing they did with Gabriel, and easily makes any desert-island top 10 list that I'd put together.
Looking forward to when we get to Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering a bit later. They've risen over the years to #2 & 3 on my Genesis list. I suspect that won't be a popular view....
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SEbtP was the first Genesis album I bought, maybe 15 years ago. Since then, I've worked my way through a lot of their discography, and I've come to think very highly of a lot of their work. But at least for the Gabriel years, this album has always sounded like a quantum leap beyond anything that came before in their discography. I love Foxtrot, but the long songs here are just so much richer and better constructed than anything that came before, and the shorter songs balance the album perfectly.
To my ears, this is the best thing in their discography, by far the best thing they did with Gabriel, and easily makes any desert-island top 10 list that I'd put together.
Looking forward to when we get to Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering a bit later. They've risen over the years to #2 & 3 on my Genesis list. I suspect that won't be a popular view....
Wind And Wuthering is my favorite Collins album, and if I had to rank everything, it'd only be behind Foxtrot overall. So you wouldn't be alone in one case!
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Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974)
(https://i.imgur.com/UbUaGnt.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards
Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Vocals
Peter Gabriel - Vocals, Flute, Oboe
Steve Hackett - Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, 12-String Guitar
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Fly on a Windshield
Broadway Melody of 1974
Cuckoo Cocoon
In the Cage
The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
Back in N. Y. C.
Hairless Heart
Counting Out Time
The Carpet Crawl (U.S. title: The Carpet Crawlers)
The Chamber of 32 Doors
Lilywhite Lilith
The Waiting Room
Anyway
Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist (U.S. title: The Supernatural Anaesthetist)
The Lamia
Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats
The Colony of Slippermen
The Arrival
A Visit to the Doktor
Raven
Ravine
The Light Dies Down on Broadway
Riding the Scree
In the Rapids
It.
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Genesis felt that they were ready to tackle a double LP concept album, something that few bands attempt. It is somewhat more common now, but in 1974 it was still very much a rarity. Yes had released Tales from Topographic Oceans earlier that year, and The Who had released their second concept album, Quadrophenia, in 1973 (Tommy of course was the first, and the archetype for all such albums), but that was about it. Pink Floyd's The Wall was yet to come. Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory, and Snow by Spock's Beard were still decades away.
They knew they wanted it to be a story, since they were good at telling stories and felt that the double album format would give them room to stretch out. They already were thinking in terms of standalone songs for major "scenes" in the story, with instrumentals and other shorter bits connecting things together. Mike had the idea of setting "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to music, while Peter was thinking in terms of an original story. Those were the only two candidates, and eventually the band decided that an original story was the way to go. They also agreed that one person should write all the lyrics. This would give the story cohesion and a more consistent tone. Since it was Peter's idea, it made sense that Peter would write the lyrics.
They headed out to Headley Grange, a house in the English countryside previously occupied by Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, and other bands. Peter found a room in which to sit and start writing lyrics, leaving the others to begin writing the music. This was very different from how previous Genesis albums had been written, but they were very excited to be trying something new. Tony, Mike, and Phil ended up writing most of the music, although there are some parts which Steve contributed. Steve had some trouble adjusting to the new writing format and finding ways to contribute. He has said that the album has a lot of great keyboard work, and some areas where the guitar gets an opportunity to be heard.
It was during the writing sessions at Headley Grange that Peter received a phone call from William Friedkin, author of the novel The Exorcist which had recently been made into a very popular movie. It seems that Friedkin had a copy of Genesis Live, and was intrigued by the strange little story on the back cover which Peter had written, based on one of the ad-libbed stories he'd come up with in between songs to give the band time to tune their guitars. Friedkin was starting to work on his next project, a science fiction film, and wanted Peter on board as a consultant because of his "weird, visual mind". He didn't want the rest of the band; he already had Tangerine Dream on board for the music. He just wanted Peter.
Peter went to the others and asked if they'd mind if he'd go off to Hollywood to work on a movie. They were very much against it, as they were all, including Peter, working to finish their next album which, by the way, had a deadline. Peter left anyway.
The remaining four members were dumbfounded. Here they were, writing some of the best music they'd ever written, and suddenly the band was without a singer. Phil suggested (and it's unclear just how serious he was) that they record it as an instrumental album; they had plenty of music, and it was very good.
Peter got to Hollywood and told Friedkin that he'd left Genesis and was ready to work; Friedkin was aghast. It was not a permanent position, it was not full-time, it was just for some ideas. And he definitely did not want to be responsible for breaking up Genesis. Besides, the project really hadn't started yet; there wasn't actually any work to do. This left Peter in limbo, having quit Genesis, but currently without anything else to do.
Eventually, Genesis manager Tony Stratton-Smith got Peter to commit to completing the album before doing anything else, and Peter returned to England. Mike called him, asked him to come out to Headley Grange, and they would sort it all out. Peter came back out and continued working on the lyrics for what would become The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The others had written a lot more music in the meantime, and the deadline for starting recording was approaching.
Ultimately, they finished the album, recorded it, and began a U.S. tour before the album had been released yet. This meant that the concerts, which consisted of the album in its entirety, with "The Musical Box" and/or "Watcher of the Skies" for encores, were being played to audiences who didn't know any of the new music and were expecting a "regular" Genesis concert. Instead, they got an hour and a half of a sprawling, confusing story, with great music and visuals, so it was overall a strange, mixed experience. Peter performed the first half of the album as Rael, the main character in the story, but the second half was mostly done in various costumes, some quite elaborate ("The Lamia", "The Slipperman", etc.). There were three large video screens, each with images to help augment and flesh out the story, but they were prone to timing issues and breaking down, and thus didn't quite have the intended effect.
Tensions rose within the band, mostly borne of frustration with how the concerts and the tour were proceeding. Audience reactions varied widely, from acclaim to consternation, but one constant was that Peter was seen as the "star" of the show, and the others were just his backing band. Tony, Mike, Phil, and Steve would play 100 minutes of excellent music every night, music that they'd put their hearts into, and backstage the fans would run right past them and surround Peter, telling him how great he was and asking for his autograph.
Peter decided that he would leave the group after the conclusion of the tour. When he told the others, they weren't particularly surprised, having already dealt with him leaving once before, knowing that he was apparently capable of doing it again at any time, and sensing his growing alienation from the band.
The tour finished with a European leg, with the final dates in France. Ticket sales were poor, and the last show was cancelled. This meant that when they played their last concert together, they didn't know that it was their last concert together. The final date was cancelled at the last minute, the tour was over, and they all went back to England.
The classic era of Genesis was over. It ended on a high note artistically, but with the future of the band uncertain.
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This is a funny one for me. The first song up to The Carpet Crawlers might be one of my favorite sequence of great songs... ever. And if that was the whole album, this might be my number 1 Genesis album. But the rest, the rest... I can't stand the rest of the album. It loses it's momentum and I rarely ever listen past Lilywhite Lilith because none of it does anything for me. A shame really. Still though, everything up to The Carpet Crawlers is fantastic. The build up to the bombasticness of Fly On A Windshield that grooves right into Broadway Melody, In The Cage which starts out on that great depressing minimalism and starts getting a bit more chaotic as it moves along, that somber but resilient melody of Hairless Heart, and the soothingness of The Carpet Crawlers. I adore the first part of the album.
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While not perfect - the second disc meanders a bit at times, for one - The Lamb is probably my favorite Genesis record. I would say 70% of it is absolutely dynamite (title track, Fly on a Windshield, In the Cage, Back in NYC, Anyway, The Lamia, It, etc.), with the rest mostly being pretty solid overall; The Waiting Room is the only track I usually skip.
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Oh, Lamb... how I love thee so. :heart This relationship definitely didn't start out this way, however... :lol
Let me take you back to the summer of 1985. My brother (who is about 3 years older than me) was able to go through his graduation ceremony in May of 1985, but we both had to go to summer school - him for sophomore English to finish his HS diploma, me for the second semester of Algebra I (there were only 2 people who passed the first semester - the rest of us failed, quite miserably :lol ). A few months prior, he somehow shanghai'd our mother into letting him keep the turntable/stereo in his room (which was once my room). So... he would take a side of The Lamb and play it. Over. And over. And over. :lol Which would go on for about 2 to 3 weeks, then he'd go to the next side.
My point? After hearing the whole album by side over and over caused it to work its way into MY brain like it was doing to his. It got to the point where I would almost shout (through the wall, natch), "Play the next side, dammit!" :lol
So, once I got this on CD... I didn't do the side thing. I did the CD thing. :lol
Yes, Sides 3 and 4 meander quite a bit but the whole album is so much definitive Gabriel Genesis that I can't help but love it dearly (and have since that hot, boring summer).
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The lamb is an odd one for me. I agree with the others who say the second CD does tend to drag a bit but despite this I do love and enjoy the album. The music throughout the first CD is some absolutely fantastic stuff but I have to admit, I never really latched onto the concept or story being told. I love the album but the plot never grabbed me in the same way that other concept albums such as The Wall, Scenes or the various Ayreon stuff has.
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Easily the best Genesis album imo.
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Damn, I have to make myself listen to this record, which is something I haven't done in a long time. We'll see if it clicks suddenly... I doubt it, though.
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Easily the best Genesis album imo.
This so much. I think the high points of disc 2 are as high as the high points of disc 1. However, the first one is far more consistent. I still love both ones though. The Lamia is one of the best songs.
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The first disc seems to have more catchy songs, and the second has more ideas and scenes and stuff. Since I'm partial to the instrumental stuff, I lean a little towards the second disc. "The Lamia" is gorgeous, "Silent Sorrow" is underrated, "Slippermen" is weird and cool, "Riding the Scree" is awesome...
Astute readers noticed that I said almost nothing about the content of the album, only about its creation and the tour. I wanted to hear what others had to say first. Tony, Mike, Phil, and Steve have all said that some of their best work, their best music, is on this album, but they've also all expressed some dissatisfaction with it. A lot of it had to do with how it went down. They had all this amazing music, and then Peter came in with reams and reams of lyrics, far more than would actually fit on a double album, and started fitting things in. Entire sections which they had thought would be instrumental ended up with vocals over them. There were parts of the story which were cut out because of time limitations, but some which Peter felt really needed to be there, so he asked the guys to write some music to fit into certain parts. It seemed to emphasize the rift that was growing between Peter ("the star") and the rest of them ("the band").
Tony has said that the story is the weakest part of the album. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and because of how everything fits together, it's hard to take individual songs from The Lamb and play them in concert out of context. "The Carpet Crawl" stands pretty well on its own because it has a verse-chorus structure, and some instrumental bits have been worked into medleys, but other than that and the title song, they weren't able to play much of it after the tour, and that's a shame. He specifically mentions "The Lamia", a beautiful piece of music that he's quite proud of, which you can't do as a standalone song because it just doesn't make sense. I understand his point, but I think that he's probably being a little too concerned about context. The audience would appreciate a good piece of music, regardless.
As mentioned above, Steve was probably the least happy with it, as he didn't really contribute much and doesn't have a lot of moments to stand out. He admits that that's partly his own fault, but he just wasn't thrilled with the whole concept, and had trouble working with it.
Phil talks about how the concerts were generally disasters. In the second half, there were all these elaborate stage effects and costumes and there were lots of malfunctions. Microphone cords would get caught on bit of scenery. Costumes (especially the Slipperman) sometimes prevented the microphone from getting anywhere near Peter's mouth, plus he was out of breath from running and changing, and there were a lot of words, with the result that you sometimes couldn't make out any vocals. I've heard bootlegs from these shows, and he's right. Phil says that he saw "This is Spinal Tap" and said "That's us!" He believes that the equipment malfunctions in "This is Spinal Tap" were based on the tour for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
For a while, there was something of a rumor that the band was happy when Peter decided to leave. All of them agree that this is completely and totally wrong. For all the problems with getting this album done, and the tour, they were very proud of it, and they were looking forward to taking a break and then creating another great album, together. They were devastated, even if they weren't really surprised.
Peter says that he didn't worry about the rest of them, not because he didn't care, but because he always felt that the music and the songs were the most important thing, and with so much talent still in the band, they would have no problem continuing. He points to the fact that Genesis continued to grow in popularity after his departure as "proof" that he was right.
Phil specifically denies that he "always wanted to be the lead singer" and couldn't wait for Peter to leave. Peter was the singer, Phil was the drummer, and everyone was fine with that. Phil did like to sing, but never considered himself a "real" singer and was very grateful that they allowed him a few spots while Peter was still in the band.
Anyway, the story is confusing. Would it have made any more sense if they'd not cut so much out of it? Maybe, but we'll never know. They briefly considered making it a triple album, but figured that that wouldn't fly with the label, and they were probably right. What remains is a story involving Rael, Imperial Aerosol Kid, and his adventures/fantasies/nightmares in New York, below it, and elsewhere perhaps only in his mind. It seems to be a journey of self-discovery; there is his brother John who appears from time to time, but whom many have postulated is not real, but is a reflection of Rael himself. John never responds to Rael, never helps him, and in the end, when Rael sacrifices himself to save John, he turns John over to find the John's face is actually his own.
Peter has never really explained it. He seems to want to leave it up to the listener's interpretation. This is okay, but also a bit frustrating because at some point, it really would be nice to know what it's all supposed to mean, if only so that the listener knows whether or not he was correct in his interpretation. But after nearly 30 years, no explanation appears to be forthcoming.
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I love this album, and I think the assessment of The Lamia as being a truly beautiful piece of music is lovely. It really is just wonderful. I've heard interviews where the members of Genesis have said that they think that the second half was not as strong as the first, but I have to say, some of my favourite parts are on the second, especially The Light Dies Down On Broadway. I love how that one returns the musical themes of the first track and turns them into something much more contemplative and melancholic.
I have to say that although Steve's work on this album is much more limited than on previous ones, there's still enough to really have him stand out as a brilliant instrumentalist, as do all the members, whereas on the two subsequent albums, his input is really, really small. That said, hearing him play Fly On A Windsheild live is pretty special. I love the way the mellotron on that kicks in in a massive way.
There are points where the vocals don't quite work with the music, but they do work better than on some things (Epping Forest, for instance), and all together, I think it's a pretty damn good album. It has problems, but it also has amazing things of amazing.
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It is a shame that the overall story of the album doesn't quite live up to expectations or what the band would have liked because there are some songs where you really get some fantastic imagery and can get to grips with the story they're trying to tell but in others it just falls apart. I think personally a triple album would have been too much and I think perhaps Peter in terms of lyrics and plot got a bit too ambitious but even with this they had created a fantastic piece of work which manages to overcome its faults.
As said ambition probably got the better of them and they weren't able to adapt their ambition into a more slimmed down format, a shame because Genesis, while having a few misses in the lyrical department were and from this moment on are fantastic storytellers with their music and lyrics, they did have a way with words that was accessible by most prog band standards, especially compared to a band like Yes who for as much as I enjoy them, I don't have a bloody clue what they're going on about.
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Another great album, although it's not one of my very favourites. I have a problem with a lot of double-albums, they seem to run out of steam (heh) after a while. There are many outstanding tracks here though - the title track, In The Cage, Back In NYC, The Carpet Crawlers, Hairless Heart, Counting Out Time, and It. I guess it's the 2nd disc that doesn't do that much for me as the first one do. Perhaps if I got the chance to see it live I would have had a better understanding of the concept/story and a better appreciation for the whole piece.
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I also disagree that playing songs from The Lamb wouldn't sound right out of context. Like you said, Orbert, good music is good music.
Also, I stand firm in my opinion that...
Anyway
Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist
The Lamia
...is the best three-song run on the entire album. :tup :tup
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Love the album.
But I really don't get too bogged down by the story/concept. When I listen to it, I approach the album like it's a big fantastical dream ... and dreams are supposed to be disjointed and nonsensical anyway.
To the point about some songs not being able to 'stand alone', it doesn't hurt that I'm an albums guy who generally listens to whole albums at a time. I rarely ever just pick out tunes from an album for spur-of-the-moment listening.
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LOVE this album - front to back, top to bottom, left to right - not a single song or second is unloved by me.
When I first got in to Genesis, this album was one of the first I listened to and was blown away by the scope of it all, and the playing was fiercely intense, with tracks like "Fly On A Windshield" and "In The Cage", as well as "Riding The Scree" and "The Colony Of Slippermen", they really had some of their best music on here! The lyrics, on the other hand, took awhile to understand, or at least, comprehend in terms of the context of the whole story. Eventually, I found websites that analyzed the story itself, lyrical references, meanings of words and phrases, and how it all fit together...well, one interpretation of how it all fit together.
This album was also my first double LP-length album. Up until this point, most of the prog albums I had listened to were only single vinyl-length, 40-50 minutes, so it was with THIS album that my love for double-length albums began, longer albums full of sprawling instrumental sections and wild jams and crazy stories. As Orbert said, before this album, there weren't that many albums like it, but since then, plenty have come along, but The Lamb is, for me, always the benchmark for the format.
-Marc.
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Going backwards through the discography of Genesis meant that this was my introduction to the band with Peter Gabriel as the singer, which given that it was his last album with the band is kind of funny. I bought Lamb on the shortest day of the year in a cold December, on the day that my high school best friend returned to town for winter break from the Air Force Academy, a day I remember clearly because it was overcast and it was as if night started at about 4:30 in the afternoon. I remember the clerk remarking on my purchase as being an awesome album, and I was right excited to get home later and play it.
My initial impression of the Lamb was actually the one I remain having today; the highs are amazing, but overall it's a flawed masterpiece. I didn't know the story of how the album came to be, but now that I do, the somewhat occasionally disjointed nature of the album makes a lot of sense. There are some fantastic individual songs-the title track, Fly On A Windshield, Broadway Melody of 1974, In The Cage, Counting Out Time, Lilywhite Lilith, Anyway, The Lamia-but like a lot of double albums, it starts running out of energy around the second album. Usually this happens around side three, but Lamb actually makes it to Slippermen before it comes apart, and back in the day, when I owned it on vinyl, I rarely played side four. I actually had no problem with the story, simply because it's not QUITE as obscure as Gabriel likes to make it out to be now. Young man undergoes various transformations in a mythic underworld transported to beneath New York City. I actually enjoyed greatly reading the story of the album that was inside the gatefold of the album. That's something you couldn't do today in a CD booklet.
I disagree with Banks' notion that you couldn't take the songs out of context. I suspect that, to a certain extent, that even to this day Banks occasionally thinks he was right about the choices that Gabriel made to change the music to fit his lyrics, so he's prone to think his initial vision of the music was superior to the end result. I actually was prone of dropping the needle on individual tracks on this album quite frequently, skipping the interludes and shorter pieces to get to the actual songs. It's interesting to me that, at the height of the prog era, when everyone was stretching out the length and going for full sides, Genesis made an album of songs with only two over 8 minutes long, and some of the best four to five minute long songs the band ever did. The argument could be made that the entire album was of a piece, and that made it long, but some of the songs are so good, and really DO work alone, that you could take the best songs from the album and throw them out of context into a set and not lose anyone.
The thing that stands out most for me now, having gotten all the way through the band's discography, is how little Steve Hackett is involved musically. As I said during the posts on Selling, his guitar work was already becoming less important, but on Lamb his contributions plummet massively, and in the two four piece albums that are coming he's at times practically invisible. Going backwards through their discography is a great way to illustrate just why Steve Hackett left the band; there was a certain inevitability to it. I am probably one of the few that rates Lamb behind the other three albums this line up did, but I do. It's got amazing highs, but it just runs out of energy for me. I will say that if I was to rate the first album alone, it'd be number one. That's some of the best music Genesis has ever done. It's the second album where it starts to lag.
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About the "meaning" of the album. My interpretation (that I actually read somewhere online and thought it made sense) is that Rael dies in "Fly on a windshield" (right after the "waiting for the windshield on the freeway" line, when the music just explodes) and is sent to some sort of limbo. He is doomed to be there until he sacrifices himself to save his brother (if he would have chosen to go through the gate to broadway in "The Light Dies Down" the whole thing would have restarted from "Back in NYC"). I think that his brother is the part of him that he repressed while trying to be a tough kid in New York and also the part that he needs to embrace to move on.
That probably didn't make much sense but I'm satisfied with that explanation.
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I don't think the fact that the story is REALLY disjointed ever bothered me - it was always the quality of the music that pulled me in and made me love this album the way that I do/have.
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But I really don't get too bogged down by the story/concept. When I listen to it, I approach the album like it's a big fantastical dream ... and dreams are supposed to be disjointed and nonsensical anyway.
This describes my thoughts about The Lamb's storyline to a 't.' :tup :tup
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I personally don't have problems with it, but one of the critiques I kept seeing when I was researching this one is that the story doesn't make any sense, so I figured I'd mention it. Turns out it bothers some people, but obviously not everyone.
Also, I tend to listen to this one end-to-end, and the music is just amazing. I listened a couple times in the car, a couple times with earphones while working out, and a couple times with headphones while surfing the net, and I kept getting blown away by how intricate and just plain amazing the music is. I found myself trying to tune out the vocals and just listen to the awesome music. So no, the story doesn't really matter. Heck, I grew listening to Yes, and their words never make sense!
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I know this is a thread about GENESIS themselves, but has anyone listened to Nick D'Virgilio's cover of this album with Rewiring Genesis? It's an amazing cover-album and it really brings out some nuances of the original by use of different instruments and arrangements, as well as changing styles and moods while staying mostly true to the original. It breathed new life into an old and over-played favorite of mine.
-Marc.
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I only found out about Rewiring Genesis recently, while doing research for this thread. I made a mental note to check it out sometime, but I tend to lose mental notes. Thanks for the reminder, and the recommendation. I do remember it striking me as a cash-grab ripoff thing. I tend to not be impressed by projects like this where the whole point is be to derivative of something else.
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I only found out about Rewiring Genesis recently, while doing research for this thread. I made a mental note to check it out sometime, but I tend to lose mental notes. Thanks for the reminder, and the recommendation. I do remember it striking me as a cash-grab ripoff thing. I tend to not be impressed by projects like this where the whole point is be to derivative of something else.
Being a huge fan of Genesis AND Nick D'Virgilio, I knew that if ANYONE in the modern prog would could do The Lamb any justice, it would be him. After all, Nick WAS on a Genesis album with Tony and Mike!
His vocals are perfect for the album, and the use of horns/winds/strings in place of many of the keyboard lines are just too perfect! There's an amazing accordion solo in "The Colony Of Slippermen", a clarinet solo in "Riding The Scree" that is mindblowing... you just never really think that Tony's blazing solos could be adapted to other instruments, but the sounds and the performances themselves are truly awe-inspiring. The whole band on the album is just top-notch, and Nick's drumming really does Phil's justice.
Before you listen to it, though, I would read Nick's write-up about the album in the liner-notes (and it is also online somewhere as well). Nick had recorded "Colony" back a few years ago with Mark Hornsby, and at the time of it's release online, no one knew if it was for a cover project, or just a one-off, but as we eventually found out, it turned out to be a whole album cover! The styles of jazz, fusion, and even New Orleans ragtime really pump new blood into this prog-rock classic. I highly recommend it to fans of the original, but go into it with an open mind. It wasn't made with the intention to offend die-hard Gabriel-era/Lamb fans, but for fans of that album to hear things that other fans of it (Nick and Mark) wanted us to hear, and they do an amazing job of it.
-Marc.
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So, a bit of a back-track, but I wanted to post this before we left the Gabriel-Era...
Awhile ago, when I got the LIVE Boxset, I combined the entire Live At The Rainbow 1973 show with 3 tracks from Genesis Live and one track from Archive 1 to form a 2 disc mega-live album that covers all the officially released live songs of the Gabriel-Era (except the Lamb show):
135:02
Disc 1 (68:36)
Watcher Of The Skies
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
The Cinema Show
I Know What I Like
Firth Of Fifth
The Musical Box
More Fool Me
Stagnation (Archive 1)
Disc 2 (66:26)
Get 'Em Out By Friday (Live)
The Return of the Giant Hogweed (Live)
The Battle Of Epping Forest
Supper's Ready
The Knife (Live)
*All tracks from LATR unless noted
Unfortunately, there haven't been any officially released live tracks of "The Fountain Of Salmacis" or "Horizons" or "Time Table" or...actually, any of the rest of the songs from NC/FT. At least there's 6/8 for SEBTP, and 3/6 for FT, and 2 each from NC and TP.
-Marc.
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Genesis: A Trick of the Tail (1976)
(https://i.imgur.com/mtddj85.jpg)
Outer jacket gatefold (https://i.imgur.com/V4erce5.jpg)
Inner jacket gatefold (https://i.imgur.com/PmpDqZW.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Background Vocals, 12-String Guitar
Phil Collins - Lead and Background Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, 12-String Guitar
Dance on a Volcano
Entangled
Squonk
Mad Man Moon
Robbery, Assault and Battery
Ripples (originally "Ripples...")
A Trick of the Tail
Los Endos
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With Peter Gabriel, their eccentric lead singer and front man, gone, Phil suggested that the band continue as an instrumental group. He claims that this was a serious consideration "for about five minutes". But as music for the next album was nearing completion, and over 400 singers had been auditioned with none of them being truly satisfactory, the idea came up again, this time championed by Tony. He had written most of the music for the next album and generally did not consider how vocals would work with the music anyway; that had always been Peter's job.
Phil had recorded guide vocals for some of the songs, so that the singers who auditioned would have an idea of what was expected. After hundreds of auditions, Mike said that none of them sounded better than Phil, and that they should just have Phil sing lead. He had, after all, sung lead on a few earlier songs, although those were both mellow songs with just voice and guitar. He had about the same vocal range as Peter had, but what they really needed to know was how he would sound singing the heavier stuff. Reluctantly, Phil gave "Squonk" his best shot. They recorded it and listened to it as a group.
They had found their new lead singer.
Musically, A Trick of the Tail is not a true successor to Peter's swan song, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The Lamb was an intentional stylistic departure and was written and recorded very differently from previous albums. A Trick of the Tail is much more a followup in style and tone to Selling England by the Pound and other earlier albums, which feature a good dose of English whimsy and storytelling.
The album sold better than anyone expected, reaching Number 3 on the British charts and remaining on the charts for 39 weeks. Tony said that it doubled previous album sales.
A Trick of the Tail opens with a heavy rocker in 7/4, "Dance on a Volcano". The song goes into a high-speed instrumental in 7/8 (the "dance") which was originally written separately but worked well with the song as both were in 7. Steve's guitar hook which opens the album returns in the closer "Los Endos" which also features riffs from "Squonk" (the other heavy rocker) and a song which did not make the final cut, "It's Yourself".
"Entangled" has an extended instrumental featuring keyboard leads over six- and 12-string acoustic guitars, and "Ripples..." has a duet between keyboards and lead guitar over acoustic piano. Overall, the album has a lot of guitar work, but very little lead guitar. In a departure from previous albums, songs have individual writing credits (as opposed to all songs by written by Genesis) and Tony clearly dominates the songwriting credits. His name appears in the credits for every song, and he has sole credit on "Mad Man Moon" and the title track. There are two songs credited to all four members ("Dance on a Volcano" and "Los Endos"), two credited to Tony and Mike ("Squonk" and "Ripples..."), and one each credited to Tony and Phil ("Robbery, Assault and Battery"), and Tony and Steve ("Entangled"). From this album forward, all songs have individual writing credits.
Towards the end of the final track, during the "Squonk" reprise, Phil can be heard singing two lines from "Supper's Ready": "There's an angel standing in the sun" and "freed to get back home". These lines were meant as a farewell to Peter. "Los Endos" sounds Spanish or perhaps some derivative of Spanish, but doesn't actually mean anything in any language. Phil says they made it up, choosing something that sounds like "The End".
Cover art is by Colin Elgie of Hipgnosis and features characters from each of the songs on the album.
When the time came to tour to support the album, they had to solve the problem of Phil not being able to sing and drum at the same time. As it happened, King Crimson had recently broken up (again), and drummer Bill Bruford was available. Bill played drums on most tracks, freeing Phil to sing lead vocals. During some of the extended instrumentals, both drummers played. The most notable exception is "The Cinema Show" which was always played as a trio by Tony, Mike, and Phil.
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When I first discovered Genesis and learned about their history, this album and Wind & Wuthering were two of my favorites, but after some time, I began to favor the latter over the former. I didn't really take to the tracks on "Trick", but over the years since, I started becoming immersed in each track, understanding and enjoying each song individually, and eventually, the album as a whole (with "It's Yourself" thrown in the middle between each vinyl side).
The lay-out does indeed remind one of SEBTP, but the lack of long epics (long being relative, anything over 9 minutes) initially drew me back a bit, but there's a lot of awesome epicness here - the instrumental sections in odd meters in songs like "Dance On A Volcano" and "Robbery, Assault And Battery" (with it's unusual 13/8, or 7/8+6/8 mixed-meter bridge/keyboard solo), or beautiful sections like in "Ripples...", "Entangled" and "Mad Man Moon".
Now I think I love this album as much as the one that follows it. I love it, and I find that it's a great effort from a band that was trying to recover from a huge loss. They showed that they were still definitively Genesis - it's a very lyrically and musically strong album, and of course, still very English.
-Marc.
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Another great album, although not one of my Top 5. Many great songs here. My favourites are Mad Man Moon, Entangled, Ripples, and the title track.
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Marc, once again I'm struck by how parallel our tastes and experiences are regarding Genesis. The two 1976 albums, this one and Wind & Wuthering, are probably my favorite Genesis period. The musicians really had a chance to stretch out, without Peter's vocals on top of everything. This period features the highest instrumental-to-vocal ratio, probably because Phil wasn't yet comfortable singing all the time. I too have "It's Yourself" right in the middle, between Side One and Side Two, on my iPod.
The break in "Mad Man Moon" is amazing. It's like a miniature piano concerto, with winds, brass, even tympani, all played by different keyboards. I think it's brilliant. I read an interview with Tony where he sounded very proud of that piece, but a little sad for Steve, who only has that one line in the entire song. I never thought about it until he mentioned it. I think the descant guitar line behind the vocals during the verse is beautiful and adds a lot to the feel.
Tony said that the chase scene in "Robbery, Assault and Battery" was in 13 because they wanted a feeling like "you never quite get there". The thief does get away, after all.
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Great album! Probably my 3rd favorite of theirs. :hat
IMO, Mad Man Moon, RA&B and Ripples is one of the greatest three-song runs the band ever did. Many go nuts over Squonk, but while I like it, I think it is one of the two songs on the album I wouldn't call great (the title track being the other). But the other six songs are all very, very great.
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First thing I want to say about this album: it was, when I bought it and Seconds Out on the same day, and it remains to this day, my single favorite album cover, inside and out. I spent ages reading the lyrics and looking at the art that went with each song. When people say "they don't make them like they used to" about album covers, they're talking about this one. Magnificent.
Second note: the summer I bought this album, my family got a puppy, a girl dachshund/chihuahua mix. And while she grew up to be an adorable dog, when we first got her, she looked kind of funny. In fact, she looked a great deal like a bedraggled rat. I was looking at the cover of Trick as I was playing it one day, with the puppy running around, and I said "she looks like a Squonk." I said this to my sister, showed her the album cover, and she agreed. And while once she got a few weeks older, she became a truly adorable dog, to this day, even though she's been long gone, me and my sister refer to her as the Squonk.
Musically, Trick does continue the direction the band had established on Selling, although it continued to do so at the cost of Steve Hackett. I've read articles that strongly suggested that this two album period was really the closest to the time that the band became the Tony Banks show, and it's kind of hard to argue aganst that; I had a crappy stereo at the time, and it wasn't until I replaced it that I even NOTICED Steve plays on Mad Man Moon. Though Tony's work on that is so gorgeous, and I feel this is the time to say that my favorite keyboardist of the classic prog era was in fact Tony Banks, it's kind of hard to complain. It is true that the album has a lot of guitar work on it, but it isn't until I finished it until the first time that I thought "wait, how many solos were there on this album that weren't keyboards?" In the interest of disclosure, if I was to list my ten favorite guitarists, Steve Hackett would solidly be in the top ten, so I had an interesting dynamic listening to this era of Genesis: it's great for my favorite keyboardist, lousy for one of my favorite guitarists. Thankfully the songs are so damned strong that I can overlook that-and I really can't think of a place on the album where it WOULD be right for Hackett to cut loose, but still, there you have it.
Phil does a great job in his debut as the lead singer-in fact, I've always thought he was a stronger singer than Gabriel in terms of actual voice, whereas Gabriel was definitely a stronger performer on stage, so to me, this was kind of an upgrade. Lyrically the band maintains the mix of whimsy and quirkiness that it had with Gabriel, but it adds a sense of melancholy that really wasn't around before with songs like Ripples. The must have version of this album is the re-issue that comes with a DVD of a concert that was filmed on the tour supporting Trick, featuring Bruford on drums. which is pretty neat to watch, especially since it's an artifact of the days when Phil was finding himself as a singer instead of being the drummer. That it features about half of Supper's Ready is just icing on the cake.
While I really like this album, I really love Wind And Wuthering, and Seconds Out has a place in my heart that I'll explain when we get there, so to me, we're really getting to the good stuff. :D
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This right here is my favorite Genesis album. Squonk is still one of my all time favorite songs ever. And Mad Man Moon is absolutely beautiful.
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And... this is where Genesis starts to lose me.
Squonk is the only song from this album that aged well for me, I'm sorry to say.
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Marc, once again I'm struck by how parallel our tastes and experiences are regarding Genesis. The two 1976 albums, this one and Wind & Wuthering, are probably my favorite Genesis period. The musicians really had a chance to stretch out, without Peter's vocals on top of everything. This period features the highest instrumental-to-vocal ratio, probably because Phil wasn't yet comfortable singing all the time. I too have "It's Yourself" right in the middle, between Side One and Side Two, on my iPod.
The break in "Mad Man Moon" is amazing. It's like a miniature piano concerto, with winds, brass, even tympani, all played by different keyboards. I think it's brilliant. I read an interview with Tony where he sounded very proud of that piece, but a little sad for Steve, who only has that one line in the entire song. I never thought about it until he mentioned it. I think the descant guitar line behind the vocals during the verse is beautiful and adds a lot to the feel.
Tony said that the chase scene in "Robbery, Assault and Battery" was in 13 because they wanted a feeling like "you never quite get there". The thief does get away, after all.
:tup
Maybe, subtly, it was the fact that there was more quite more guitar on W&W that lured me to it more than ATTOT initially, or perhaps the over-all sound of W&W was a bit more closer to SEBTP than ATTOT was, or maybe it was more because Phil had a better foothold on the vocal duties so his output on their 2nd album as a 4-piece was a bit more solidified.... whatever it was, I did like it more first!
And you're right about the instrumental-to-vocal. The songs have longer non-vocal breaks, and the end of the album is entirely instrumental (save for the two "Supper's Ready" quotes), while on W&W, we're treated to 3 instrumentals, and a couple more longer non-vocal breaks in the songs.
Interesting quote from Tony about RAAB. That is probably one of my favorite songs on the whole album, and that quirky mixed-meter break is what does it for me. The best part about that break - when the beginning of the phrase changes. Initially, it starts out as 7/8+6/8, but when the vocals come back it, it switches to 9/8+4/8, or rather, they flip the measures and it becomes 6/8+7/8, but it sounds like 3+3+3+4! It's bloody brilliant!!!
-Marc.
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Best album with Phil Collins.
Ranking
Dance On A Volcano
Ripples
Squonk
Los Endos
Robbery Assult & Battery
Entangled
Title Song
Mad Man Moon
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I do really like this album, but I have to admit, I think this album is sadly lacking the guitar work that I think it probably would have benefitted from. I think as a result of hearing Seconds Out as my first quartet era recording, I always think Squonk is a bit of a shame. It's a great song, but I always expect it to come in with mad drumming, and then it doesn't...
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Having grown up in the late 80s/early 90s, For most of my life I was under the impression that Genesis was "I can't Dance" and "land of confusion" and I didn't pay much attention, until one night 2 years ago. I was going through some of my uncle's albums and just happened to stumble upon A Trick of the Tail and figured "what the hell, I'll give it a shot" just out curiosity. My mind was blown and I was like "damn, this is really good". Then I got to Entangled and it brought a tear to my eye. Entangled has since become one of my favorite songs ever written.
It was on that day that I fell in love with Genesis and they have since become one my favorite and most respected bands. And even though I bow down to Peter Gabriel, A trick of the Tail is my favorite Genesis album.
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Phil has always had an ear for unusual harmonies, and he gets a chance to really dig in on this album. "Entangled" has some really odd, yet really beautiful vocal harmonies. I was listening to a boot of The Lamb , and with there's a lot of times when it's just Peter and Phil singing (either that or Mike wasn't in the mix) and Phil is all over the place. The way he jumps from 3rds to 4ths, 5ths, and 6ths is effortless and gives the illusion of much fuller chords. Here, he gets to actually fill in the chords.
I always think Squonk is a bit of a shame. It's a great song, but I always expect it to come in with mad drumming, and then it doesn't...
I like the drumming on the studio version of "Squonk", the way it starts with the roll in and doesn't let up. To me it's even stronger than the live version. What disappointed me was the ending. I too started with Seconds Out, and of course all of those songs have proper endings. The way "Squonk" fizzles down and fades is pretty weak by comparison (not unlike the way I feel about "The Cinema Show").
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Oh, yeah, the choruses on Entangled are perhaps the best Genesis ever did. That song has some fantastic vocal parts on it.
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It's also interesting to note that ATTOT has 6 out 8 songs released live in some form or another:
Four tracks ("Dance On A Volcano", "Robbery, Assault And Battery", "Squonk" and "Los Endoes") appear on Seconds Out
Two tracks ("Ripples..." and "Entangled") appear on Archive 2
This ties SEBTP for having 6/8 tracks released live on CD (the two exceptions being "Aisle Of Plenty" and "After The Ordeal"). I believe, these two tie for third in terms of having the most material/songs released live from a single album (with Invisible Touch with 7/8 as "Anything She Does" was never played live, and the Lamb, which had a complete live release on the first Archive set).
Which brings me to my question here...Were "Mad Man Moon" or "A Trick Of The Tail" ever played live?
-Marc.
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I would bet that "Mad Man Moon" was not. It required a lot of keyboard work to happen in real time, which Tony was actually not fond of doing, and as mentioned upthread, there's almost nothing for the guitarist to do.
I don't know about "A Trick of the Tail". It was a shorter song and actually had a video, so that would seem to indicate that the band considered it one of their more accessible songs, but I don't know of any live recordings of it.
Hmm, so actually I don't know about either one. ::)
Edit: I just dug through a dozen or so bootlegs, including 1976, 1978, and 1980, and neither of those songs were in there. They were still playing a lot of Gabriel-era stuff, which we knew, so they couldn't play every single song from the newer albums. Six out of eight from A Trick of the Tail is a pretty good representation, and I'd bet that those other two just weren't played.
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I am pretty sure I once read or heard that Mad Man Moon has never been played live, but I cannot remember where.
But for those of us who are fans of both Genesis and Neal Morse, I always think that the verses to Mad Man Moon are one of the Genesis sections that had a massive influence on Neal. He channels that vibe a lot, especially when having sections where it is just him singing over a piano.
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When I first started listening to Genesis, I was sort of a Gabriel snob, and I really shortchanged myself by not giving the post-Gabriel era enough of a chance for too long. Now--and I mentioned this earlier in he thread--my top three Genesis albums are SEbtP, followed by this one and W&W in no particular order. (I guess that makes me a Hackett snob now!)
I have a tough time picking between this one and W&W, and I move back and forth between then pretty regularly. This is a very sloppy generalization, but while they're both very much Tony albums, I sort of see W&W as a little bit more keyboard-drenched. Love the compositions top to bottom on both albums.
Incidentally, my daughters (age 8 and 6) love Genesis, and regularly request to listen to them in the house. This album is probably their favorite, which speaks a bit to the strength of the vocal melodies here.
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That's awesome! I have a son and daughter myself, and have done what I can to introduce "good music" to the next generation. You know, as opposed to the stuff they will inevitably be exposed to via TV, the radio, and their friends.
A couple of years ago, our schedules worked out so that once a week, I'd pick up my daughter from the skating rink, have dinner with her, then drop her off at home while I went back to work for a while. I'd recently picked up the first two Genesis box sets and was working through them, and while driving in the car, I'd give her the booklet so she could read the lyrics and follow along. She thought things like "Get 'Em Out by Friday" and "Harold the Barrel" with the different characters were really cool. Different from the stuff she'd listen to in Mom's car. This was when she was maybe 11 or 12.
One time I picked her up and we grabbed some McDonald's or something, and I asked her if she wanted to sit and eat inside, or in the car, or what. She said "Let's sit in the car while we eat. We can listen to Genesis." Ah! Success. I actually got deja vu for a second, because it reminded me of all those times 30 years ago when my college roommate and I would get out of class and try to decide what to do, and the answer was often "Let's go back to the dorm and listen to Genesis."
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Sorry, couldn't get through The Lamb lies down on Broadway. So I decided to stop it halfway through and put on A Trick of the tail, and that's more like it!
This album is excellent. It has everything about Genesis I've grown to love, except for Peter's vocals, but Phil does an exceptional job. Favorites: title track, Dance on a volcano, Entangled, Mad man moon, and the massively underrated Robbery, assault & battery.
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The strangest thing happened this week when I listened to A Trick of the Tail from start to finish, thanks to this thread: I sat there thinking, "This might be their most consistent album to date." Every song is a winner (even the least best songs); it doesn't have a More Fool Me, The Waiting Room or Your Own Special Way. Granted, its highs might not be as high as The Cinema Show or In the Cage, but track to track, it is amazingly consistent. :tup :tup
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It is very consistent. That's one of the things I love about this album, it's so strong from start to finish.
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While I like Wind And Wuthering from this era more, because its highs are so high, I am willing to admit that Trick of the Tail is easily the band's most consistent album in terms of quality. It never sinks below good. It's just a consistent and solid album, in a good way.
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Genesis: Wind & Wuthering(1976)
(https://i.imgur.com/r5RC9D2.jpg)
Back cover (https://i.imgur.com/EE036Zo.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Guitars, Kalimba, Autoharp
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, Guitars
Eleventh Earl of Mar (Banks, Hackett, Rutherford)
One for the Vine (Banks)
Your Own Special Way (Rutherford)
Wot Gorilla? (Collins, Banks)
All in a Mouse's Night (Banks)
Blood on the Rooftops (Hackett, Collins)
"Unquiet Slumber for the Sleepers..." (Hackett, Rutherford)
"...In That Quiet Earth" (Banks, Collins, Hackett, Rutherford)
Afterglow (Banks)
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This album is much like the sophomore efforts from many bands. With the debut album, you have to grab your audience from the start, keep their attention, show them what you can do, and prove that you are worthy. Following the loss of lead singer and founding member Peter Gabriel, that is exactly what Genesis had to do with A Trick of the Tail, and they did an admirable job. This album, then, allowed them a bit of breathing room in that they'd established themselves and could now, to some extent, stretch out a little bit. But they also had to provide a follow-up which was at least comparable to the debut, otherwise the debut would be seen as a fluke, a one-off. Most Genesis fans agree that Wind & Wuthering is a worthy successor to A Trick of the Tail (and many even prefer it). These two albums are more alike than any two since Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, and for one obvious reason: They are the two albums which feature the four-piece lineup of Banks, Collins, Hackett, and Rutherford.
As was pointed out upthread, the instrumental-to-vocal ratio on this album is pretty high, probably the highest of any Genesis album. There are three bona fide instrumental tracks, and of course the instrumental sections on four of the other six songs. Track 3, "Wot Gorilla?", was primarily Phil's composition, based on a riff from Tony's "One for the Vine" and likely inspired by Phil's recent work with jazz-fusion band Brand X.
Tracks 7 and 8 were originally a single piece, but according to Tony they were split so as to give Steve more writing credits. As the most prolific writer in the band, Tony seemed aware that his name would dominate the credits, now that tracks were credited to individuals and no longer to "Genesis". Steve, on the other hand, was never a huge contributor in terms of writing. This is partly due, however, to the democratic process within the band. It is known that there were pieces submitted by Steve that were not particularly popular with the rest of the band, and it can be assumed that there were pieces he submitted which were voted down altogether. Also, Steve has cited this as one of the reasons why he left Genesis.
It is interesting, then, that this album and A Trick of the Tail both start with Steve playing what would become classic hook lines. His sinister "Eleventh Earl of Mar" riff opens this album just as his 7/8 "Dance on a Volcano" hook opened the previous one. All previous Genesis albums opened either with Tony's keyboards or Peter singing a capella. (The sole exception was Nursery Cryme , which began with Tony and Mike together playing an F# riff actually written by Anthony Phillips before he left the band.) It is almost as though the band was embarassed by how little spotlight was given to Steve during this time, and did what they could to help him out. There is more lead guitar from Steve on this album than on A Trick of the Tail, and Steve appears in the writing credits a bit more. Then there is his beautiful acoustic guitar solo which serves as the intro to "Blood on the Rooftops", a song that he and Phil wrote together. In the end, however, Steve felt stifled by working in Genesis, and after finishing out the Wind & Wuthering tour, he announced his resignation from the band. And then there were three.
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Absolutely LOVE this album, and every track on it. Still think it was a crime (cryme?) that they omitted "Inside And Out", and as many would say, they replace "Your Own Special Way" with it in their own mixes, although I really do like YOSW very much. It's a touching ballad and probably one of their best ballads, and I think it says a lot that the band played it as late as their Abacab Tour (IIRC).
My own special mix of W&W includes the three Spot The Pigeon EP:
Eleventh Earl Of Mar
One For The Vine
Your Own Special Way
Wot Gorilla?
Inside And Out
All In A Mouse's Night
Pigeons
Blood On A Rooftop
Match Of The Day
Unquiet Slumber For The Sleepers...
...In That Quiet Earth
Afterglow
It's a great 64:24 long album, and I actually really do enjoy the campy-ness of "Pigeons" and "Match Of The Day", a bit of a callback to tracks like "Harold The Barrel".
The closing trilogy of tracks are some of my favorite closers of any album, especially Genesis albums! I would rank it up there with "The Cinema Show/Aisle Of Plenty", "Los Endos", "Duke's Travels/Duke's End", "Fading Lights", and of course "Supper's Ready" (well, from Apocalypse In 9/8 to the end). There's some great playing (especially the keyboard parts) in "In That Quiet Earth", and I love how they reprise themes from "Eleventh Earl Of Mar", something they did back on SEBTP and ATOTT, and would do again with Duke. I also enjoy that "Wot Gorilla?" uses a theme from the middle of "One For The Vine"!
-Marc.
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Ahh, Wind & Wuthering.
This album has a bit of a personal meaning to me beyond my love of it as a Genesis album-since this thread began, I have gone through their entire body of work, trying to rank it as a whole, and I keep getting W&W as my favorite-because it was part of a murderer's row of albums I bought with my very first paycheck when I graduated high school. I was bumming around, not doing much of anything-I'd right fucked myself out of going to college due to sheer laziness in my senior year, and, yes, I'd love to go back in time to the start of my senior year and punch my younger self in the face and tell him to knock it off-and my dad, who worked for a construction company, offered me a job as unskilled labor. My dad had said for years that he wished he'd never gotten into construction and that I should avoid it at all costs. I went to tell him that, when a voice in my head said "but Jack! If you have a job, you can buy all those expensive double albums you like! Like Pink Floyd's The Wall!" I agreed with that voice, and said to myself, it's probably just a summer time job anyway!
I went to work, and my first week was right memorable. The night before my first payday I went to a friend's keg party at the beach, which meant I greeted the next morning with a purely stunning hangover. I dragged myself to work, got paid, and actually got off early. I went home, took a nap, and later that evening I hit the local mall, descending on the nearest record store with a vengeance. I walked out of there with the following albums: Misplaced Childhood by Marillion, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Yessongs by Yes, and Seconds Out and Wind and Wuthering by Genesis. If you're gonna start blowing money on albums, GO BIG. But that's one of the reasons why I am so fond of Wind & Wuthering. I'd love to tell you I took that pile of albums home and went straight for the Genesis, but I'd be lying. I spent the next week or so utterly hypnotized by Misplaced Childhood. :lol
As for the album itself-another reason I love it so is the simple fact that One For The Vine is my favorite Genesis song. Regardless of era. It's pretty much a masterpiece of playing for Tony Banks, who does so much on the song it's ridiculous. In a lot of ways, it cements the sound Banks went for over the first couple of albums the band did as a trio. Despite being nearly 10 minutes long, sonically it would fit in perfectly on either ATTWT or Duke. It goes in so many directions, laying out its circular story perfectly. I love the recurring guitar/piano motif that goes through the song, and especially love the instrumental sections of the track, especially the first one, where the music builds up until it EXPLODES in one of the best sections the band ever did. It's one of the best vocal performances Phil does with the band as well, and everything else is solid as well. And that piano at the end is magnificent. One For The Vine isn't just my favorite Genesis song, it's my favorite by a great distance.
The rest of the album is pretty good too. The instrumentals are all fairly varied and interesting. I loved how on the 83 tour the band added ...In That Quiet Earth to the In The Cage Medley, it's got a good driving riff and some nice soloing by Tony. Eleventh Earl Of Mar makes a strong case for being the best opening song Genesis ever did, which given how well they opened their albums is saying a lot, and I still air drum to it today. Two things that are striking about the album is how instrumental heavy it is, but also how ballad heavy it is. Your Own Special Way, Blood On The Rooftops, and Afterglow are all ballads, or at least "ballad-esque." I have no problem with Your Own Special Way, as Genesis ballads go its nowhere near as saccharine as their 80s ballads. And I love All In A Mouse's Night, which reverts a bit to the quirky character styled stories of the Gabriel era. Always loved the last bit with the cat trying to explain how he got knocked out, inventing a monster mouse to cover up how he knocked a jar onto his head. I've always approached Afterglow at a bit of a distance, since I went backwards through the band's discography, which for the longest time made the definitive version of the song the one on Three Sides Live, but it's still a great way to close out the album. Even if it doesn't have Phil and Chester Thompson playing those monster fills at the end. :lol
Hackett does get to do a little more on this album-he's not quite as invisible as he was on parts of Trick-but looking back with the benefit of hindsight it was obvious he wasn't happy. A shame, really, but the band does carry on with admirable fashion after he leaves. Wind & Wuthering is a fantastic album, and it bridges effectively the purer prog era with the sounds the band was going to start making on their next three albums. I've loved it since I got around to listening to it that summer-and despite that being decades ago, I'm STILL in construction, so that turned out to be a bit more than a summer job for me-and I just find it to be the perfect Genesis album.
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And I somehow quoted myself. Disregard this post :rollin
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Eleventh Earl of Mar is a Top 10 Genesis track for me.
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While I don't like it nearly as much as A Trick Of The Tail, it's still a good album. I always come back to One For The Vine. I'll have to re-listen to the album again, because the second half never really stands out to me as much.
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I meant to mention the EP Spot the Pigeon in my writeup. For those who are unfamiliar, Spot the Pigeon was an EP originally released only the U.K. It consisted of three songs written and recorded during the Wind & Wuthering sessions but not included on the album. They are:
Match of the Day
Pigeons
Inside and Out
As Marc mentioned, "Match of the Day" and "Pigeons" are lighter, more whimsical tracks which hearken back to songs like "Harold the Barrel". "Inside and Out" is a "two-part" song. The song itself is quite mellow, telling the story of a troubled young man who will be getting out of prison soon, having been incarcerated for taking certain liberties with a young woman, though not entirely without her permission. The second part explodes into a high-speed instrumental with some excellent work by all four members. I'm trying to think of any Genesis instrumental with a meter as high as it is here, and I'm coming up empty. This one really smokes, and it's a damned shame that it wasn't included on the album. I first encountered it, oddly enough, as the B-side to the single "Follow You, Follow Me" which came from ...and there there were three... It's pretty unusual to have the B-side of a single be a song from a different album, but perhaps they agreed with me that more people should get to hear this song. The other oddity about that single is that the version of "Follow You, Follow Me" isn't the same as on the album. It's not just a shorter version, it's a different mix.
Anyway, I go back and forth between this album, A Trick of the Tail, and Duke, as to which is my favorite Genesis album. They are all very strong in terms of songs and writing in general. This album and Trick are so consistent, and Duke is brought down just a bit by Phil's sappy divorce dirges but has that killer title suite. I find myself reaching for Duke just a bit more these days, but that's mostly because in the CD/mp3 era, I can skip songs if I want. In the LP days, I played the heck out of A Trick of the Tail and this one.
"One for the Vine" is probably my favorite Genesis song. I spent a week or so one summer working up a solo piano version of it as a "performance piece" because I'd been asked to play at some thing that got cancelled; I don't even remember what it was now. I already had the sheet music, but as with most sheet music back then, all of the instrumentals were omitted; you had to figure those parts out yourself, and usually that was the toughest part. But I love a good challenge. And for the last 30 years or so, I've had a nice 10-minute Genesis piece to whip out whenever I get a chance. That one and "Firth of Fifth" are always good for whenever there's a piano and someone says "Hey Bob, play something."
"Your Own Special Way" is a beautiful song, and while I admire the effort and sheer balls it took to release a six-minute love song with four verses and two complete instrumental breaks, the result is just a bit much for me. But my wife (then fiancé) decided one day that it was "our song" and now I'm not allowed to skip it when it comes up.
The second half does get really mellow, doesn't it? I can understand people losing interest towards the end. Other than "Blood on the Rooftops", it took me a while to fully appreciate the second half, especially the instrumentals. Now I think they're awesome. The studio version of "Afterglow" is a bit tame after the great live versions on both Seconds Out and Three Sides Live, but the studio version did have to come first. My only complaint is the Mellotron at the end as it fades out. You can hear one guitar note by Steve, then his fader gets dropped way down and all you get is the "wall of Phil". If I were Steve and that was the last thing someone heard from me on a Genesis album, I think I'd be bummed, too.
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This album is definitely one you have to give a couple listens to since it is kind of strange, but it was worth staying with it for me. I’d get rid of Your Own Special Way in favor of one of the outtakes, perhaps Inside and Out. Or anything really, I hate that song, maybe some of you feel differently. Maybe get rid of All in a Mouse’s night too, don’t think that track is particularly strong, maybe go with Pigeons. While I do think Please Don’t Touch is a better song than Wot Gorilla, I think the band did the right thing putting that on the album instead because it fits better with the album. Where I really think they did Hackett wrong was not playing that beautiful piece Blood on the Rooftops live; BIG mistake.
At the moment I’ll give it a 4/5.
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As for the EP songs-I can't say that the album is really missing a lot by not having Match of the Day on it, it's kind of empty fluff. I really can't think of a song on the album I'd replace with Pigeons (or Match for that matter.) Inside and Out, though, is AMAZING, especially that second instrumental half, and I am willing to bet that a LOT of Genesis fans haven't heard it. I'm not entirely certain where it would have gone on Wind & Wuthering-the only likely spot is replacing Your Own Special Way-but it really is a song that deserved more than B side status. Admittedly Genesis was a band with a lot of strong B-sides-man, I miss the original version of Three Sides Live right now!-but people really need to hear this. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't heard these songs in ages-I worked with a guy who actually OWNED Spot The Pigeon-so I downloaded it this morning for a refresher course. The short songs are fluff, but Inside And Out is amazing.
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Never was a huge fan of the EP tracks besides Inside & Out. As for the album, meh. I like One For The Vine and the last three songs. The Eleventh Earl of Mar is also very good.
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YOSW would have made an OK 3-4 minute song. But as a 6 minute song...I think it's terrible.
LOVE the rest of this album. It might be just a half-step behind TotT, but OftV is the best song from either album.
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Anyway, I go back and forth between this album, A Trick of the Tail, and Duke, as to which is my favorite Genesis album. They are all very strong in terms of songs and writing in general. This album and Trick are so consistent, and Duke is brought down just a bit by Phil's sappy divorce dirges but has that killer title suite. I find myself reaching for Duke just a bit more these days, but that's mostly because in the CD/mp3 era, I can skip songs if I want. In the LP days, I played the heck out of A Trick of the Tail and this one.
I'm pretty similar in thinking very highly of all three of these albums, though I tend NOT to skip songs, which may be why I really don't reach for Duke very often.
Anyhow, W&W is, along with TotT and SEbtP, in my Genesis top three, and it's a big step down to four and five (Foxtrot and Duke). As I said in the discussion of TotT, this one feels to me very keyboard-heavy, which may be a part of the reason why Steve was feeling squeezed out. As a bass player, I'll add, this is one of the strongest bass albums in their catalog, IMO.
Great stuff.
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Well as I said, in the LP days, I never skipped songs. I noticed right away that no matter how careful you were, dropping a needle into a groove or picking it up out of a groove will result in pops and clicks, which I hated with a passion. So that was a rule.
These days, I still rarely do it because I'm used to listening to albums straight through, but when there's a song I really don't feel like hearing at the moment, I feel I've "earned" the right to skip it. Life's too short to listen to music you don't like, and it's really just the three songs. "Misunderstanding" is just too damned repetitive and got overplayed when it was a hit. "Please Don't Ask" isn't really horrible, nor is "Alone Tonight" (which is actually Mike's, but whatever); they're just not what I'm looking for when I put on Genesis. I love pretty much the rest of Duke.
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I love Wind & Wuthering. Eleventh Earl of Mar, One for the Vine, Blood on the Rooftops and what I call the Afterglow medley (the last three tracks) are all dynamite; Wot Gorilla? and All in a Mouse's Night are both good as well; I can do without Your Own Special Way.
The middle section of One for the Vine is easily one of the best Genesis moments/sections ever (even though I still think Collins' cymbals are too loud once the synth solo kicks in at 5:27ish).
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I like Wind & Wuthering MUCH better than Trick of the Tail. Y'all's mileage may vary.
And... IMO, this is the last REALLY good Genesis album. There were still bright spots here and there, but with the single "Follow You, Follow Me" the cookie-cutter Genesis got started.
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So I can put you down in advance for disagreement with me when I extoll the virtues of And Then There Were Three when we get that far? Cause I'm GONNA. :lol
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That would be a "hell yes". :lol
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And... IMO, this is the last REALLY good Genesis album. There were still bright spots here and there, but with the single "Follow You, Follow Me" the cookie-cutter Genesis got started.
Madam,your opinion is right.
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And... IMO, this is the last REALLY good Genesis album. There were still bright spots here and there, but with the single "Follow You, Follow Me" the cookie-cutter Genesis got started.
I can agree with this to a point. They completely lose me at the next album, and everything after is a few hits with a lot of misses. Except for... one album, that while part of their pop era, I find every bit as good as the prog era albums. But we'll get to that. ;)
But yeah, all of ATTW3 feels like a giant awkward transformation from the prog side to the pop side, with "Follow You, Follow Me" being the part where Palpatine finally says "Darth 80s-Genesis, rise." :lol
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You guys are silly.
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Here's another fine album, containing some classic tracks: One for the vine, Blood on the rooftops and Eleventh earl of mar. I also really enjoy Your own special way and it's a shame it gets so much hate, it's a cute song. The shorter instrumental tracks aren't too memorable, but thankfully they're short. :smiley:
And actually, One for the vine might very well be my favorite Genesis song. Everything about it is killer, and especially the instrumental section.
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Madam,your opinion is right.
Thankee sai. :)
But yeah, all of ATTW3 feels like a giant awkward transformation from the prog side to the pop side, with "Follow You, Follow Me" being the part where Palpatine finally says "Darth 80s-Genesis, rise." :lol
Nice. :lol
You guys are silly.
No way, man.
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Madam,your opinion is right.
Thankee sai. :)
Long days and pleasant nights ;)
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You guys are silly.
No way, man.
Way.
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You guys are silly.
No way, man.
Way.
Your own special way.
/full circle
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Long days and pleasant nights ;)
:biggrin:
Orbert/Nel... :lol
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Re-reading this thread, I just realized that I not only bought Wind & Wuthering and Seconds Out on the same day, but I also bought A Trick of the Tail too. Good lord. Of course, as I said in my post on W&W, I didn't get to the Genesis I bought that day because I also bought Misplaced Childhood the same day. :lol
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That's pretty impressive, though. You got the entire four-piece "era" at once.
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For a total cost, if memory serves, of around twenty-two dollars. Half of which was Seconds Out. :biggrin:
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I really like this album, but you're totally right about the sudden fade out of Steve.
That said, I really like the second half (particularly the last three, as they run together so well, and I love that keys solo in ITQE. I love how it just totally changes rhythm and goes all arabian. I think Please Don't Touch instead of Wot Gorilla? would have been a better choice though, but I like how it was given to us on Hackett's second album, so it's all good.
Also: the bass on Eleventh Earl just makes it so epic.
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I am not hearing what you guys are talking about, in reference to Hackett's guitar suddenly dropping out at the end of Afterglow. Time stamp?
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3:08, right after Phil finishes the last chorus. You hear a single guitar note (the same pattern which starts the song, although we're in a different key now) then suddenly the guitar drops to almost nothing. Instead, you have the Wall of Phil going "ahhhhhh" all the way out. For those of us who were familiar with the live version first, and know that Steve is actually still playing all this time, it's a disappointment.
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:eek :eek :eek :eek
Holy smokes. I had never caught that. That is pretty blatant, and now there is no way I can ever unhear it. :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
Also, thanks to this thread, I bought Inside and Out from amazon for 99 cents, and hot damn, that is a great tune! My Genesis playlist just gained another worthy tune. :tup :tup
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Genesis: Seconds Out (1977)
(https://i.imgur.com/4JUMbI6.jpg)
Gatefold and (some) sleeves (https://i.imgur.com/YJYo5dB.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, 12-String Guitar, Backing Vocals
Phil Collins - Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Steve Hackett - Guitars
Mike Rutherford - Bass, Bass Pedals, Guitars
with
Bill Bruford - Drums, Percussion (on "The Cinema Show")
Chester Thompson - Drums, Percussion (all other tracks)
Squonk
The Carpet Crawlers
Robbery, Assault and Battery
Afterglow
Firth of Fifth
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
The Musical Box (Closing Section)
Supper's Ready
The Cinema Show
Dance on a Volcano
Los Endos
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When Genesis took to the road in 1976 to support A Trick of the Tail, they hired Bill Bruford to play drums so Phil could front the band. Bill would later say that he needed the gig (as the most recent version of King Crimson had just broken up), but overall it was not very fulfilling playing someone else's parts.
As they prepared for the Wind & Wuthering tour, Phil thought of Frank Zappa's album Zappa/Mothers/Live: Roxy & Elsewhere, which he had recently heard. The 1974 Zappa/Mothers band had two drummers, one of whom was Chester Thompson. Phil contacted Chester, and Chester became the drummer for all Genesis tours until Calling All Stations in 1997. (Astute listeners will notice some riffs on Seconds Out that were "recycled" from Roxy & Elsewhere. Phil loved those riffs and specifically wanted to play them with Chester.) He also joined them for their reunion concert in 2007, and played on many of Phil's solo tours.
One of the features of the "new" Genesis shows was having two drum kits on stage, as Phil would head back to the kit and play during the longer instrumentals. During these times, Phil would often provide fills and accents, but there were also times when the drum part was doubled, or they worked out complimentary parts. When the parts were doubled, it provided an interesting visual element, as Phil is left-handed and Chester is right-handed. The "mirror image" effect is quite striking, especially during some of the more intricate drumming parts.
While Seconds Out was originally meant to combine the best of the A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering tours, only "The Cinema Show" from the first tour ended up making the cut, and thus is the only track to feature Bill on drums. Everything else came from the later tour and features Chester.
The setlists during this time reflected the transitional nature of the band, and the track listing here reflects the setlists of the time. Over half of the music is from before 1976; that is, songs on which Peter Gabriel originally sang lead vocals. In fact, even though most of the album is from the Wind & Wuthering tour, only one song from Wind & Wuthering ("Afterglow") appears on this album. Genesis still opened their shows with "Squonk" and closed them with the medley of "Dance on a Volcano" and "Los Endos" (with the "Drum Duet" serving as a bridge).
Seconds Out contained the only official live version of the epic "Supper's Ready" until the 1998 release Genesis Archives, Vol. 1: 1967-1975. (The Archive version has Peter on lead vocals.)
It was during the editing and production of Seconds Out that Steve Hackett announced his decision to leave Genesis.
The term "Seconds Out" is a play on words. It comes from boxing (or wrestling), when the referee would call for the trainers and coaches (the "seconds") to get out of the ring prior to the start of a round. This was the second live album from Genesis, their second one recorded out of the studio.
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Seconds Out was my introduction to Genesis, and is still one of my favorites. I bought it at the same time as And Then There Were Three, which was the new album at the time, and while ATTWT has some good stuff on it, I kept finding myself coming back to Seconds Out. I knew a little bit about the history of the band, but not a lot. I knew that And Then There Were Three was so named because they'd just lost their guitarist, after losing their lead singer some time before that. So this album was actually the one right before ATTWT, and still had the guitarist on it. Cool.
I remember seeing the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in stores years prior, and thought the cover was really cool, but I didn't really know much about Genesis. But one of my old girlfriends wanted me to play "Follow You, Follow Me" at her wedding, so I picked up And Then There Were Three so I could learn the song, and while I was at the record store, I saw the cover of Seconds Out thought it looked pretty cool, so I grabbed that one as well. I had no idea at the time how much of the album was from their early days. To me, it was all very similar. Musically, I would say that the 1976 albums do have a lot more in common with the earlier material than what would come later, and it is definitely Steve's presence which makes the difference.
Depending upon whom you ask, Phil either does an excellent job putting his own spin on Peter's songs, or completely desecrates them. I'm not sure if those terms are mutually exclusive. Phil's voice was not as dissimilar to Peter's as it became later, but his style is very different. Consider:
"And the lamb (oh the lamb) lies down (down down down!) on Broadway"
The extra words added by Phil don't add much, in my opinion, but Phil seems to need to fill in the gaps. Peter preferred letting the power of his vocal expression and often the words themselves make the statement. Phil is more "wordy" and just likes to sing. That said, the versions here don't sound wrong to me, as I heard them first, but I've heard many Genesis fans from back in the Peter Gabriel years express... "disappointment" at Phil's interpretations.
The live version of "The Cinema Show" here is still, to my ears, the definitive version. At least the instrumental section. I do miss Peter's flute during the song itself, but the instrumental is just incredible. Listen to it with headphones or earphones sometime. Listen to how Phil and Bill play off of each other (Bill's discipline and Phil's fills). And the way it builds up to a big ending. I've always loved how Genesis write great endings to their songs. No "cop-out" endings where you just hit the last chord and hold it; they composed an actual coda each time. "Squonk" gets a proper ending (I was actually quite disappointed when I later bought A Trick of the Tail and heard the original ending). "Los Endos" has a great ending. Even "The Carpet Crawlers" and "Firth of Fifth", while the endings aren't as exotic as the others, have a certain grace to their simplicity.
Also very cool is how they took a relatively simple song, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" and turned it into a great jam, with quotes from half a dozen earlier Genesis songs in it. And you get to hear Phil's "tambourine dance" even if you don't get to see it. If you ever get a chance to see footage from the 1976 tour and Phil's tambourine dance, check it out. I'm sure it's on YouTube.
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LOVE this album, and it's right up there with fellow 70's prog live releases Yessongs and Welcome Back My Friends as one of the best from the decade. Great song selection, great sound quality and the performances are just top notch! Phil took the songs as his own and, whether you liked them or not, made them into something else. He does a great job of breathing new life into Genesis, and I can only imagine what it was like, living in 1977 and buying this live album after hearing those Gabriel-Era songs sung by Peter for years!
Of course, it's great to have songs like "Supper's Ready", "Firth Of Fifth" and "The Cinema Show", as well as a couple of chops from The Lamb. There's a great wide selection between the 4 albums they had released since Live, their first live album, although I feel like they could've gotten away with releasing a TRIPLE LP, just like Yes did with Yessongs. There was definitely enough material between both Trick and Wind tours to release a consistently good Triple LP. At least there's later releases of the '76 tours, such as "Entangled" and "It/Watcher Of The Skies".
-Marc.
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Depending upon whom you ask, Phil either does an excellent job putting his own spin on Peter's songs, or completely desecrates them. I'm not sure if those terms are mutually exclusive. Phil's voice was not as dissimilar to Peter's as it became later, but his style is very different. Consider:
"And the lamb (oh the lamb) lies down (down down down!) on Broadway"
I have never EVER liked that phrasing. :facepalm:
(it's probably because I'm more of a fan of the Gabriel era)
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I understand completely.
Phil got worse and worse as time went on. Someone upthread asked about The Way We Walk so I hunted down a copy and listened to it. Man, there's times I just wanted to yell "Phil, shut the fuck up!" The live intro to "Throwing It All Away" -- what the hell is that?
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People always say you never forget your first love.
In the Yes Discography thread, I told a story about how a much younger me picked up Close to the Edge and was flabbergasted to discover that the title track took up the entire first side. I didn't know you could do that back then, and it actually predisposed me to start looking into longer songs. However, it wasn't the first song that took up an entire side that I heard. That honor goes to the version of Supper's Ready on Seconds Out. It took me a while to actually hear a side long song because (1) I listened to mostly metal and (2) I didn't get into 70s Rush until after I got into 70s Genesis. Given my interests, you would have thought I'd have gotten one of Rush's epics first, but that honor went to Genesis. That might be why, as much as I love the original version, that my preferred version of Supper's Ready is this one on Seconds Out. It just flows better to me than the studio version, which has always felt, I don't know, stiff to me in comparison with the way this version just flows. I have lost count of how many times I played Side 3 of Seconds Out late at night, listening to it over and over again, until I knew it by heart.
The rest of the album is just as good, if not better. I've always considered Seconds Out to be the best progressive rock live album of the 70s because it balances the more epic, adventurous side of Genesis with the more focused music of the four man era, and adds to it the fun touches like the jamming in I Know What I Like, which actually is another track I prefer to the Gabriel studio version. The interplay between the musicians, especially when Phil joins in and makes it two drummers, is exceptional, especially the Apocalypse in 9/8 section of Supper's Ready, where the drumming is so good I hear it even when I listen to the studio version. Hackett may have been unhappy in the band, but it doesn't show in his playing, and Mike and Tony are, of course, rock solid as always. Of all the Genesis live albums, this one is far and away my favorite, though a double album release of Genesis Live would likely top it.
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I understand completely.
Phil got worse and worse as time went on. Someone upthread asked about The Way We Walk so I hunted down a copy and listened to it. Man, there's times I just wanted to yell "Phil, shut the fuck up!" The live intro to "Throwing It All Away" -- what the hell is that?
:lol
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I really like Seconds Out. It's the first of the fourpiece era I heard, and I really like the version of Squonk on it. the studio version, as I've already said, is not really powerful enough after the live version.
But yeah, I love the way they go from TLLDOB into TMB closing section, it's such a good join.
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I played in band in the 80's, and "Squonk" was our opening song for a long time. The lead singer and I were huge Genesis fans and the drummer was a pretty big fan, too, and we convinced the others that it would be a great opener. It wasn't, of course. I mean, it's a great song, and we did it pretty well, but it didn't make any sense to be playing bars in Northern Michigan and opening with some Genesis song they'd never heard of.
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Yay I can join in the discussion again, although I did buy A Trick Of The Tail the other day and it's beautiful.
Second's Out I got purely for the live versions of Firth Of Fifth, Suppers Ready and Dance On A Volcano. The other tracks on here I did know of but wasn't amazingly familiar with them but after a few listens I grew to really love and enjoy them all. I think the album represents them well and I, unlike others, do enjoy what Phil brings to the band in a live setting. That being said I haven't heard Peter live and I was brought up with the Pop-Era Genesis rather than the more Prog Leaning, my first live experience of them is watching The Way We Walk.
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I thought Phil was amazing on this album and also Three Sides Live. And it's only natural and proper that he'd grow into his role as the front man and do things his way. He was an amazingly talented guy, no question, but I think as time went on, he got a bit too comfortable and took it a bit too far sometimes. If he'd dialed it back, say, 20-30%, it would've been so much better.
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Orbert, are there any specific things you'd wish he'd toned down or done differently? I'm curious.
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Well, to put it bluntly, his mouth. The intro to "Throwing It All Away" is... okay, it's clever. And if you like that style of singing, then I guess it's pretty cool. But I really don't, and I actually like the song, but I can't listen to it. I have no idea how the rest of the song sounds, because I can't get past the first few bars. But if it's anything like other later Genesis songs, the live version sounds exactly like the studio version anyway.
The ending of "I Can't Dance". Seriously Phil, just shut up, okay? "I can't dance. He can't dance. He can't dance. He can dance." (I imagine he's pointing at Chester) "He can dance" (probably pointing at Daryl).
It's like he gets so excited that he just runs his mouth and doesn't realize how completely stupid it sounds. Maybe most people think it's cool and I'm the only one who doesn't; I don't know. I always liked Genesis live albums because you get great live versions of the songs with no blabbering in between. Then The Way We Walk comes out and Phil's running his mouth during the songs, so there's no way to cut it out. Unfortunately, most of the live versions on The Way We Walk aren't any different from the studio versions otherwise, so maybe Phil's blabbering on just so something will be different.
I only saw Genesis once, on the "Mama Tour", but I've heard bootlegs from pretty much every tour, and Phil is not the storyteller that Peter was. Also, Peter's stories were out of necessity; they needed time to tune their guitars between songs. With an army of techs backstage and not nearly the intricate guitar parts anymore, they don't need them anymore. But Phil tells stories in between songs I suppose because they're part of the Genesis stage show. His intro to "The Cinema Show" is horrible. Juliet is a sweet young girl, but she has these enormous breasts. Romeo loves her enormous breasts, he can't wait to get that enormous brassiere off of her. Really, Phil? His story intro to "Duke" is idiotic. Doesn't ruin the song for me or anything, but it drives me nuts having to sit and listen to him babble his moronic stories when I know they're about to play one of my favorite pieces of music.
It's not all horrible. I love his intro to "Ripples". I never understood what the song was about before I heard him introduce it, and now it makes perfect sense and the song has a much deeper meaning. Same with "Keep It Dark". I'm still not a big fan of the song, but at least I understand what it's about, now that I've heard Phil explain it. Telling a story which actually has something to do with the song, or simply explains what it's about, is fine. The story of Albert, who is apparently the one we know as "Duke", is completely stupid.
It's usually not the songs themselves, but holy shit "Who Dunnit?" is an abomination. "We know, we know, we know, we know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know yeah we don't know yeah we don't know yeah we don't know yeah we don't know yeah we don't know" Great lyrics, Phil. I'm so impressed.
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That's kinda funny because that's something I enjoy about him. He probably really gets caught up in all of it with crowd interaction and stuff (stuff like that was really fun when I saw him a few years ago), but I can definitely see how it comes across as bland and mindless on a recording.
I find "Who Dunnit" a most excellent song when I've had one too many energy drinks. Also, there's a fun little decipherment behind Who Dunnit here: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/genesis-who-dunnit-revealed.68556/
But yes, fair enough, I can definitely see where you're coming from.
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As much as I love Genesis, I have never much had much inclination to check out most of their live stuff, aside from a few specific tunes, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
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As much as I love Genesis, I have never much had much inclination to check out most of their live stuff, aside from a few specific tunes, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Probably for the best, especially in their later years, although several tunes pop out in my mind that are greater in the live setting than they were in studio - most of Seconds Out, almost all of Three Sides Live, "Ripples" from Archive 2, as well as "Duke's Travels/Duke's End", and "Fading Lights" from The Way We Walk - the band just really rips on that one live, especially since it's really just the three of them (Phil, Mike and Tony). Probably my favorite moment of TWWW is that song, along with "The Old Medley".
-Marc.
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Seconds Out was my introduction to Genesis way back in the late 70s. It was either my junior or senior year in HS. Firth of Fifth absolutely floored me.
When I finally got the studio versions of the albums, I had to get re-adjusted to the music with Peter Gabriel on vocals.
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As much as I love Genesis, I have never much had much inclination to check out most of their live stuff, aside from a few specific tunes, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
That's a shame. Genesis was one of the few bands that I thought really did it right when it came to the live versions of songs. The entire structure of the song was preserved, the synth patches and guitar patches (??? -- I don't know what you call them) were usually better than the studio sounds, and as I mentioned, they came up with truly excellent codas to end songs which originally faded out. A lot of their studio tracks are amazing in their intricacy and the way the instruments are layered and interplay, and wisely, these are usually not the songs we hear on the live albums. The ones we hear live are the ones that benefit most from the live setting.
Up through Three Sides Live, I prefer the live versions of most of the songs to their studio counterparts. I had Seconds Out first, so there's some bias there, but I was familiar with the studio versions of everything on Genesis Live and Three Sides Lives before I bought them, and I still generally prefer the live versions. They're super tight and amazing. The songs really come alive.
The exception is The Way We Walk. The later material is less interesting to me overall, and in general because the arrangements themselves are so stripped down, the live versions don't really differ much from the originals.
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Yeah I absolutely love live Genesis for pretty much all the reasons you mention Orbert. The energy of the performances is so much better. And the drum parts got refined really well, especially in the Gabriel years.
As for Phil's talking, I do find it a bit annoying. While I don't care for his story prior to the Cinema Show (and later used for Supper's Ready) I don't find it anymore outlandish than Peter's stories. Peter had quite a few stories that were inconsequential to the actual songs. But I know he had to keep the audience entertained as they tuned their instruments.
Second's Out itself is great. Though I also agree they should have had a 3rd LP on it to include more things. Plenty of songs from the W&W tour were left off: Eleventh Earl of Mar, One For the Vine, and In That Quiet Earth were played throughout the tour. Your Own Special Way and Inside Out were played for long periods throughout the tour though I don't know if they were played on the nights used for the recordings of Second's Out. All in A Mouse's Night was played a few times though not frequently. And then you've got the leftovers from the TotT tour: Entangled, It/Watcher of the Sky (both appeared on later sets), White Mountain, and Fly On a Windshield. So there was definitely enough material recorded that they could have used.
The only other complaint I have about Second's out is actually the mix. My biggest complaint being the bass pedals could be a bit higher in the mix. But I just have a thing for that so I might be in the minority in that opinion.
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Having heard the boots from that tour, I agree, a three disc version of Seconds Out would have been flat out amazing, and likely would be not just my favorite prog live album ever but would be running neck in neck with Made In Japan and Live After Death for my favorite live album ever.
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Having heard the boots from that tour, I agree, a three disc version of Seconds Out would have been flat out amazing, and likely would be not just my favorite prog live album ever but would be running neck in neck with Made In Japan and Live After Death for my favorite live album ever.
Between the 2 set lists of both tours, here's what I would have included in a 3LP set of Seconds Out:
Side 1:
"Squonk"
"One For The Vine"
"Robbery, Assault And Battery"
Side 2:
"All In A Mouse's Night"
"Inside And Out"
"Firth Of Fifth"
Side 3:
"Eleventh Earl Of Mar"
"Entangled"
"...In That Quiet Earth'"
"Afterglow"
Side 4:
"Lamb Stew Medley"-
"The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway"/
"Fly On A Windshield"/
"The Carpet Crawlers"
"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)"
Side 5:
"Supper's Ready"
Side 6:
"The Cinema Show"
"Dance On A Volcano"
"Drum Duet"
"Los Endos"
Well, tentatively.... I might change my mind later :lol
-Marc.
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I would buy that album. Or failing that, take my bootlegs and make that set list. :D
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I would buy that album. Or failing that, take my bootlegs and make that set list. :D
LOL Ditto! I kept the last 2 sides the same just for the sake of continuity with the actual album, but I like the opening of the W&W set, so I used that to open with Side 1. Oddly enough, Sides 4 and 5 feature strictly Gabriel-Era material, something I didn't intend but now find interesting! The first LP, Sides 1 & 2, feature some great songs from Trick and Wind, as well as "Firth Of Fifth", a great way to close the first LP. The second LP features the Trick Tour Lamb Stew Medley, which runs about 14 minutes long!
If I rearranged it, I might put Sides 4 & 5 together on a single LP, and move Side 3 to Side 5, just to have the Gabriel-Era stuff on one vinyl. I do like this collection of tracks, though, but I struggled with trying to include "It/Watcher Of The Skies" somewhere in there, but couldn't. I didn't want to include "Lamb/Musical Box" or the aforementioned "It/Watcher" because I wanted to try and not include anything that was featured in Live, even if "Watcher" and "Musical" are just bits of the songs in these cases. Either way, it features all new material not played on the previous live album.
-Marc.
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Here's what's so great about this thread: I really like this era of Genesis, but for some reason, though I have all the studio CDs from this era, I have no live CDs. This thread made me realize how mind-bogglingly stupid this is.
So, rectified. just ordered Seconds Out. Will look forward to its arrival!
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Hopefully you won't be disappointed after all of this buildup. I personally love a good live album, but I know that they don't always work for everybody.
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Genesis: ...and then there were three... (1978)
(https://i.imgur.com/pXFHTFk.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford - Basses, Guitars, Bass Pedals
Down and Out (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Undertow (Banks)
Ballad of Big (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Snowbound (Rutherford)
Burning Rope (Banks)
Deep in the Motherlode (Rutherford)
Many Too Many (Banks)
Scenes from a Night's Dream (Banks, Collins)
Say It's Alright, Joe (Rutherford)
The Lady Lies (Banks)
Follow You Follow Me (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
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Originally, there were five members of Genesis, then there were four...
And as the transformation of Genesis from 70's progressive rock band to 80's pop supergroup continued, it was this album which was the first to go Gold in the United States, largely on the strength of their first U.S. single, "Follow You Follow Me". All three members of Genesis insist that the band had always wanted to write songs which people heard on the radio, it just took them a while to figure out how to do it.
Looking back, each previous album had one or two songs which conceivably could have been singles. Their first album actually did have two singles, though neither was very popular. "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" from Selling England by the Pound was a minor hit in the U.K. "Your Own Special Way" got some airplay in the U.S., and the title track from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was an FM staple for years, although it was never officially released as a single in the U.S.
But none of that really mattered. What mattered was that Genesis, the incredible shrinking band, had finally scored a hit single in the U.S. As the 70's were drawing to a close, and prog was being eclipsed by other genres, Genesis survived because they were able to redirect their considerable musical talent into creating strong, catchy pop songs.
"Follow You Follow Me" is one of the few songs on ...and then there were three... to be credited to all three members. Tony once again has the most songwriting credits, but Mike is a close second, and as usual, Phil has the fewest. In interviews, Tony and Mike both are quick to defend Phil from those who would accuse him of leading Genesis down the path from prog to pop. There are some longer songs on the album, but every song has the standard verse-verse-break-reprise structure. Because Phil was gaining more confidence as lead singer and front man, people make a correlation between that and the change in Genesis' sound, but it was clearly a band decision to move in a more pop-oriented direction.
Genesis, however, never completely abandoned the prog. "Down and Out" has a few mood changes to it and is something like "Squonk in 5/4". "Burning Rope" has an excellent instrumental section that goes through a few changes. "Deep in the Motherlode" also goes through some changes during its break, before returning (too soon) to the main theme. One of my favorites (which few others seem to like), "Say It's Alright, Joe", is deceptively complex, going through a series of delusions and daydreams before finally wandering off in a truly beautiful and graceful outro.
After keeping the prog/pop ratio on the high side for a few albums after the departure of Peter Gabriel, it is tempting to cite the departure of Steve Hackett as the turning point in the band's move towards pop and away from prog, but it's just not that simple. The music scene was changing, both the business and what was popular, and with another member gone, Genesis had to score a hit if they were to survive. And they did. "Many Too Many" was also released as a single, though only the U.K. It didn't fare as well as "Follow You Follow Me" but it showed that Atlantic still had confidence in them.
It may be surprising to some that there's quite a bit of guitar on this album. One must remember that Mike had always played guitar in Genesis, and is an excellent musician overall. He was there from the beginning and learned from both Anthony Phillips and Steve Hackett, and his soloing style reflects that. In terms of sound, the biggest change with ...and then there were three... is that the acoustic guitars are gone. And that's a shame because both Mike and Tony used to play acoustic guitar in Genesis. Again, this is evidence that the changing of the band's sound, stripping it down to basic keyboards, guitars, and drums, all but abandoning the acoustic side, was a group decision.
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I know I beat that horse pretty hard, about how Phil Collins was not the evil guy who single-handedly turned Genesis from prog to pop, but it seems to be a misconception that I run into everywhere, and it's just not true. As always, Tony and Mike wrote most of the music, and every song on this album is AABA. The B section is a little longer and more complex sometimes, but this is a pop album, as was every Genesis album from this point forward, and Phil had very little to do with it.
I still remember when I picked up Wind & Wuthering and heard "Your Own Special Way" because I recognized the song. I know I'd heard it on the radio. What I read in interviews later was true; Genesis always had a side to them that wrote shorter, radio-friendly songs. They just had to figure out how to write a hit, and they finally did it here. And considering the year, 1978, it was an unusual one. A synth solo when pretty much every song had a guitar solo. And no three-part harmonies during the chorus, when that too was pretty much the standard.
Re-listening to this album, I can understand why it's not one of the higher-rated albums in the Genesis catalogue. The band had been thrown for another loop, and while they came back strong on the commercial side, I think it's fair to say that artistically they played it pretty safe here. But it does have some good stuff; I consider four of the songs to be as solid as anything else in their catalogue. And since this was my first Genesis (studio) album, it will always be a special one for me.
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I love Down and Out and Deep in the Motherlode.
Undertow, Burning Rope and Many Too Many are all really good, as well.
The rest doesn't do a lot for me.
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As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I bought a ton of Genesis albums with my first paycheck as a full time worker when I got out of school. The summer before that though, I spent a couple of weeks helping my dad, who was doing some carpenter work, and I wound up making a walloping sum of forty dollars doing that. Some of it was spent on books, paperbacks going for about $2.50 at the time, a pile of it was spent on comic books because, hey, I was kind of a nerd...and the rest was spent on Grace Under Pressure by Rush and And Then There Were Three by Genesis. Which is why I have a very soft spot for it in my Genesis lists.
I also have a very soft spot for it because it's a really fucking good album.
Pull far enough back from the Genesis discography so you can take a longer view of it-many people just look at it as being the album they made because Steve Hackett was gone, and it has become retroactively part of the "Phil made Genesis sell out" mythology, so the musical direction is seen as starting on this album-and actually, it's following a similar sort of sonic template to the previous two studio albums. The band began to incorporate more traditional pop structures to their songs, which is really the largest change the band had on this album. Down And Out, Burning Rope, The Lady Lies, Undertow-any one of those songs could have been moved to either Trick or W&W and you wouldn't have blinked. The more pop songs are why it's a bit of a transitional album-you hear what they were aiming for here when Duke came out-but when you look at all of the band's work since Phil took over as vocalist, you actually see a through line where this evolution makes sense. (Play Trick, W&W, ATTWT, and Duke back to back. Trust me, you'll hear it.) It is interesting to note that the most conventional sounding song on the album, the pop ballad Many Too Many, was actually written by Tony Banks.
The highlights for me? Oh, lord. Practically the entire first side-Down and Out, Undertow, and Burning Rope are three of the best songs Genesis ever did. I've always had a soft spot for Scenes From A Night's Dream, which in a lot of ways prefigures a lot of the sound the band had in the early 80s. Mike Rutherford takes over all the guitar duties with style-his solo on Burning Rope is fairly simple but amazingly dramatic. This is one of the best albums for drumming Phil Collins had-my personal favorite is coming up next-and his drum sound is amazing on this album. Tony Banks remains Tony Banks.
Given what was going on in prog in 1978-Yes and ELP in particular were struggling with figuring out where prog needed to go-Genesis probably had the best answer you could give. Write good, interesting, cleverly arranged songs, and let their craft and ability shine through. It's occasionally looking for where it wants to go-they've not quite mastered the pop song knack totally, though that's coming with Duke-but it's a very good album by a band that was hitting a stride.
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Burning Rope is one of my favorite songs from the Collins era.
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This is the part where I phase out of the discussion again having not got any of the albums from here up until We Can't Dance, but I've heard a good chunk of the Pop Genesis output and I thought I'd weigh in on the whole Phil ruined Genesis thing.
I suppose people tend to view the singer as the default leader of the band and the one who makes most decisions, even though we know this to be untrue and I think many people deep down know it, the lead singer tends to be a figurehead and therefore an easy target. With Phil, well for some reason he just is a target, I don't quite understand why but there does seem to be a thing about people disliking Phil Collins and also the fact that he had the biggest Solo career out of the three probably contributes to this perception that he is the one that changed the direction of Genesis.
Again the others had solo careers, Mike had Mike & The Mechanics which scored massive hits and had a more pop sound, Banks I don't actually know about his solo output but Phil was the biggest of the lot and a major presence in the 80s so he just seems to be the easiest one to target.
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I've come to discover, over the years, that THIS version of the band, at this point, still had strengths and direction more so than a band that just lost Peter Gabriel. Not to say Steve Hackett didn't write with Tony, Mike and Phil, but you could tell his ideas were used less and less as the years went by, and by 1977, it felt like Tony and Mike had dominated, so when Steve left, it was pretty much just filling in the gap that both Tony and Mike could definitively do. Sure there's no acoustic guitar, no whimsical tunes, but now the other three had a chance to write some of the things that they might not have dared to include on a Genesis album before.
Some might say there's too many ballads, or too many plodding pop tunes, and not enough prog on this album, but in the transition from Trick/Wind and going towards Duke, this is a great album. I'll say, it could have been worse, but even the non-album tracks are good (something that can't be said for many of Genesis' non-album B-sides). I think it's a great collection of songs, and as many have said, there are strong ones: Down And Out, Undertow, Deep In The Motherlode, The Lady Lies, Many Too Many, Burning Rope....actually, come to think of it, the only songs I don't really care for are just Snowbound and Ballad Of Big. Replace those two with Vancouver and The Day The Light Went Out. Or, you can do what I did and just throw them into the track list anyway.
This isn't a BAD album, let alone a horrible album. The songs are just different, and some of them are even stronger than what would come, but I would say that it's on level with Duke in most areas (although I love Duke more, but more on that when we get there). This album and Duke are the last two of a great era of Genesis, for me, and once we get past that, it's REALLY hit or miss. If you miss classic Genesis after Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel left, definitely don't stop with Trick/Wind - get this album, AND Duke, and you won't be disappointed (if you keep an open mind/ear and lower your expectations a bit).
-Marc.
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This is the part where I phase out of the discussion again having not got any of the albums from here up until We Can't Dance, but I've heard a good chunk of the Pop Genesis output and I thought I'd weigh in on the whole Phil ruined Genesis thing.
I suppose people tend to view the singer as the default leader of the band and the one who makes most decisions, even though we know this to be untrue and I think many people deep down know it, the lead singer tends to be a figurehead and therefore an easy target. With Phil, well for some reason he just is a target, I don't quite understand why but there does seem to be a thing about people disliking Phil Collins and also the fact that he had the biggest Solo career out of the three probably contributes to this perception that he is the one that changed the direction of Genesis.
Again the others had solo careers, Mike had Mike & The Mechanics which scored massive hits and had a more pop sound, Banks I don't actually know about his solo output but Phil was the biggest of the lot and a major presence in the 80s so he just seems to be the easiest one to target.
Timing is huge on this issue. Because most people acknowledge that Phil's solo stuff took a similar nose dive along a similar timeline that Genesis did...thus, raising more eyebrows that Phil had something to do with it.
Most prog heads that like the crossover of Duke, also like Phil's solo debut...but after that it gets pretty sketchy.
I'm coming to realize that a) Tony managed to come up with a lot of the same sounds that he always came up with...so he really kept Genesis sounding like Genesis and b) It's really the lyrics that changed more than anything else...when they started writing about personal relationships instead of fantasy stories, their popularity soared.
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In Tony's 1978 interview in Keyboard magazine, he mentioned that. His song "Many Too Many" (which was a single in the U.K. but not in the U.S.) was "a song about traditional things such as love and kisses". It's hard to tell, but he seemed just a little bit embarassed by that, like he was aware that they were changing, and wasn't 100% comfortable with it, but was learning how to work with it.
He said that "Burning Rope" used to be longer. It's seven minutes now, but used to be over 11. They had to cut it down, as they didn't think the record company would be happy with a song that long. So the label did have some influence on the content of the album. I wish I could find the magazine now (I know I still have it somewhere, in a box in the basement probably), but I think the wording here is pretty close. I seem to recall that they weren't directly told what to do, or not to do, but made some decisions based on what they thought would fly, with the suits and perhaps with the public as well. They knew how important it was that this album succeed.
Tony said that the bits he'd cut out would probably show up later. Being new to Genesis, I wasn't sure what he meant by that. I was hoping that it meant that when they played the song live, they'd play the "long version" including all the parts they'd cut out, but bootlegs from this tour indicate otherwise. Once they've recorded a song, that's the arrangement. They'll do a few minor things that all bands do with live versions, and as mentioned upthread they'll work up a cool ending if necessary, but that's it. What I think he meant was that he has all these "bits" of music written and the stuff he cut out of "Burning Rope" ended up being used in other songs later.
I've never been a prolific songwriter (mostly because the few I've written aren't very good), but I tend to think of songs as singular entities. I come up with verses, choruses, and figure out instrumental stuff to flesh it out and hopefully make it more interesting. Guys like Tony have "bits" of music, probably ranging from just a melody or an idea to entire instrumental sections, and when it's time to write an album, they get pieced together into songs. Obviously it's not simply random; sections must fit together, make sense logically and musically. I specifically remember that the "song" part of "Dance on a Volcano" and the "dance" part (the instrumental) were completely separate compositions, possibly from different writers, but they tried putting them together simply because they were both in seven, and they liked the result.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share that, since I was thinking about "Burning Rope" and what Tony had said about it, and that got me to thinking more about that interview, which came out shortly after this album.
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Funny, I've never really listened to Burning Rope and thought "how would this sound if it were longer?" It's already weighted heavily towards instrumental sections in terms of length-the intro and instrumental break make up a great deal of the song, it has a great structure and works well as it is. This is a case where less was definitely more, if you ask me. I suspect the comment about how the label wouldn't want an 11 minute long song was probably more a comment on the climate musically at the time, as prog rockers were rapidly turning into dinosaurs. Which is really odd when you consider the same label released a live album by the band that had only four songs on the second album!
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Well, Yes were pretty huge and enjoyed a great deal of "hands off" from Atlantic during that time. Genesis wasn't huge yet; they had had some success but had yet to prove themselves a truly bankable act. I agree that their decision to trim "Burning Rope" down to what we have now was probably a good decision, but I would have loved another mini-epic like "One for the Vine". Also, while I love Mike's guitar solo in "Burning Rope" and the way it jumps in there rather suddenly, when I read that comment from Tony, it seemed to me that that was probably one of the cuts they'd made, and I wondered what originally came before that solo, or if the solo was longer.
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Some might say there's too many ballads, or too many plodding pop tunes, and not enough prog on this album...
Yep. I do. ;)
Well, not the prog thing. I didn't care about that. I listened to this along with Duke the other day, and I still don't like it. As I said earlier, the album sounds like an insanely awkward transition between what they were and what they would be. "Deep In The Motherlode" is a fantastic song, though. I've also got a soft spot for "Follow You, Follow Me", because I heard it so much as a kid. Otherwise, the rest of the music here just isn't very memorable, and isn't very good.
And the album cover always looked like someone gave up halfway through creating it. :lol
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And the album cover always looked like someone gave up halfway through creating it. :lol
I know, right?! I mean, look at the logo... I've always wondered about their decision to put that green stuff over half of the G, par the E, and the tip of the N. I do enjoy that it's the same font as the logo on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, though!
-Marc.
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And the album cover always looked like someone gave up halfway through creating it. :lol
I know, right?! I mean, look at the logo... I've always wondered about their decision to put that green stuff over half of the G, par the E, and the tip of the N. I do enjoy that it's the same font as the logo on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, though!
-Marc.
Same here, man. I've always liked that they went back to the Lamb logo for this one, just never understood why the Nickolodeon slime was on it.
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From Wiki:
The LP sleeve cover was designed by Hipgnosis, the design studio founded by Storm Thorgerson (best known for his work with Led Zeppelin, UFO and Pink Floyd). In an interview, Thorgerson called the design a "failure", and described the concept being conveyed:
We were trying to tell a story by the traces left by the light trails. It was a torch, a car, and a man with a cigarette. The band was losing members and there were only three of them left. The lyrics of the songs were about comings and goings and we tried to describe this in photographic terms by using time-lapse. So there's a car going off to one side and then the guy gets out of the car, walks over to the front of it, and lights a cigarette. But as he walks he uses a torch and the car he was in leaves. There's a trail left by the car, a trail left by him as he's walking and then he lights a cigarette, which on the cover is where there's a flash of his face.
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goodness, I read the description and I still can't make out what is happening on the cover.
Wonder why they went with it rather than try something else or go with a more generic cover.
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Yeah, it's a weird one. Sometimes album cover art is just imagery and isn't really meant to make much sense, just look cool. Whether or not it looks cool is up to the observer, but I was surprised to find that it was actually supposed to make sense. As it was originally a vinyl LP with a jacket that unfolded, the picture continues round the back, and I considered including an enlarged picture showing the whole thing, but it still wouldn't have made any sense.
But what the hell. Here's a CD reproduction of the cover:
(https://i.imgur.com/jKoFrFM.jpg)
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It makes a bit more sense when you look at the full image, but the fact that Strom Thorgerson called it a failure says a lot, and I usually love his covers to death. At least it's an AMBITIOUS failure. :lol
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Well, at the very least it is a very nice sunset picture. Actually might have been really pretty to just take out the dudes and the light trails and left it as a sunset.
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In regards to the record label having some influence I would say that is true. The Producer of the album did not want Follow You Follow Me on it as he didn't care for it. The band played it for the record company and they said "That's a hit!" and it got put on the record.
Overall I like the album but it just doesn't look too good with the studio albums that it is book-ended by. W&W and Duke are just so strong that this one isn't too good by comparison. I think this is one of those albums I need to be in the mood to listen to. While I enjoy a lot of the songs, I also find times when I don't want to listen to them.
Ballad of Big was probably my least favorite at one point but I don't mind it now. I get a bit of an ELP vibe from it. Maybe it is the lyrics reminding me of The Sheriff or Benny the Bouncer. My favorites on the album are Down And Out, Undertow, Burning Rope, The Lady Lies, and Say It's Alright Joe. The latter being one that took a long time to grow on me but I really enjoy it now.
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I know I'm jumping in here but I love Down and Out and Deep In the Motherlode.
Say It's Alright Joe definitely gives hints as far as the sound the band was going to, from that opening synth chord (which Tony used through at least Invisible Touch).
And is it bad that I enjoy Scenes from a Night's Dream?
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Splent! Feel free to jump in whenever you want. The water's fine.
"Scenes from a Night's Dream" seems like it was meant to be a throwback to the whimsical story-songs they used to do, and it's cute, but something about it always bothered me. I never did figure out what. It's not a horrible song or anything, and it has that great beat, but it just doesn't work for me.
My favorite part of "Say It's Alright, Joe" is all the stuff they do during the fadeout. It's trippy.
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I've always loved Down And Out. It's really unstable and has a bloody epic synth solo. I like the whole album, but not as much as all the Hackett era things, and I rarely listen to it, but I enjoy it when I do. Follow You, Follow Me is pretty nice too. It's not their best, but it's a nice song.
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Genesis: Duke (1980)
(https://i.imgur.com/dGPAlfS.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, 12-String Guitar, Background Vocals
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Drum Machine
Mike Rutherford - Basses, Guitars, Background Vocals
Behind the Lines (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Duchess (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Guide Vocal (Banks)
Man of Our Times (Rutherford)
Misunderstanding (Collins)
Heathaze (Banks)
Turn It On Again (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Alone Tonight (Rutherford)
Cul-De-Sac (Banks)
Please Don't Ask (Collins)
Duke's Travels (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
Duke's End (Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
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After the ...and then there were three... tour, Phil's (first) marriage was falling apart, so he took an official leave from the band to try to save it. During this time, Tony and Mike both released their first solo albums, A Curious Feeling and Smallcreep's Day, respectively. Although Tony would go on to create more solo albums, form various bands and other partnerships, and even compose film scores and orchestral music, A Curious Feeling is still regarded as one of his best works. Much of it sounds not unlike Genesis during this time, primarily because he uses a lot of the same keyboards and keyboard patches. Mike's solo catalogue (outside his work with Mike + The Mechanics) is less extensive, consisting only of Smallcreep's Day and Acting Very Strange, but his first outing is considered the better of the two.
Phil eventually lost the fight to save his marriage. Tony and Mike were still finishing up their solo albums, so Phil took some time to work on his first solo album as well, Face Value. When Genesis reconvened in 1979, they were the same three people, but a different band. For one thing, Phil had worked out a lot of his emotional issues while writing Face Value, and during this process, he had become a more proflic songwriter, much more an equal to Tony and Mike, who had always been the stronger writers within the band.
Because each of them had spent most of their recent compositions on their solo albums, they came to group with very little already written, just a few songs and ideas apiece. This meant that the music for Duke was more of a group effort, and it shows. Duke is regarded by most Genesis fans as one of their best albums. Many staunch Peter Gabriel supporters and latter-day Genesis detractors even admit that this is a very strong album. The progressive elements which had been all but lost on ...and then there were three... were back. Still somewhat stripped down, and not as evident as during the Gabriel era, but definitely present.
They ended up with a 30-minute piece of music in six movements, six more songs, and two which didn't make the final cut (but which would appear as B-sides of singles from this album). The "Duke Suite" consisted of "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End". The original idea was to have the suite in its entirety on Side One of the LP and the remaining songs on Side Two. Fearing the inevitable comparisons to their earlier epic "Supper's Ready", they decided to break up the suite, opening the album with the first three pieces, opening Side Two with "Turn It On Again", and closing the album with the last two pieces. The other songs were arranged so that they could loosely fit into a larger narrative following the outline of the "Duke" story, but they are not part of the original story concept.
This arrangement also meant that for the fourth time in eight albums, the album was "bookended" -- musical themes which opened the album reappear at (or near) the end. "Aisle of Plenty" from Selling England by the Pound is a reprise of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight". "Los Endos" from A Trick of the Tail brings back riffs from "Dance on a Volcano", "Squonk", and "It's Yourself" (which did not appear on the album). "...In That Quiet Earth" from Wind & Wuthering ends with the riff from "Eleventh Earl of Mar" which opens the album. Also, and probably not entirely a coincidence, each of these reprises follows an instrumental or extended instrumental part of a song.
The "Duke Suite" was played in its original form (the six parts strung together) during the ensuing tour. According to Phil's spoken intro, "Duke"'s name is Albert.
"Turn It On Again" started with one of Mike's riffs, worked out on guitar, but it was originally much slower, with more of a heavy, driving beat to it. (Think "I Can't Dance" but in 13). The others liked the riff, but had trouble working with it, and Phil suggested that they speed it up. This allowed him to add a standard 4/4 backbeat rhythm, with an extra beat every three measures, making the song both simpler and deceptively complex at the same time.
"Cul-De-Sac" is something like a younger sibling to "Firth of Fifth". After a single sung line by Phil, Tony breaks into an extended piano solo which serves as an introduction to song proper. It's not as long, and not on an acoustic grand piano, but the parallels are still pretty clear.
Other Notes:
"Man of Our Times" contains, I think, Phil's heaviest drumming in Genesis to date. Getting his aggressions out on "In the Air Tonight" (from his Face Value) allowed him to finally find his voice on the drums, so to speak.
"Heathaze" is one of my favorite Genesis songs, an absolutely sublime, understated (and underrated) song by Tony. But what catches my ear every time is Mike's fretless bass, which is phenomenal.
The two songs which were not included on Duke were "Evidence of Autumn" and "Open Door". I like "Open Door" a lot, and "Evidence of Autumn" isn't bad either, if a bit cheesier, but they're both mellow songs, and between Phil's heartache songs, Tony's "Heathaze" and Mike's "Alone Tonight", the album was already leaning pretty heavily toward the mellow side. Overall, it made sense to cut them. What remains is a much more balanced album which starts and ends with strong, upbeat songs. "Evidence of Autumn" became the B-side to "Misunderstanding" and "Open Door" was the B-side to "Duchess".
This album constantly fights it out with the two 1976 albums for my favorite Genesis album. It usually wins. After getting my first CD player for my birthday in 1982, this was the first CD I bought.
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Duchess is one of my favorite Genesis songs. It takes a bit too long to get to the vocals, but I've always enjoyed the vocal melody and the story it was telling. Also enjoy Guide Vocal, Misunderstanding, Heathaze (second favorite on the album), and Turn It On Again. I'm pretty indifferent to the rest of the songs on the album though. I never knew that some of those tracks formed a suite, though. I wonder if I'd enjoy those other songs more if I heard the suite as one seamless song. And finally the cover art. Not sure how I feel about it, even years later. :lol I mean, it beats ATTW3, but I like the "classical" looking drawings Genesis had on a few of their 70s albums. Duke's looks like it was ripped straight from a newspaper comic. Though I suppose that was appropriate with the changing sound. Personally, I think the 80s Genesis albums have terrible cover art for the most part. It's the music that really matters, but I'm an album-collecting weirdo, so yeah. :P
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Duke is the end of a great line of Genesis albums, and the songs definitely don't disappoint... yes, even the sappy love ballads. I actually (still) quite like "Misunderstanding"! Of course, the highlights of the album are the opening suite of "Behind The Lines"/"Duchess"/"Guide Vocal" and the closing duet of "Duke's Travels"/"Duke's End". Epic groups of songs, full of wonderful playing and great singing from Phil! This album really shows Phil at his most confident up to this point. Now 4 albums out from Peter Gabriel, and after getting a hit single on the previous album, the band had a lot to show and prove, and wouldn't you know it, the band had a couple hits and singles on this album! They were slowly rising in fame and recognition, but the quality of the music didn't diminish from ATTWT - it got HIGHER! It's a shame the caliber of music didn't continue to rise through Abacab and Genesis, although both albums have their moments and good songs, they're full of mediocrity.
Fortunately, this is not the case with Duke, as every song ranges from good to great, and even greater than that! This has been, and always will be, a favorite of mine.
-Marc.
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Duke is pretty good, I've not heard it in a long time, but I really like the stuff from the main suite.
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The direction that Genesis had headed towards with ATTWT finds itself on Duke, in stunning fashion. The pop songs are far better at being pop songs, there are moments of prog even in the non-suite songs, and the suite itself pulls off the neat trick of being both a bit of prog and also, in Turn It On Again, somewhat able to be commercial. I agree 100% with the decision to split the suite up across the album; having heard the Duke tour bootlegs where they played it in order, it actually loses something in order, and would have fared badly in comparison to Supper's Ready. Spread out across the album, it becomes the unifying factor musically, and with the choice to split it up, you end up with one of the sheer, most stunning moments in the band's history, when Guide Vocal has its reprise in Duke's Travels. That simply works far better with the suite split up, because you're really not expecting it the first time you hear it, and it floors you with its execution. The first three parts are probably the best three track run in the band's history.
Non suite songs are pretty good too; I always liked Man of Our Times with it's massive, driving beat and Phil's thunderous drumming. Duke is my favorite album for Phil's drumming, with some fantastic playing all the way across the album. Heathaze is a perfectly lovely song, and I always loved how Cul-De-Sac managed to be a prog epic in around five minutes. Of the more pop songs, the obvious champion is Misunderstanding, but there's nothing wrong with either Alone Tonight or Please Don't Ask. The next few albums found Genesis to be a bit more hit and miss, though I suspect I have more love for Abacab and Genesis than a lot of their fan base do, but Duke is far and away the best album the trio version of the band ever did.
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Duke is regarded by most Genesis fans as one of their best albums. Many staunch Peter Gabriel supporters and latter-day Genesis detractors even admit that this is a very strong album.
Um... I must be an aberration then, since I think that a LOT of the stuff on Duke just did not age well at all.
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I am kind of with ya, Debra. I like Duke, but I don't love it. It is a good listen from start to finish, but the "wow!" moments are few and far between.
And I am not sure about most Genesis fans considering it one of their best albums. It is their 8th highest ranked studio album at both progarchives (and only .01 than ATTWT...) and Rate Your Music. And that sounds about right (although I'd put it ahead of Trespass). Again, I like it, but it isn't on the same planet as anything from the Foxtrot through Wind & Wuthering run. IMO, of course. :)
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That's genuinely surprising to me. Maybe it's the classic case of the progheads finding it too pop, and the popheads getting turned off by the progness. Still, it's weird because most of my friends, both progheads and popheads, consider this one of their best, and I guess I thought it was a pretty fair sampling.
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That's genuinely surprising to me. Maybe it's the classic case of the progheads finding it too pop, and the popheads getting turned off by the progness. Still, it's weird because most of my friends, both progheads and popheads, consider this one of their best, and I guess I thought it was a pretty fair sampling.
I was a bit surprised to see people claiming it as a middle of the road album. When we had a poll at another DT fan related site, I believe it finished well into the top 5.
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That's what I would've figured. Top 5 easily.
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Genesis: Abacab (1981)
(https://i.imgur.com/g8LXMBM.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Drum Machine
Mike Rutherford - Basses, Guitars
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For their follow-up to Duke, Genesis wrote an album's worth of material, then threw it all away. According to Mike, they had become caricatures of themselves. They made a decision, as a group, to not use anything that sounded like anything they'd done before. It was a deliberate, calculated move to break away from their roots and establish their new sound. This is also where Genesis began to really lose me and, I'm sure, other fans from the old days.
The word "Abacab" itself comes from an early arrangement of the title track. It had an A section, followed by a B section, a return to the A section, a C section, then returns to the A and B sections. The song went through a few more changes before they recorded it, and it's not in the "abacab" arrangment in its final form, but the name stuck. To fit with the abstract meaning of the song and album, they decided to go with an abstract cover, which was originally released in four different color schemes, and later pressings introduced further variations.
"Abacab" -- The album starts off with riff which always reminded me of a synth sound we first heard in "Duke's Travels". At 4:45 in "Duke's Travels" there's a synth lead built on fourth and fifths; here it became the hook for the title track. Therefore, I don't think Genesis succeeded in throwing away anything that sounded like anything they'd done before. To my ears, there was a natural progression.
"No Reply at All" -- Okay, this is definitely different. Earth, Wind & Fire's horn section had worked with Phil on his solo album Face Value and Phil thought that they could bring something new to the Genesis sound. As horns had never appeared on a Genesis song before, it was indeed new. The horns play on this song and also on "Paperlate", which didn't appear on the album. "Paperlate" was one of three songs cut from the album and released on the EP 3 x 3 ("three by three"). Both "No Reply at All" and "Paperlate" received airplay, but in doing so, seemed to blur the line between Genesis and Phil's solo work. Phil had had a minor hit with the song "I Missed Again" which also featured the Phoenix Horns.
"Me and Sarah Jane" -- In some ways, this was a throwback to the old Genesis style, if not sound. It is a very linear song, with no obvious verses or refrain. Instead, it goes through a series of changes as the song unfolds, finally breaking into a section which sounds like a chorus, but which only appears once and is gone. In that sense, it's not too different from "Turn It On Again" from the previous album. "Turn It On Again" has two verses and a chorus, but the second "verse" was added when they felt that the song was too short. It was originally linear, going through its changes and ending with the repeated "chorus".
"Keep It Dark" -- Again, a different sound from Genesis, but stylistically a throwback to their story-songs of old.
"Dodo/Lurker" -- Side Two of the original LP opened with this pair of songs which were originally part of a four-part suite. The other two parts were "Naminanu" (mostly instrumental but with Phil repeating the word "Naminanu" over and over) and "Submarine" (an instrumental). "Naminanu" became the B-side of "Keep It Dark" and "Submarine" became the B-side of "Man on the Corner".
"Who Dunnit?" -- Another song with a lot of strange synthesizer and percussion sounds, this one is catchy, but drives a lot of people, including yours truly, quite insane. Other than being catchy, it truly has no redeeming value. (Hey, my writeup, my opinions.)
"Man on the Corner" -- A mellow song, something of a distant relative to "Me and Sarah Jane", only it never breaks loose. It is quiet and melancholy all the way through, but it has a more standard verse-chorus structure. This song and "Me and Sarah Jane" both feature a drum machine keeping rhythm throughout, and "Me and Sarah Jane" contains the line "and now I'm standing on the corner". But that's just a coincidence, right?
"Like It or Not" -- I like this song. It has a great sound, and even if the lyrics are a bit trite, they're inoffensive.
"Another Record" -- Another one that a lot of people don't seem to like, but which I prefer to some of the aural assaults which take place elsewhere on this album. I think it's particularly clever that as the song is fading out and the record is ending, the last thing you hear is the refrain "Put another record on".
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According to Tony, the title track was originally nearly twice as long. With 10 tracks on the final album, and another five unused, Genesis considered making Abacab a double album. This would have been quite a statement that the band was truly born again. As it turned out, that wasn't really necessary, as it was quite obvious to existing fans that Genesis had turned a corner here. During the 80's, Genesis was nearly indistinguishable from Phil's solo material to most people, and both were on the air quite a lot. I eventually gave up trying to convince people that Genesis was not Phil's backup band and that there really was a difference, partly because I wasn't so sure myself anymore.
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Abacab was better than Duke IMO, but... that's not really saying much. :jets:
IMO, the best songs on this one are Keep It Dark, Dodo/Lurker, and "Who Dunnit?" (aka the tracks that weren't overplayed on radio at that time).
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I got into Genesis around the time Abacab came out, and Abacab was, in fact, the first Genesis album I ever owned-it was given to me as a Christmas present the year it came out. My relationship with Abacab as the years have gone by has become a bit ambivalent, though not for the reasons that a lot of people have, because I love No Reply At All to death, and in fact think it better than any of Phil's hits using horns. I have no problem with the first side in the least-Abacab is interesting, No Reply is a great pop song, Me and Sarah Jane is gorgeous, especially the last few verses, which are one of the few occasions that Genesis sounds like, well, Genesis on this album, and Keep It Dark has a nice driving beat and a good story. The album loses me on the second side, though I like Dodo/Lurker and Like It Or Not a great deal. While a lot of people get on No Reply At All for it sounding like Phil's solo work, Man on the Corner always sounded like a distant cousin to songs like In The Air Tonight and I Don't Care Anymore, only without the truly cathartic musical climaxes you get with those songs. And I've never liked Another Record, it just bores me. And the less said about Who Dunnit the better. :biggrin: I must admit to wishing they'd gone with making a four part version of Dodo for the sake of keeping the old prog alive, but Genesis decided to stop really thinking in terms of prog and started defining themselves as Genesis.
Which I submit isn't necessarily a BAD thing; the expectations of prog can sometimes straight jacket you into sounding in ways you may not want to. It's easy for us to look at Genesis and say "oh, I wish they'd stayed prog" but there's no guarantee that if they'd tried that, they would have been GOOD at it. For better or worse, this is the band that Genesis wanted to be, and were, for the rest of the time Phil was the singer. And given how it turned out for them, I can't say they made the wrong choice. But man, a 14 minute Abacab and a four part Dodo would have really interested me.
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But man, a 14 minute Abacab and a four part Dodo would have really interested me.
Same here.
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It's easy for us to look at Genesis and say "oh, I wish they'd stayed prog" but there's no guarantee that if they'd tried that, they would have been GOOD at it.
I think that's maybe what happened with the first batch of songs that they completely tossed. With Duke, there was IMO a good blending of the newer, stripped-down sound and the prog sensibilities. But when they tried to do it again, they just didn't like the results. As Mike put it, they'd become caricatures of themselves. I imagine it sounded like a straight-up pop band trying to sound a bit proggy or more artsy or something, and just failing. No evidence to support that feeling, but that's my guess. It's hard to walk that line, and I think Genesis just decided to go all the way with the pop.
For better or worse, this is the band that Genesis wanted to be, and were, for the rest of the time Phil was the singer. And given how it turned out for them, I can't say they made the wrong choice. But man, a 14 minute Abacab and a four part Dodo would have really interested me.
The original running order was "Naminanu"/"Dodo"/"Lurker"/"Submarine". "Naminanu" stops suddenly, and presumably "Dodo" would've kicked right in after, so there's no real flow there. You can hear "Submarine" starting as "Lurker" is fading out, but it's an instrumental, and overall feels like an idea that wasn't quite fleshed out. I do like "Dodo" and "Lurker", and they have a nice flow to them, so it's good that they kept them.
I have trouble seeing how the parts relate. I think the overall effect would've been that they put together a four-part suite to try to be proggy, but the results themselves were weak. It's definitely stronger with just "Dodo" and "Lurker".
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Don't really like this one. Extensive radio play on classic rock stations has left me numb to the title track, and I do enjoy "Me And Sarah Jane" and "Man On The Corner", but I just can't get into the rest of the album. And appropriately, it has one of the band's worst album covers. Seriously, what is that?
All in all, this is probably in my bottom 5 for Genesis. Which made the next album all the more of a surprise.
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And appropriately, it has one of the band's worst album covers. Seriously, what is that?
:rollin
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I do enjoy this album. But not as much as the others before it. The title track is fun and Dodo-Lurker is quite good as well. The rest are not too memorable.
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As with many, I originally had some problems with this album - it was quite a bit different than anything they had done before it, and to be honest, anything they'd do after it! It took me a longer time to warm-up to this album than it did the 3 after it, but in recent years, after I got the 2007 box sets, I revisited the album with fresh ears, and found some cool things to enjoy. I still cringe a bit during "Whodunnit?" but otherwise, I have found myself quite enjoying the other 8 tracks on the album!
For me, the top tracks would be "Me And Sarah Jane", "Dodo/Lurker" and "Abacab", with tracks "Man On The Corner", "No Reply At All" and "Keep It Dark" being middle-of-the-road. The rest are okay, with the aforementioned "Whodunnit?" at the bottom.
Side 1 is pretty great, and Side 2 was a bit more experimental. I do wish they had kept the Suite on there, though, and when I learned of it, I made a mix of the four tracks blending together (both when I got the 97 reissues and again in 2007 after I got the boxset remasters). It's a pretty interesting suite and I really like how "Submarine" blends in to the ending of "Lurker".
Indeed, they did have over 70 minutes of music over 14 tracks, and I would've enjoyed them all (to some extent), but I'm glad they made another single album, however, that hadn't stopped me from making my own double-album version with all 14 tracks on it!
Side 1 - 17:05
Abacab
No Reply At All
You Might Recall
Side 2 - 16:53
Me And Sarah Jane
Keep It Dark
Me And Virgil
Side 3 - 19:06
Naminanu
Dodo
Lurker
Submarine
Who Dunnit?
Side 4 - 17:28
Man On The Corner
Paperlate
Like It Or Not
Another Record
-Marc.
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For better or worse, this is the band that Genesis wanted to be, and were, for the rest of the time Phil was the singer. And given how it turned out for them, I can't say they made the wrong choice. But man, a 14 minute Abacab and a four part Dodo would have really interested me.
The original running order was "Naminanu"/"Dodo"/"Lurker"/"Submarine". "Naminanu" stops suddenly, and presumably "Dodo" would've kicked right in after, so there's no real flow there. You can hear "Submarine" starting as "Lurker" is fading out, but it's an instrumental, and overall feels like an idea that wasn't quite fleshed out. I do like "Dodo" and "Lurker", and they have a nice flow to them, so it's good that they kept them.
I have trouble seeing how the parts relate. I think the overall effect would've been that they put together a four-part suite to try to be proggy, but the results themselves were weak. It's definitely stronger with just "Dodo" and "Lurker".
A 14-minute "Abacab"?! I can't see how they would stretch that idea out, and if there were better parts to the song they had cut out, shame on them. But it sounds like they kept the best parts and kept it below half the original length, which I am thankful for.
As for the 4-part suite, I like it a lot, and "Submarine" is a great cool-down after the craziness of "Dodo" and "Lurker".
Also, bump, because there hasn't been much talk about this album, or it's B-Sides, most of which were pretty good! I enjoy "Me And Virgil" and "You Might Recall", and of course, the aforementioned "Naminanu" and "Submarine". The only one I don't really like too much is "Paperlate", mostly because we already have that poppy, horn-laden track in "No Reply At All", which is better than "Paperlate". Still, I put it in my 2-LP mix of Abacab for completeness, but it's on the other end of the album.
Over the course of all the tracks, you really get a sense of great experimentation by the band, with tracks like the 4-part suite, the use of the Earth Wind & Fire horns, and more drum machine tracks, and some interesting instrumental and vocal arrangements throughout. And because this was a very experimental record, there are mixed results and mixed reactions, but they definitely refined their formula a bit more with their next couple of albums (although, many would say those albums still have quite a few 'stinkers' sprinkled across them, but I would disagree, and as you'll find out, I'd take the worst tracks off Genesis and Invisible Touch over the worst tracks on Abacab, meaning "Whodunnit?").
-Marc.
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I loved Me And Virgil, which I first encountered waaaaay back then when it was one of the songs on the now gone fourth side of Three Sides Live, and I still can't figure out why it didn't make an album. But this was back when the songs that wind up today being region specific bonus tracks were B sides for the European and/or Japanese markets, depending on the band, so at the time it made more sense. I know all those songs have turned up in various boxed sets and whatnot, but it'd be neat to have them as bonus tracks for the albums they were B sides on or recorded near.
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I know all those songs have turned up in various boxed sets and whatnot, but it'd be neat to have them as bonus tracks for the albums they were B sides on or recorded near.
Before the 2007 Remasters, I originally did this with my CD-r mixes and added the bonus tracks to the end of the albums proper, but after the Remasters, I did track list remixes (as I have posted above with Abacab and prior albums in previous posts) that expanded the original album.
I think the 2007 Remasters did it right, despite being only available in the box sets themselves, but they dropped the ball on not including ALL of the CAS B-sides (of which they only included 3 out of 8), as well as not including remixes and edits of tracks, which you can find some of which on the two Archive sets, as well as other compilations, such as the extended versions of various 80's Genesis tracks (including "Mama", "It's Gonna Get Better", "Invisible Touch", "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight", and "Land Of Confusion").
-Marc.
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I like "Me and Virgil" too. It's a cool story-song that goes through some changes and ends up being a real coming-of-age tale.
"Paperlate" is fun and catchy, but I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that horns are fine for Phil's solo stuff, but not on a Genesis album. That of course is rather erudite and prog-snobby to say, but I can't help feeling that way. Phil defends the decision, saying that no one should say that a band must do a certain kind of music, and must not do certain kinds of music. And I actually agree with him, which is why I feel rather ashamed by my feelings towards both "Paperlate" and "No Reply At All".
Here's the kicker: I like both of those songs, and I love the horns. I was an Earth, Wind & Fire fan before I was a Genesis fan. But I just can't shake the feeling that Genesis songs shouldn't have horns. It doesn't just feel experimental, like they were trying new things. It feels like they were trying new things to see how they could sell more records. Not exactly the same thing.
Anyway, I don't hate Abacab, I just have trouble with some of the tracks. And that bugs me, too, because I can listen to every Genesis album before it cover to cover. But I simply cannot listen to "Who Dunnit?" If they'd dropped "Who Dunnit?" and "Keep It Dark" in favor of "Me and Virgil" and "You Might Recall" I'd feel much better about the album overall. But it was 1981. We were all going through some changes, some difficult times.
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I didn't mind the horns on No Reply At All...as I said above, I prefer it to the Phil hits with the horns that preceded it. Paperlate, though, felt WAY too contrived for some reason, and I've never really liked it. Strip the horns from No Reply At All, you still have a great pop song. Paperlate felt like it was written to have horns in it, if that makes any sense.
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Wow, I feel the exact opposite. The horn accents in "Paperlate" could be omitted and the song would sound about the same. They don't carry any weight. The horns in "No Reply at All" have actual room allotted for them in the arrangement. They're part of the hook, integral to the bridge, and at the end, they echo the vocal line. I always felt like the horns were added to "Paperlate" because they had the horns in the studio anyway, so they might as well put them on more than just the one song. Then they didn't put it on the album anyway.
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I basically just listen to No Reply At All and the title track on this album. Don't have much to offer to this discussion :P
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I basically just listen to No Reply At All and the title track on this album. Don't have much to offer to this discussion :P
So you only listen to the first two tracks... is it because they're the first two, and so once you get past them, you decide to change the album? Or that's all you really care for?
I think it's well done because, being the two better (best?) singles off the album, they lead the album off well with a great 1-2 punch, but because of that, they really put themselves in to the pop-rock category by opening with two strong singles, A-sides in fact, that open the album quite strongly, something that was new for them. Duke opened with a 12-minute suite of 3 songs strung together, And Then There Were Three opened with a couple semi-proggy tunes in the pop-length range, while the two albums prior opened with very proggy, lengthy tracks in the opening 2 slots.
We'll see Genesis pull the "open with 2 singles" trick again in the next album with "Mama" and "That's All", and again with the following two albums (albeit with "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight", the single was a greatly edited shorter version of the song).
-Marc.
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I basically just listen to No Reply At All and the title track on this album. Don't have much to offer to this discussion :P
So you only listen to the first two tracks... is it because they're the first two, and so once you get past them, you decide to change the album? Or that's all you really care for?
I've listened to the other tracks as well once or twice, but those are the only two I really care for.
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DTF'ers, I've been more of a lurker ( ::) ) here lately that an active poster. But I need to add my 2 cents here...
Really, honestly, give post-Duke Genesis another listen. Do NOT listen to it remembering the "prog rock" band that they used to be. Instead, judge the music for what it is (really, really solid 80's popular music). If, after that, you find some enjoyment in the music, listen again. Then the similarities between the two eras will become more apparent. It's still the same guys writing the music, and touches of their style can be found across their discography.
For example, once you've grown to appreciate "Me and Sarah Jane" a bit more for what it is, listen again and compare it to Tony Banks' compositions on Trick of the Tail and Wuthering.
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I've come to accept that Genesis by this point was really a different band that just happened to have three guys who were in an earlier version of the band. In interviews, however, they seem to waffle between insisting that they were still Genesis, and saying that the newer version of the band should be judged on its own merits (which to me is pretty much the same as saying that it should be treated as a different band).
For me, the problem isn't that I'm a proghead and cried myself to sleep over the demise of one of my favorite prog bands. It's that I didn't really care for the band that they'd become. I just didn't like a lot of the music they made, and some of it I outright disliked. And yes, I did like a lot of it. "Abacab" is unlike anything they did in the old days, and I love it. It's one of my favorite Genesis tunes. Same with "Turn It On Again". Those are both tight, catchy songs that had some adventure to them.
But while there is some pop music that I like, I've just never been big on pop music. I don't find most of it very interesting. Catchy, sure. And it can be well-written and well-produced, certainly. But in general, there has to be something more to it than two verses, a break, another verse, then repeat until fade.
I can't say I understand your example of "Me and Sarah Jane". To me, that's one of the proggier songs from "Abacab" simply because of its linear structure. It's not a pop song at all and yes, it would not have been completely out of place on either of the '76 albums, except for the drum machine.
Genesis kept one foot in the prog until the end, always including at least a song or two with a bit more going on than your standard pop tripe. And the pop they made was good pop, better than a lot of 80's music. But that's not saying much, really.
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I've come to accept that Genesis by this point was really a different band that just happened to have three guys who were in an earlier version of the band. In interviews, however, they seem to waffle between insisting that they were still Genesis, and saying that the newer version of the band should be judged on its own merits (which to me is pretty much the same as saying that it should be treated as a different band).
For me, the problem isn't that I'm a proghead and cried myself to sleep over the demise of one of my favorite prog bands. It's that I didn't really care for the band that they'd become. I just didn't like a lot of the music they made, and some of it I outright disliked. And yes, I did like a lot of it. "Abacab" is unlike anything they did in the old days, and I love it. It's one of my favorite Genesis tunes. Same with "Turn It On Again". Those are both tight, catchy songs that had some adventure to them.
But while there is some pop music that I like, I've just never been big on pop music. I don't find most of it very interesting. Catchy, sure. And it can be well-written and well-produced, certainly. But in general, there has to be something more to it than two verses, a break, another verse, then repeat until fade.
I can't say I understand your example of "Me and Sarah Jane". To me, that's one of the proggier songs from "Abacab" simply because of its linear structure. It's not a pop song at all and yes, it would not have been completely out of place on either of the '76 albums, except for the drum machine.
Genesis kept one foot in the prog until the end, always including at least a song or two with a bit more going on than your standard pop tripe. And the pop they made was good pop, better than a lot of 80's music. But that's not saying much, really.
And all of that above is pretty much why, for the most part, I will enjoy Genesis' entire catalog over Yes', despite Yes having a wider and deeper catalog, their sudden stylistic changes (mostly due to near-constant personnel changes) were a bit off-putting. With Genesis, their change was gradual, and you can hear, even in the Gabriel-Era days, how there were plenty of pop elements, and that in their later years, there were still plenty of prog elements, with a few songs on each album employing some sort of proggy change or chord progression, time change, solo, etc. etc. Heck, their career-high album We Can't Dance ends with an epic song with a lengthy keyboard solo in the middle, something that would remind one of "The Cinema Show" or "Duke's Travels/Duke's End".
Sure they always kept a foot in the prog-door, but that's GOOD. Yes sometimes barely had a pinky-finger in that door, and other times were half-way through it, but it was very hectic over the course of time.
-Marc.
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Yes and Genesis were very different bands. I agree with you that the change in Genesis sound was much more gradual. My comment that they kept one foot in the prog was meant to be a good thing, but I guess it may not have come across that way. Sometimes it seems like they did it out of obligation to their long-time fans, just throwing them a bone. I know that's not true, as even on Tony's solo albums, he usually has at least one or two long tunes that go through some prog changes.
And I agree with you about "Fading Lights". That's a beautiful song, one of my favorites. The instrumental section is similar to "Second Home by the Sea" in that it's a series of vignettes over an essentially static background. Even the instrumental from "The Cinema Show" goes through a couple of key changes. But overall, it's a fine break in a great song. I always saw the title as having a secondary meaning, being the closing track on the final Genesis album (until Calling All Stations, anyway).
Yes almost flaunts their constant lineup changes. They really have no choice, it seems to happen whether they like it or not, so they might as well embrace it. Over 40 years and dozens of albums, there are never more than two albums in a row with the same lineup. But this brings a fantastic variety to their catalogue, and that too can be a strength. There's some Yes that doesn't really thrill me, but there are almost no songs that I outright dislike. There's a fair amount of later Genesis that I really can't handle.
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Great thread :tup
Really enjoyed reading all the lengthy write-ups!
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Genesis: Three Sides Live (1982)
(https://i.imgur.com/39hony3.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Background Vocals
Phil Collins - Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford - Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
with
Daryl Stuermer - Bass, Guitar
Chester Thompson - Drums
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ORIGINAL U.S. TRACK LISTING
Side One
Turn It On Again
Dodo
Abacab
Side Two
Behind the Lines
Duchess
Me and Sarah Jane
Follow You Follow Me
Side Three
Misunderstanding
In The Cage
Afterglow
Side Four (studio tracks)
Paperlate
You Might Recall
Me and Virgil
Evidence of Autumn
Open Door
U.K. TRACK LISTING AND ALL LATER VERSIONS
Turn It On Again
Dodo
Abacab
Behind the Lines
Duchess
Me and Sarah Jane
Follow You Follow Me
Misunderstanding
In The Cage
Afterglow
One for the Vine
The Fountain of Salmacis
It/Watcher of the Skies
Note: In all versions, the second track is listed as "Dodo" but is actually both "Dodo" and "Lurker".
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Even though it had only been three studio albums since their last live album, it had been nearly five years, and their sound had changed enough that it was time to document it with another live album.
In the studio, Genesis was now a three-piece band, but on stage, as always, they were five. Chester Thompson, who had played drums on every tour since Wind & Wuthering was still with them, and after the departure of Steve Hackett, they enlisted the services of Daryl Stuermer as their fifth member on stage. Typically, Daryl would play guitar on older material originally played by Steve Hackett or Anthony Phillips; on more recent material, he would play bass and Mike would play guitar. This was the standard Genesis live band through We Can't Dance in 1992, and was also the lineup for the reunion tour in 2007.
At the time, Daryl was a session musician known mostly for his work with Jean-Luc Ponty, although he would go on to release several solo albums, play on most of Phil's solo tours, and appear on Phil's, Tony's, and Mike's solo albums.
The title Three Sides Live came from the fact that in the U.S., the album was originally released on LP, with three sides of live material mostly from the Abacab tour, and a fourth side of unreleased studio tracks from the Abacab and Duke sessions. In the U.K., however, the three Abacab outtakes had already been officially released on the EP 3 x 3 ("three by three") so the U.K. release had a fourth side of live material, and this became the official track listing for all CD versions of the album as well.
The first Genesis live album, Live, is a single album and a single word. The second live album was a double album and had a two-word title with a double meaning: Seconds Out. This, their third live album, has a three-word title and references the number three: Three Sides Live. (This may or may not all be coincidence.)
Everything on the original three live sides came from the Abacab tour, with one exception. "Follow You Follow Me" came from the Duke tour the previous year. On the fourth live side, "One for the Vine" and "The Fountain of Salmacis" also came from the Duke tour. The closing track, a medley of "It" and an excerpt from "Watcher of the Skies" actually came from the A Trick of the Tail tour, and thus has Steve Hackett on guitar and Bill Bruford on Drums.
The playing itself reflects the "new" Genesis sound. Leaner arrangements, with the songs themselves worked into tight, well-arranged jams. There are very few background vocals; instead, Phil tends to scat (as during the coda of "Turn It On Again") or otherwise ad-lib ("Misunderstanding" and others). As on Seconds Out, Phil occassionally joins Chester on the drums, and many of the instrumental sections feature double drumming. "Abacab", "Turn It On Again", "Behind the Lines", and "In The Cage" (a medley of songs from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and "The Cinema Show" from Selling England by the Pound) are the primary examples.
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I love the instrumental part of "Abacab" here. That closing section on the studio version which sounded like improvisation (and may have been) here becomes a terrific, scripted duet between the keyboards and the guitar. The drums go through some changes as well. Listen to how they switch to the floor toms during the guitar solo, and how you soon realize that it's not really a guitar solo after all, but merely the next part of the duet. The keys sneak back in, and soon everything builds up to a big ending.
"Turn It On Again" has a great ending, too. Once again, Genesis writes some great codas. Trivia: the chords during buildup in "Abacab" are the same as the chords in the coda to "Turn It On Again", just in a different key. In "Turn It On Again" it's D to A over B. In "Abacab" it's Eb to Bb over C.
It always bugged me that they fade out "Duchess" before it gets to "Guide Vocal", especially because we know that they did go into that song. It's not like it wouldn't fit; the song itself is what, a minute long? Those three songs go together!
And as much as I dig Phil's scatting at the end of "Turn It On Again" (okay, it's not true scatting, but I'm not sure what you'd call it), when he does a similar thing at the end of "Misunderstanding" I just find it annoying. Maybe it's the song.
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Great thread :tup
Really enjoyed reading all the lengthy write-ups!
Ha ha, thanks! Just Orbert being a know-it-all showoff, as usual.
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TSL is a great live album, and a wonderful follow-up from SO. The track list is pretty good, and even though I wish there were a couple more tracks from ATTWT, I can't really complain. The inclusion of Side 4 live tracks makes this album golden, IMO, especially with "One For The Vine" and "It/Watcher Of The Skies".
As an addition to this album, I made a 3rd CD from the live tracks on Archive 2, recorded from concerts between the Trick and Abacab tours:
Archive 2: Live - Disc 1 - 54:54
1. "Entangled" - 7:02 (1976)
2. "Burning Rope" - 7:25 (1978)
3. "Deep In The Motherlode" - 5:47 (1980)
4. "The Lady Lies" - 6:08 (1980)
5. "Ripples" - 9:54 (1980)
6. "No Reply At All" - 4:56 (1981)
7. "Man On The Corner" - 4:05 (1981)
8. "Duke's Travels/Duke's End" - 9:37 (1980)
It's the perfect vinyl-length addition to TSL, taking tracks recorded during the same tours used for TSL (with the addition of "Burning Rope" from the ATTWT tour).
Anyways, back to TSL itself, I haven't listened to it in awhile, so I think I'll revisit this one real soon!
-Marc.
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And as much as I dig Phil's scatting at the end of "Turn It On Again" (okay, it's not true scatting, but I'm not sure what you'd call it), when he does a similar thing at the end of "Misunderstanding" I just find it annoying. Maybe it's the song.
HEAR HEAR :clap:
Other than that, Three Sides is a VERY good live album - always thought so, too. I remember first hearing it during some vacation (either spring break, summer break or winter break) while I was at my Dad's. It would get played sometimes on Sunday nights down in Houston when the DJ would play seven albums in their entirety.
Good times.
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As a point of clarification (and because I get anal about this stuff), The US version of Three Sides Live initially did have the studio side. At least the two copies I had.
The first copy I sold back before the remaster came out and it was then I noticed the remaster was release with the UK tracks, so I had to buy another US version.
I've kept both the US original and the 1994 remaster because of the tracklisting difference.
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You know, I thought that that was the case, because I was pretty sure I'd seen the fourth side studio. That's what I get for trusting Wiki. I should've stuck to my gut.
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Genesis (1983)
(https://i.imgur.com/VIejScc.jpg)
Crap, I did it again. I "Modified" the writeup for Genesis instead of quoting it and editing it to create the writeup for Invisible Touch. Oh well, it's gone now. Sorry about that. Here's the album cover.
No replies for five days, so I guess we were done with this one anyway.
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This album was the defining turning-point for the band's career - a lot of album-hits, as you said Orbert, and more pop than prog in a higher ratio than ever.
For me, this was a hard album to get into. The first three songs (I still count both "Home" tracks as one song) are great, classic Genesis and a wonderful way to open the album. But then "Illegal Alien" came up and it just stopped me dead. I didn't get it. Was it serious, or meant to be ironic? Or perhaps even sarcastic? It wasn't until recent years that I've warmed up to it and it's crazy/wacky sounds, but even today I find it truly silly. Other than that, Side Two is good, especially "Silver Rainbow" and "It's Gonna Get Better". It surprised me that they had decided to edit the opening and closing tracks of the album for official release. Were they deliberately trying to pop-ify the song lengths in an effort to gain more radio airplay?
Anyway, the album is GOOD, but not great. It's on par with the two albums that surround it, which isn't saying much in the grand scheme of things.
-Marc.
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I fucking love this album, and it's in my top 3 for Genesis. Mama is a great dark and pounding track (love when the drums kick in harder), That's All is a nice catchy tune, Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea I loved the second I first heard it. When I ripped the two tracks to iTunes, I did it as one track. Just A Job To Do is another catchy track, and I've always liked Silver Rainbow and It's Gonna Get Better. Great closers to the album. Taking It All Too Hard is... just kind of there. Never cared for it and I usually skip it.
And then we have Illegal Alien. And TLM has it down pat. After four fantastic tracks, this stinker comes along and stops the whole thing dead. What were they thinking? I don't even give a crap about the racist overtones people have complained about in the past; it's just a silly stupid song that comes in at exactly the wrong time. Remove that, and this could very well be my #1 for Genesis. At any rate, it's certainly my favorite of Genesis' pop phase, and I feel like everything afterward is downhill (though I still like Invisible Touch, the 90s albums are a different story entirely).
Not much to say on the album cover. Like Taking It All Too Hard, it's just kind of there.
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I still own my cassette copy of Three Sides Live-my original vinyl copies from the 80s, because I hunted down the import version to get the now-standard live fourth side, are long gone-and I've always had a fondness for it. It has what I consider the definitive version of Afterglow-you have to have that huge drum fill near the end to make it Afterglow-and is a rock solid live album. I can see where people who were Genesis fans before they became huge might be annoyed to see that the truly prog stuff is left to a medley, but overall it's a good live album.
Genesis, now.
I go into this admitting that, of the albums the band released from 1978 to 1991, this is my least favorite. Yes, I like Invisible Touch better. I still, however, like it. Genesis by 1983 simply wasn't a prog rock band anymore, and approaching their last three albums with Phil through the prism of progressive rock will simply result in being let down. That being said, while most of this album could safely be considered pop...compared to the pop music spectrum that surrounded this album, this album, minus Illegal Alien, which to this day kind of perplexes me, is clever. Genesis had evolved into a band of songwriters that crafted well made, clever pop-rock songs. As this was the era when I got into Genesis, perhaps I approach it differently than someone who got into the band in, say, 1970 or 1976 or even 1978. But as I said discussing Abacab, I get the sense that Genesis became this band because they wanted to be, because their attempts to be deliberately prog simply weren't working. But compare Mama to the rest of the pop-rock spectrum in 1983, and it's WEIRD. Mama premiered on MTV in roughly the same time frame as the song Heart and Soul by Huey Lewis, and those two songs weren't even on the same planet, pop music wise. I like every era of Genesis, and I have no problem admitting that there are times where I like this era more than some of the Gabriel stuff. I'm also aware that is a massive YMMV moment, though. :lol
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I think "Mama" was the first single and first MTv video from this album. I seem to remember seeing/hearing it and thinking how cool it was that the first single was kinda dark and weird, not a happy sappy pop song. And the tour was "The Mama Tour" which, while not definitive, would seem to be a clue. I'm sure the tour was being put together as soon after the album release as possible, or maybe even before, so naming it after the first single made sense, especially since the album was self-titled.
Like most Genesis albums, I pretty much know every note of every song here. There was a time when this album got played at least once a day, sometimes twice. After a while, it was just Side One, but I didn't feel the need to give this one two full plays before writing it up, especially since it'd been five days since the last one. Kinda wacky how after all that time, ytserush posted a followup to Three Sides Live just as a I was previewing this writeup.
Anyway, I found "Illegal Alien" to be a bit more tolerable than I'd remembered (though not by much). Maybe because here in the digital age, there's no break after "Second Home by the Sea". I remember a couple of times, I'd flip the record over and silently dread hearing that first song on Side Two. That's probably what led me to eventually just play Side One and leave it at that. I have a rule about always playing an entire side of a record, to avoid pops and scratches.
On the other hand, after the proggiest track(s) on the album, I can imagine "Illegal Alien" being quite a shock when it comes at you without a break in between. See, there used to be that pause to turn the record over. Side One and Side Two have very different personalities, and it almost seems wrong to join them seemlessly like that. But this is how we do music these days.
The cover photo is the scattered pieces from inside the Tupperware "Shape-O" toy. I'm not sure why whoever wrote up the Wiki article felt the need to change the spelling, but I know that this is correct because we had one when I was a kid, and again when I was raising my own kids.
(https://i.imgur.com/gjtDFHM.jpg)
I think the photographer just like the simplicity of the color and the shapes (sans Foo).
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I like Illegal Alien, a nice and catchy song with a funny video. No more or less. Home By The Sea is probably my favourite here, with That's All as a second favourite.
Edit: I'm listening to Home By The Sea right now, and was thinking about the brief chord after the first chorus (0:56) that Tony is playing - what chord is it? Orbert?
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Obviously an Em variant of some kind. The dissonance sounds familiar, maybe that's a major 7 in there. Or maybe just a 2 trying to pass itself off as a 9. I'll mess around on the keys when I get a chance and see if I can figure it out.
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It always bugged me that they fade out "Duchess" before it gets to "Guide Vocal", especially because we know that they did go into that song. It's not like it wouldn't fit; the song itself is what, a minute long? Those three songs go together!
They didn't actually do Guide Vocal on the Abacab tour. It was performed on the Duke tour though. Duchess actually segued into The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway on the Abacab tour so it made sense for them to fade it out like that on the live album.
Also Fountain of Salmacis was recorded on the ATTWT tour. I'm a bit of a live Genesis nerd so forgive me for being picky. Incidentally here is a great resource for live shows/setlists... https://www.genesis-movement.org/boots.php
Any I've missed the last few album discussions. Abacab is the first Genesis album I ever remember hearing. My brother bought it and I remember listening to it and liking the synthesizer sounds. I couldn't have been more than 5 at the time. I liked the title track and Dodo. To this day I still think those are the best tracks on the album. Who Dunnit? is really bad. I'm really surprised that song survived to be played on the Mama tour.
I love Three Sides Live! As you had mentioned the live version of Abacab totally blows away the studio version. And I personally think they improved it each subsequent tour. Dodo is equally powerful. The "In the Cage Medley" is awesome. I heard this album before getting into the Gabriel stuff so these are the versions of the songs I always loved the most. I still do with the exception of The Cinema Show which I would give the edge to the version on Second's Out.
As for "Genesis" I personally find it to be the worst album they've done (though Invisible Touch isn't far behind). There is some good stuff though. Mana, Home by the Sea, Just a Job to Do, and Gonna Get Better are good. The rest of the album I could really do without. I skip "Taking it All Too Hard" so much that once when I heard it on the radio I wasn't sure if it was a Collins song or a Genesis song.
I remember reading a funny quote from Tony once. When he was compiling stuff to be placed on the first Archives box sets (the one that contained non-album tracks only) he asked the rest of the band what should be included. Phil said "You've got to have Silver Rainbow on there". Tony responded "Phil you realize that's already on an album right?" That's one of the many examples where I see that Tony really cares about the band and their history and the other guys not as much. In many ways Genesis was his band.
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They didn't actually do Guide Vocal on the Abacab tour. It was performed on the Duke tour though. Duchess actually segued into The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway on the Abacab tour so it made sense for them to fade it out like that on the live album.
Okay, that makes sense.
Also Fountain of Salmacis was recorded on the ATTWT tour. I'm a bit of a live Genesis nerd so forgive me for being picky. Incidentally here is a great resource for live shows/setlists... https://www.genesis-movement.org/boots.php
Thanks for the link. I think I knew/heard about that site a long time ago, but I don't really collect bootlegs. If I stumble across one, sure, but I don't go out of my way.
Once again Wiki has let me down. I used to avoid Wikipedia out of principle (for obvious reasons) but so many people seem to think that it's actually reliable, and it's my understanding that there's a certain amount of policing and accountability these days. But that's two or three times just in this thread that there's been wrong information there.
According to the Wiki page for Three Sides Live:
"Follow You Follow Me" – 4:58
Lyceum Ballrooms, London, 06 May 1980
"One for the Vine" (Banks) – 11:04
Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London, 05 May 1980
"The Fountain of Salmacis" (Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford) – 8:37
Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London, 05 May 1980
That's why I said they were all from the Duke tour. I mean, supposedly "One for the Vine" and "The Fountain of Salmacis" were from the same night. Fuck Wikipedia. I should just stick with actual sources. Meta sources suck.
Who Dunnit? is really bad. I'm really surprised that song survived to be played on the Mama tour.
Apparently Genesis themselves really like the song. I have no idea why. When they played it, and Phil put on the silly mask and danced around and sang it, I forced myself to sit through it. I thought that maybe the song gained something from being played live, something that had escaped me and which was missing from the studio version. Sometimes seeing a song played live can give you an appreciation for it that you didn't have before. Nope. It was still really bad.
I love Three Sides Live! As you had mentioned the live version of Abacab totally blows away the studio version. And I personally think they improved it each subsequent tour. Dodo is equally powerful. The "In the Cage Medley" is awesome. I heard this album before getting into the Gabriel stuff so these are the versions of the songs I always loved the most. I still do with the exception of The Cinema Show which I would give the edge to the version on Second's Out.
Both are terrific live albums. Great choices of songs (even if "Afterglow" is on both), and some great playing.
As for "Genesis" I personally find it to be the worst album they've done (though Invisible Touch isn't far behind). There is some good stuff though. Mana, Home by the Sea, Just a Job to Do, and Gonna Get Better are good. The rest of the album I could really do without. I skip "Taking it All Too Hard" so much that once when I heard it on the radio I wasn't sure if it was a Collins song or a Genesis song.
I try not to think of Genesis albums as "better" or "worse". There's just the ones I like better than others, and the ones I don't like. Invisible Touch is easily my least favorite, but a lot of people love it.
Does this contradict my statement that "Who Dunnit?" is really bad? No! "Who Dunnit?" is really bad.
I remember reading a funny quote from Tony once. When he was compiling stuff to be placed on the first Archives box sets (the one that contained non-album tracks only) he asked the rest of the band what should be included. Phil said "You've got to have Silver Rainbow on there". Tony responded "Phil you realize that's already on an album right?" That's one of the many examples where I see that Tony really cares about the band and their history and the other guys not as much. In many ways Genesis was his band.
I remember reading that somewhere, too!
Tony and Peter seemed like the co-leaders in the early days, and once Peter left, and especially after Steve left, you'd think that Mike would have stepped up more, being the other original member. But Phil was coming out of his shell and I think Mike just has a more laid-back personality. He's very talkative in interviews, even assertive sometimes, but he seems to realize that Tony and Phil aren't gonna dial it down, so he backs off a bit. He's got Mike + The Mechanics, which is definitely his band, and Phil had all his solo stuff and was on half of the albums recorded in the 80's. Tony has joked about how no one buys his solo albums, but you can tell that it does bother him, and I always feel a little sad for him. I think Tony is a brilliant composer and songwriter, but with few exceptions, he needs to collaborate with someone else, even just a little, to really shine. He's written some amazing songs with Genesis, but there isn't a single song on any of his solo albums that really blows me away, and I've heard most of them. Genesis was Tony's baby more than the others. Tony's solo albums seemed like just something for him to do while waiting for Genesis to get back together again.
His orchestral stuff that he does now is great. Beautiful, lush, and with lots of those great modulations and chord tricks. But at the same time, they're still practically background music. It's not like there are catchy melodies or parts where you can sing along.
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Regarding Tony's solo career, I like bits of it. I think his first "A Curious Feeling" is his best but nothing that could be ranked higher than something in my top 15 Genesis songs. I particularly like the songs Fish sang on from the Still album. And I have picked up one of his orchestral albums. It is good but as you say it is more background music.
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Fuck Wikipedia. I should just stick with actual sources. Meta sources suck.
That's always been my modus operandi....
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It was mine for a long time. The concept behind Wikipedia is fine, but I share the academic attitude that it simply is not reliable and should never be cited as a source.
But... in a moment of weakness... I... thought it might be okay. I feel so ashamed. :blush
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Edit: I'm listening to Home By The Sea right now, and was thinking about the brief chord after the first chorus (0:56) that Tony is playing - what chord is it? Orbert?
Yeah, I was right the first time. It's a major 7 thrown in there, low. So it's your classic E minor plus major 7, but with the 7 low so it's like a flatted tonic, with the tonic (or against it, ha ha), creating the dissonance. I'm not even sure which inversion you'd call it -- I was never good at that stuff -- but the (minor) 3rd is on top:
(https://i.imgur.com/cLNZtHi.png)
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I haven't heard much of their later stuff, but when they played Home By The Sea in Paris a few years back, it was amazing. It was also amazing a week later in London, but yeah, I love that song so much.
I guess, the low seventh is the gin in the chord.
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Edit: I'm listening to Home By The Sea right now, and was thinking about the brief chord after the first chorus (0:56) that Tony is playing - what chord is it? Orbert?
Yeah, I was right the first time. It's a major 7 thrown in there, low. So it's your classic E minor plus major 7, but with the 7 low so it's like a flatted tonic, with the tonic (or against it, ha ha), creating the dissonance. I'm not even sure which inversion you'd call it -- I was never good at that stuff -- but the (minor) 3rd is on top:
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/379469_4121578879724_1100344628_n.jpg)
I believe that would be in 2nd Inversion. Interesting chord! Gotta love the stuff that Tony Banks always comes up with!
-Marc.
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Edit: I'm listening to Home By The Sea right now, and was thinking about the brief chord after the first chorus (0:56) that Tony is playing - what chord is it? Orbert?
Yeah, I was right the first time. It's a major 7 thrown in there, low. So it's your classic E minor plus major 7, but with the 7 low so it's like a flatted tonic, with the tonic (or against it, ha ha), creating the dissonance. I'm not even sure which inversion you'd call it -- I was never good at that stuff -- but the (minor) 3rd is on top:
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/379469_4121578879724_1100344628_n.jpg)
Wow, thanks!
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I like the self-titled album. It's not a favorite, but I like it. It's solid from start to finish - no real clunkers (yes, I like Illegal Alien) - but it never really kicks your ass with anything particularly awesome (although parts of Mama, Home by the Sea and Silver Rainbow are all great).
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Edit: I'm listening to Home By The Sea right now, and was thinking about the brief chord after the first chorus (0:56) that Tony is playing - what chord is it? Orbert?
Yeah, I was right the first time. It's a major 7 thrown in there, low. So it's your classic E minor plus major 7, but with the 7 low so it's like a flatted tonic, with the tonic (or against it, ha ha), creating the dissonance. I'm not even sure which inversion you'd call it -- I was never good at that stuff -- but the (minor) 3rd is on top:
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/379469_4121578879724_1100344628_n.jpg)
I believe that would be in 2nd Inversion. Interesting chord! Gotta love the stuff that Tony Banks always comes up with!
-Marc.
Yeah, he's amazing with that kind of thing. What gets me sometimes is how he's fine with adding such a degree of detail for something that only appears once in the song. There are two verses before the first "Sit down, sit down" and this wacky chord is between the first and second verse. But it's perfect. It accents the lyric you've just heard, and it fits musically, throws you for a second, and somehow leads you back for another verse all at the same time. There are little things like that all throughout the Genesis catalogue, and it seems like it's Tony doing it most of the time.
I was thinking it was 2nd inversion, but I wasn't sure. When you take the root off the bottom and put it on top, that's 1st inversion, and when you take the third and put it on top, that's 2nd inversion. Is that how it works? I didn't know if the rules were different when you've got four notes (which would be stupid IMO, but it wouldn't surprise me) or if I remembered the rules correctly in the first place. When we got to inversions in music theory class, I started daydreaming and/or falling asleep. To me, it's just the chord; the chord is defined by the notes and that tonality (key, mode, whatever) you're in, not the order.
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I was thinking it was 2nd inversion, but I wasn't sure. When you take the root off the bottom and put it on top, that's 1st inversion, and when you take the third and put it on top, that's 2nd inversion. Is that how it works? I didn't know if the rules were different when you've got four notes (which would be stupid IMO, but it wouldn't surprise me) or if I remembered the rules correctly in the first place. When we got to inversions in music theory class, I started daydreaming and/or falling asleep. To me, it's just the chord; the chord is defined by the notes and that tonality (key, mode, whatever) you're in, not the order.
I believe it has to do with what is in the bass, or in this case the lowest note of the chord. 3rd in bass would be first inversion, 5th in bass would be 2nd inversion, and the 7th would be 3rd inversion. The confusing part of learning inversions for me was when we were learning the figured bass for each inversion. Those are different for regular triads and 7th chords. It is kind of fun to analyze these things in familiar songs though. It's a cool addition to the song.
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Be careful. It definitely has to do with the lowest note in the chord, not the bass. The bass and the chord can be almost completely independent of each other. The most interesting music IMO happens when the bass is doing almost everything except roots or fives (or threes). Or when the chords play against the bass. As I mentioned upthread, the entire first side is based on Em to D, but the bass stays on E the whole time. (Or in the case of "Mama" it's D-E, D-E over and over). The D/E (or Bm7/E) chord is everywhere, but when the D is inverted, you can't name the inversion based on the bass, because E isn't even in the chord.
Inversions can be interesting, I guess, but to me they're only really useful for discussing or clarifying the chord voicing. To me, there's nothing inherently different about a chord when you invert it. It's still the same notes; you choose the order or the "shape" of the chord based on where your hands are and what sounds best with whatever else is going on. If I had to actually think about what inversions I'm using when I comp chords, I'd never get anything done. For me, it's much easier to just let my fingers figure it out. If I try to think about it, I just get confused.
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Be careful. It definitely has to do with the lowest note in the chord, not the bass. The bass and the chord can be almost completely independent of each other. The most interesting music IMO happens when the bass is doing almost everything except roots or fives (or threes). Or when the chords play against the bass. As I mentioned upthread, the entire first side is based on Em to D, but the bass stays on E the whole time. (Or in the case of "Mama" it's D-E, D-E over and over). The D/E (or Bm7/E) chord is everywhere, but when the D is inverted, you can't name the inversion based on the bass, because E isn't even in the chord.
Inversions can be interesting, I guess, but to me they're only really useful for discussing or clarifying the chord voicing. To me, there's nothing inherently different about a chord when you invert it. It's still the same notes; you choose the order or the "shape" of the chord based on where your hands are and what sounds best with whatever else is going on. If I had to actually think about what inversions I'm using when I comp chords, I'd never get anything done. For me, it's much easier to just let my fingers figure it out. If I try to think about it, I just get confused.
Absolutely correct. I really should have clarified. When I said bass the first time I ment it in the general SATB 4 voice part writing that we do at school, where each voice is limited to one note, not bass guitar or even the lowest note of the keyboards. My fault.
It really is interesting how the whole first side is based on that Em to D. I wonder if that was a something they decided or just coincidence. I'll have to spin the vinyl of this again sometime soon. Great album, though I prefer the first side to the second.
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Ah, yes, the SATB arranging exercises. Made me want to kill myself, or at least consider a different major. I understand the value of mastering the fundamentals before you can dig into the fun stuff, but that didn't make the fundamentals any less painful.
My teachers were always marking me down for arranging things "wrong". Some said that it was creative, different, whatever, but still wrong, based on the standard choral voicing rules or whatever they were. I thought they sounded cool, and why was it so damned important to do it the way it's been done for 400 years or whatever? Do we really learn a craft only to learn how they've done it for 400 years, not how to do it in new ways? How "creative" is that?
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Genesis: Invisible Touch (1986)
(https://i.imgur.com/UmXJJ0c.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Background Vocals
Phil Collins - Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford - Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
Invisible Touch
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Land of Confusion
In Too Deep
Anything She Does
Domino
Part 1: In the Glow of the Night
Part 2: The Last Domino
Throwing It All Away
The Brazilian
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It had been three years since the last Genesis album, and after this, it would be another five before the next one. Genesis was officially a side project, something Phil found time for between solo albums and tours and playing on or producing half the albums released in the 80's, something Mike did when not busy with Mike + The Mechanics, and something which Tony always came back to even if he amused himself in between with solo albums and movie soundtracks that nobody bought.
But Genesis was not your ordinary side project; they were also a supergroup. They had Phil Collins, whose latest album won the Grammy for Pop Album of the Year and had four hit singles. They had Mike Somebody from Mike + The Mechanics, whose debut album also had multiple hits, including "All I Need is a Miracle", "Taken In" and that one song which nobody remembers the name of but which isn't "Can You Hear Me Running?" And they had that one guy on keyboards who was in Peter Gabriel's old band, like ten years ago.
And because they were a supergroup, when Genesis finally got back together in 1986, they created an album which went quadruple platinum in the U.K. and sextuple platinum in the U.S. Five of its eight tracks made Top 5 in the U.S., including the title track which went to Number 1, the only time Genesis has had a Number 1 hit in the U.S. Invisible Touch starts off with its title track with its pop hook and never looks back. The poppiest Genesis of all was also their most commercially successful, and that is probably not a coincidence.
Sure, there were a few minor nods to their prog roots. The album version of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" is nine minutes and has a long instrumental break. But the break is completely pointless, has no melody, and while it does a great buildup to lead back into the refrain, upon reflection it did nothing to earn that buildup. There is the two-part suite "Domino" with its wonderful rubato break between the parts, but other than that, it's just two straightforward 4/4 pop songs linked together. Wait, there's an instrumental! A rarity on any Genesis album. But while it's catchy, it's basically a single idea fleshed out into a theme-and-variations bit, and which fades out at the end because, after several repeats, they apparently couldn't think of anything else to do with it.
And then the album ends. At 42:51, it is one of the shortest Genesis albums of all. There were three songs recorded during the Invisible Touch sessions which didn't make the album, including another (IMO superior) instrumental, but a good pop album does not overstay its welcome.
Tony once said that the goal of Genesis had always been to get their music played on the radio, they just took this long to figure out how to do it. The answer lay in adjusting their understanding of what "good" music is. They used to write carefully structured pieces with classical influences, or multi-movement suites with flute solos and brilliant interplay between the guitars and keyboards. They wrote songs based on fables and myths and figures from English history. They wrote story-songs about heroes and tragic figures. But the general public, the masses who buy your albums and make you rich pop superstars, don't want any of that. They want short, catchy songs with clever lyrics which don't even have to make sense as long as they sound good and evoke love and desire and pain and love and lust and heartbreak and love.
And they did it. Genesis channelled their immense musical talents into the best pop made in the 80's. Over half the album in the Top 5. Sold-out stadiums. 15 million copies sold worldwide. They were huge, even bigger than the individuals who made up this new supergroup.
This is good music. It's well-written, well-played, well-produced, and still far better than most other music made in the 80's. It just isn't what most longtime Genesis fans liked, because if they liked pop music, they wouldn't have been listening to Genesis when it was brilliantly structured story-songs about tragic heroes. And it didn't take long for them to figure out that the bones Genesis tossed to their old prog fans had no meat on them. But this was a new band, and prog fans needed to get with the times.
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Upon relistening to Invisible Touch for this writeup (three times!) I found that the title track didn't repulse me as much as it used to. Nor did "Land of Confusion". I don't know whether that's because I've mellowed in my old age, or because I now take several medications related to my old age, but both of those songs used to really bug me, and neither of them were quite as bad as I'd thought. But because nothing in life is free, I found that "Anything She Does" still annoys me as much as it used to, maybe even moreso. Phil's frantic beat and manic singing are embarassing. There are no horns on this album, but Tony's keyboard patch clearly evokes horns. Mike is awesome as always, but that's about it. And as I grasped for the vestiges of prog which I thought I'd recalled in "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" and "Domino" I came up empty. A long break doesn't make a song prog, nor does linking two 4/4 songs together with a dramatic bridge. And "The Brazilian" is kinda cool, and I know a lot of people like it, but it feels like it takes too long to get going, then doesn't really go anywhere. And it can't be insignificant that it was placed last on the album.
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Hate this album. NEXT.
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Guilty pleasure: I love the title track. :o
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Hate this album. NEXT.
:lol
Man, I wanted so badly to just write something like that and move on, too. But I had to be fair and give it a chance, and I had to find something to say about it. I know my writeup didn't exactly come out unbiased, but I did try to say some nice things about it.
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Part of me actually enjoys MOST of this album, the first four songs are pretty good, but then it's hit or miss for the rest of the album.
As usual, I took the chance to integrate the non-album B-sides into my version of the album, 'completing' the Invisible Touch experience:
Invisible Touch
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Land of Confusion
Do The Neurotic
In Too Deep
I'd Rather Be You
Anything She Does
Domino
Feeding The Fire
Throwing It All Away
The Brazilian
And I'll agree, "Do The Neurotic" is a superior instrumental and should have been on the album, in place of OR in addition to "The Brazilian". Honestly, this is bottom-half Genesis for me, and I really like the albums that came before and after it more. It's OK, and I appreciate the fact that they wrote and released an album that was so popular world-wide, and produced so many hit singles, but that's about all it is for me. A collection of hit singles, not really an album, at least, by Genesis' standards.
-Marc.
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I actually quite like this one. Y'know, growing up and always hearing the singles on classic rock stations and such. When I finally heard the album on its own, I was surprised that a song like Domino was still around. I think I like it a lot more than Orbert does, I guess. :P
It is a rather poppy album, but it does it well. Never liked Anything She Does, Throwing It All Away or The Brazilian though, and I still think the s/t was better.
I may have to give We Can't Dance a relisten before we get to it. I don't remember much about it except for really disliking a majority of that record.
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Is Anything She Does a universally disliked song? I hate it too.
Otherwise, I love this whole album. I never really got into Domino or The Brazilian until I saw that live at Wembly DVD, but I love them now.
Aside: The Mike + Mechanics song is called Silent Running I think. I enjoy that album as well, though I think the first half is the better. Par Avion is my favorite song on that record.
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I know the song is "Sillent Running". I was just taking a cheap shot at all the people who don't know it. Or maybe I was taking a cheap shot at Mike + Company for naming the song after a cool 70's sci-fi movie I remember seeing when I was younger, but giving it a chorus which makes you think that it must be the song title instead. Also a shot at the people who knew that Mike was the bassist for Genesis (even though he was also the guitarist by now) but could never think of his last name. There were a a few of those in the 80's as well. Points for knowing that it was Mike, but most of those points were lost by not knowing his last name. Sorry, I'm an asshole that way.
I don't dislike "Domino", I just don't like it as much as I used to. I used to cling to it as the last bit of prog that Genesis had left. "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" seemed semi-proggy at first, but the break really is pointless. Are the Simmons programmable drums supposed to be the melody? All those crazy sounds that Phil was clearly having a lot of fun with but which sound so horribly dated now? I remember even then thinking that it was a horrible attempt to make the song seem like more than it was. I actually like the song; it just tries to be more than it is.
So I turned to "Domino" and somehow it seemed like the opposite of "Blood on the Rooftops" from Wind & Wuthering. Spending a quiet evening at home, relaxing, and the contrast between that and all the violence in the world, even the emphasis on the word "blood". But whereas "Blood on the Rooftops" is beautiful and chill and a real work of art, "Domino" was, upon closer examination, just a couple of completely unrelated 4/4 songs pasted together to appear like something more. I don't dislike "Domino" for it isn't; I dislike what it is not. Or maybe it's the other way around.
And I'll agree, "Do The Neurotic" is a superior instrumental and should have been on the album, in place of OR in addition to "The Brazilian". Honestly, this is bottom-half Genesis for me, and I really like the albums that came before and after it more. It's OK, and I appreciate the fact that they wrote and released an album that was so popular world-wide, and produced so many hit singles, but that's about all it is for me. A collection of hit singles, not really an album, at least, by Genesis' standards.
What's somewhat confusing to me is that Mike supposedly said that the other three songs were cut because they didn't really fit the "feel" they were going for with this album. He's quoted on the Three Sides Live video also talking about feel; he talks about how in the early days, the songs were intricate and complex and if everyone played their parts properly, then it all sounded great. Now, the emphasis is more on "feel".
Sorry Mike, but that sounds kinda like another way to say that the songs are appealing to a listeners at a baser level. Whether it was an intentional move towards pop, a desire to sell more records, or just becoming bored with or tired of writing art rock (which is what we called it before prog), the result is the same. The songs are simpler, so they have to be catchy. This is an entire album of pop songs, and one of the shortest Genesis albums of all, so it could only have benefitted from at least having three more tracks on it. At least give your listeners more music for their money.
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Hello, I'm Jaq, a fan of every era of Genesis, and I love Invisible Touch.
Controversial opinion amongst prog fans, I know, but I'm a hard headed sort who honestly never views ANY album through the prism of the genre it's supposed to be, or the genre the band worked in. I view it in terms of how well executed it is, and by those standards, this is a fucking brilliant album. By now Genesis had shed the restraints of the prog rock genre-even by 1986, prog fans wanted bands to be stuck in 1972-so I honestly think judging the band by those terms is really unfair. They were a pop rock band, a hugely successful one, and they did it very well. There is a craft to creating good pop music, as much craft as there is in writing a 23 minute long song, and Genesis, by this time, were craftsmen.
I like every song on this album, though some more so than others. Invisible Touch is a magnificently catchy, get people dancing pop song. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight makes perfect sense when you realize what it is: it's the 12" remix of a song, but instead of being a single, it goes to the album. Land of Confusion is a simple, direct rock song, one of the few Genesis songs that is built around a memorable guitar riff. In Too Deep is a lovely ballad, one of the best the band ever did. Anything She Does is the closest thing the album has to a clunker, and even then I sing along to the chorus on occasion. There is no other pop band in 1986 that would have tackled a ten minute long song, and, yes, Domino is a ten minute long song, and the fact that it's in 4/4 shouldn't disqualify it for its ambition. (Sorry, but the notion that a song's prog qualities are directly proportional to the complexity of its time signature is something that annoys me. I could give a rat's ass less about time signatures, I just like the songs.) Throwing It All Away is built around a lovely guitar line, and has some great verse melodies. The Brazilian is a little repetitive but again, in 1986 pop bands weren't doing songs like this.
This period of time for Genesis always amuses me because of a fun little factoid. People are always all over the band because Phil Collins and his solo career ruined them. They had gone pop. They had abandoned their roots from when Peter Gabriel had been the singer! They were so much better then!
Invisible Touch (the song) reached number one on the Billboard single charts. Do you know what knocked it out of that spot?
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. :rollin
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I've not heard the album, but I do enjoy Land Of Confusion. It has a nice riff.
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Sorry, but the notion that a song's prog qualities are directly proportional to the complexity of its time signature is something that annoys me. I could give a rat's ass less about time signatures, I just like the songs.
Agreed. That said, Domino is pretty good, but nothing really special.
I only listen to Invisible Touch (the song) when it comes up on my 80s playlist.
I still need to get the single edit of Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, as having gotten used to it that way back in the day, the regular version sounds too long and drawn out now.
Land of Confusion is still a damn fine song.
I have no use for either In Too Deep (awful) or Throwing It All Away (not bad, just kind of there).
I liked the video for Anything She Does, so I tend to like the song probably because of that.
The Brazilian is enjoyable.
Not a great album, but not bad either. For a pop rock record, it is good.
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I'm starting to come around on Invisible Touch, but it will never be a favorite of mine. I understand that there's a demand for pop music, that it's going to exist in our society whether we like it or not. So it might as well be of as high a quality as possible. And while I can admire the skill that it takes to craft a really good pop song, something that will appeal to the masses, and I even get drawn in by some of it, there's a part of me that instinctively rebels against it. I don't like the feeling that I'm enjoying something which was specifically created to appeal to me. Now that I've spelled it out, it sounds completely stupid, but I guess that's what it is. I've always enjoyed finding the beauty in things that others don't necessarily see, that you have to "work" to find. When it's thrown in my face, I reject it out of hand; I might take another look at it later, if I feel like it.
So it will never be a fave, because I don't see myself listening to it enough times for it to ever grow on me. In this past week, I've come to appreciate it more than I ever have, just as what happened with some of Yes' less-popular albums. I've always understood the album, I know what the band was going through because I was around at the time and went through it with them. But as good and catchy as it is, when I feel like listening to Genesis, this isn't going to be the album I reach for.
Invisible Touch (the song) reached number one on the Billboard single charts. Do you know what knocked it out of that spot?
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. :rollin
I remember that! I thought it was amusing.
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Invisible Touch (the song) reached number one on the Billboard single charts. Do you know what knocked it out of that spot?
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. :rollin
I remember that! I thought it was amusing.
IIRC, his video for that song also beat Genesis' "Land Of Confusion" video for Music Video of The Year, too! Score one for PG!
-Marc.
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The album version of "Tonight Tonight Tonight" wasn't the 12" remix, the 12" remix was nearly 12 minutes long.
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Yeah, I've heard it. Typical remix tricks. Instruments which originally entered together enter one at a time, making for an even longer buildup. A few sections doubled here and there, though I admit they were done rather tastefully. That kind of thing. Interesting if done right, and it wasn't bad. But I couldn't understand what they'd take such a long track and make it even longer.
I think Jaq was being metaphorical anyway. They give you the "extended" version on the album, because you've probably heard the short version on the radio already, or seen the video, or at least the beer commercials. It's a way of understanding why such an obviously bloated track is on the album.
As I said, it "fooled" me back in the 80's. It and "Domino" were the two longest tracks, and had a little more going on than the rest, so that automatically made them the prog candidates. As has been pointed out, "progness" is not really a fair criterion to use on this album, but that's said with the benefit of perspective. At the time, Genesis fans were still mourning the passing of their favorite prog band, and with each new album, we hoped that there would be something for us. It's only now that we can look at the whole situation and understand what was going on, the full depth and impact of the metamophosis through which the band was going.
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Yeah, I've heard it. Typical remix tricks. Instruments which originally entered together enter one at a time, making for an even longer buildup. A few sections doubled here and there, though I admit they were done rather tastefully. That kind of thing. Interesting if done right, and it wasn't bad. But I couldn't understand what they'd take such a long track and make it even longer.
I think Jaq was being metaphorical anyway. They give you the "extended" version on the album, because you've probably heard the short version on the radio already, or seen the video, or at least the beer commercials. It's a way of understanding why such an obviously bloated track is on the album.
As I said, it "fooled" me back in the 80's. It and "Domino" were the two longest tracks, and had a little more going on than the rest, so that automatically made them the prog candidates. As has been pointed out, "progness" is not really a fair criterion to use on this album, but that's said with the benefit of perspective. At the time, Genesis fans were still mourning the passing of their favorite prog band, and with each new album, we hoped that there would be something for us. It's only now that we can look at the whole situation and understand what was going on, the full depth and impact of the metamophosis through which the band was going.
I agree with all of that, and I can only imagine Genesis fans were a little more forgiving than Yes fans were in the 80's. The changes (pun intended) that Yes made in the 80's were quite a stark difference than the gradual change that Genesis made. The point was, Genesis KNEW what they were doing, and gained success from it! Yes just HAPPENED to reform, and their new album just HAPPENED to produce a hit, but their sound was so different that I'm sure plenty of fans wondered why it was still Yes. At least with Genesis, there was still bits of Genesis in IT that were still them, albeit a differently focused them.
-Marc.
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Invisible Touch (the song) reached number one on the Billboard single charts. Do you know what knocked it out of that spot?
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. :rollin
I remember that! I thought it was amusing.
IIRC, his video for that song also beat Genesis' "Land Of Confusion" video for Music Video of The Year, too! Score one for PG!
-Marc.
Every PG album is better than the last 3 Genesis albums. Just saying.
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For the longest time the only three tracks I cared for from the album were Tonight Tonight Tonight, Domino, and The Brazilian. And I like two of the non-album tracks Do the Neurotic and Feeding the Fire. The release of the 5.1 box sets caused me to relisten to this and I found that I didn't mind Invisible Touch or Land of Confusion as much now. The other tracks I still dislike, especially Throwing it All Away.
I personally love Tonight Tonight Tonight and Domino. Though I wouldn't really call them prog. I still find them to have good hooks and fun to listen to. The instrumental break for Tonight Tonight Tonight in particular I really like (though I see I'm in the minority here). I love the buildup of it and the constant drum beat. The keyboards are very atmospheric and build nicely. And hey I still love the Simmons during that section.
As for the non-album tracks I mentioned earlier, I think they are definitely better than the rest of the material but I can see why they might have been left off. Lyrically Feeding the Fire isn't too different from Domino so I could see why it might seem redundant. I agree that Do the Neurotic is the superior instrumental. In the interviews on the 5.1 sets they mention that they didn't want 2 instrumentals on the record and that they had a choice between an instrumental that was similar to what they'd done in the past or one that was very different. So they went with the one that was different.
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One of my favorite Genesis Albums.
I love Tonight Tonight Tonight so much. And I just don't get the "It's pop" jabs. It has singles, like every band that releases an album does. I know it sounds even more pop-ish thanks to the drums, but still. NOT POP(And being pop is not a bad thing either.)
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Yeah I guess I forget sometimes that there's a middle ground, music that used to just be called Rock. Sometimes kinda heavy, sometimes lighter, not really Prog, not really Pop, just regular Rock. A pretty good percent of the music on my iPod is in the Rock genre. And I admit that I do tend to use the Pop label in the derogatory sense, and it's also true that not everything on Invisible Touch is Pop. "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" is too weird and dark and heavy to be real Pop. "Domino" isn't really, either. I guess a lot of this album is just Rock.
Pop to me isn't really a genre so much as it's an attitude. Sure, everybody wants to make music that they think people will like, but if I get the feeling that they've specifically crafted a song to have mass appeal, I whip out the Pop label. I still think there's a difference between writing a song that you think is really good, and writing a song that you think will be really popular. If you're shooting for the latter, you're trying to be popular, and that of course is where the word "Pop" comes from. Was Genesis just writing the best music they could, or were they trying to be popular?
Another thing that hasn't really come up is that Genesis worked very hard in their early years to create some amazing music, and while they did have a cult following, they never broke mainstream while Peter and Steve were in the band. This probably bothered them at least a little bit. Certainly they didn't think "Watcher of the Skies" was going to be a Top 40 hit or anything, but it would have been nice to have made a bit more money than they did. They finally made the big time in the 80's; I mean, they were huge. I can't really blame them for enjoying their fame and, once tasting it, trying to keep it going. They really had earned it. Maybe their massive appeal in the 80's was their reward for all the awesome prog they made in the 70's that didn't make them rich. Karma or something.
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I personally know the girl that Invisible Touch was written about. I think it's a great song, has a great sound and flow, lots of energy, and there isn't too much or too little of anything in it.
The Brazalian is my favorite track off the album. It's a great example of tasteful 80's keyboard goodness.
The rest of the album is alright. Anything She Does has great energy. Every once in a while I enjoy a listen to Domino; the first verse of the second part is especially creepy. The ballads I find too sappy. I loathe the instrumental portion of Tonight^3. The single version from Turn It On Again is much better.
Invisible Touch was in fact the first album I ever owned - on cassette, too!
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Hate this album.
Agreed - it didn't age well for me even back then!
Invisible Touch (the song) reached number one on the Billboard single charts. Do you know what knocked it out of that spot?
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. :rollin
HA! Never knew that, that's hilarious. :jets:
Every PG album is better than the last 3 Genesis albums. Just saying.
WORD.
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Genesis: We Can't Dance (1991)
(https://i.imgur.com/tPn2mwk.jpg)
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Background Vocals
Phil Collins - Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford - Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
No Son of Mine – 6:39
Jesus He Knows Me – 4:16
Driving the Last Spike – 10:08
I Can't Dance – 4:01
Never a Time – 3:50
Dreaming While You Sleep – 7:16
Tell Me Why – 4:58
Living Forever – 5:41
Hold on My Heart – 4:37
Way of the World – 5:38
Since I Lost You – 4:09
Fading Lights – 10:16
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I'd pretty much given up on Genesis by this point. It had been years since their last album, but they hadn't done much that I liked in the past ten years or so anyway. I thought that Abacab was okay, but a letdown after the awesomeness of Duke. The self-titled album was a half-step back in the right direction, but as mentioned upthread, I eventually found myself content to just listen to Side One and not bother with Side Two at all. After Invisible Touch, it was pretty clear that the old band was gone. Invisible Touch was the last album I bought on LP, and as mentioned, it's one of the shortest Genesis albums, if not the shortest (I haven't bothered to check because it's honestly not that important).
Five years later, CDs were the norm. Albums could now be nearly twice as long, but I wasn't thinking about that when I stood in the record store looking at the back of the CD and saw that the latest Genesis album had 12 songs on it. (I've included track times above, but they're not on the CD.) I did some quick math and determined that the average song length was five minutes, tops. CDs are about an hour, right? I didn't even bother buying it. By this time, I'd heard "I Can't Dance" on the radio, and it was catchy, but nothing special. I had every Genesis album up to this point, and figured I'd eventually pick this one up, but there wasn't any hurry.
My next-door neighbor picked it up, and he lent it to me. We Can't Dance clocks in at 72 minutes and is Genesis' longest single studio album of all. (It was actually released as a double album on vinyl, which I didn't know until today.) There are two songs over 10 minutes long, one over seven, and a couple around six. Okay, so I blew it. The long songs were back. I went and picked up a copy for myself.
Longer songs are not automatically better than shorter ones. I understand that. But in general, if Genesis writes a longer song, it takes its time to unfold. If it's a story-song, it goes through numerous changes out of necessity, and probably is intercut with instrumental passages. It may not be prog, but it will at the very least be more interesting than a five-minute pop song. I just like longer songs because there's more to them. The ideas are more fully explored. I feel like they're put more into it, and I tend to get more out of it.
You've heard the hits. "No Son of Mine" is catchy, has a great sound, and nonsense lyrics. Okay, the lyrics obviously have some depth to them, but you'll notice that he never specifies what it was that started happening every night, why his mother cried, and why he left. At first I thought that the narrator was being abused, but I'm not so sure. Why is Mom crying? And when he returns to confront his father, his father disowns him for leaving in the first place. I'm not an expert on broken or dysfunctional families, but if his father was doing something, what sense does it make to come down on his son for leaving? I know, we're obviously not dealing with a rational person here, but it seems like we're missing part of the story.
"Jesus He Knows Me" is social commentary, akin to "Illegal Alien" I suppose, and just as annoying. "I Can't Dance" is okay, just nothing special. "Hold On My Heart" got some airplay; most people couldn't tell whether it was Genesis or a Phil Collins solo song.
"Never a Time", "Tell Me Why" and "Way of the World" are basically fillers. They sound fine, and they're not as blatantly pop as most of the songs on Invisible Touch. There's just not a lot of meat to them, either. I'm not a big fan of social commentary in songs. They're good songs; I just wouldn't go out of my way to hear them.
"Since I Lost You" is, at first glance, another of Phil's "lost love" songs, of which there are actually fewer here on this very long album than there were on the previous, shorter one. But this song actually has some meaning. It was written after the death of Eric Clapton's son Connor. So it's a "lost love" song, just not what you thought. Eric is a good friend of Phil's, and Phil played the song for Eric and got his permission to include the song on the album.
"Driving the Last Spike" is the story of British Rail and the men who built the line. They lived and died digging and cutting the roadbed and laying the track. It's a great story-song that takes its time and tells a great story. I love how the sounds of the hammers and spikes are hidden in the soundtrack. I never noticed them until listening to the album on earphones.
"Dreaming While You Sleep" is amazing. Once again, I think what makes it work is that it doesn't hurry, it doesn't rush. You sense the darkness, you hear the sounds of the road; later, you feel the passage of time, and the guilt and the paranoia building. What makes it scary is that it could happen to any of us. In the blink of an eye, two lives are changed. In the time it takes to realize what has happened, you're a few miles away, and there's an excellent chance that no one saw it. In the time it takes to get to a TV or hear it on the radio, you are certain that no one knows. It's your secret. You know that coming forward would be the right thing to do, but to what purpose? There is nothing you can do to help her. The only thing it would accomplish is the ruining of your life as well. You've gotten away with it. The price? You must live with the guilt for the rest of your life.
"Living Forever" fooled me the first couple of times. It just seemed like another regular song, in the middle of a bunch of regular songs. After a few verses, it goes to a keyboard break, which is cool. It starts off a bit dark, then changes a few times, keeps going, and then the song ends. What? They never come back for a last verse or chorus. A five-and-a-half minute song that's half instrumental? Inconceivable!
See, that's what I loved about Genesis, and what I missed. The songs with nonstandard structures. Longer songs that told a story, or a song that leads into an instrumental. Something different. They'd brought it back.
"Fading Lights" is one of my favorite Genesis songs. As the last song on the last Genesis album, the title and lyrics have a dual meaning. It's not really prog, but it takes its time, and it does have a great instrumental break. The break is another one from the "Cinema Show" or "Duke's Travels" mold, a series of melodies played by Tony on the keyboards while Phil and Mike keep time. It goes through some nice changes, then comes back for a last verse. A beautiful, heartfelt farewell to their fans.
Genesis changed a lot over their career, and while some of their later work polarizes their fans, IMO they went out on a high note. We Can't Dance is not my favorite Genesis album, but it does have some of my favorite Genesis songs on it. What a great way to end things.
...and then they had to go and spoil it all. Five years later, with no new album in sight, Phil announced that he had officially left the band. Within a year, Mike and Tony found a new singer, and hired some session players to provide drums and percussion (it's actually unclear whether they were considered regular band members), but after a weak album and a disastrous, aborted tour, Genesis officially ended, this time on a low note. Stay tuned...
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I actually quite like the first two songs (low robotic elephant noise at the beginning of No Son Of Mine ftw). I honestly have thought the same thing as you about that song though. It confuses me. At first it sounds like the father is the bad guy and then it sounds like either the son is the one at fault or the father is saying "How dare you walk out on me beating your mother! You're disowned!" What the hell? :lol
I need to relisten to the rest of this though. Everyone knows I Can't Dance, but the only thing I remember about the rest of the album is that Driving The Last Spike bores me to tears. Don't even know if I ever made it past track 5. :P
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This is a tricky one for me. I've had a love-hate relationship with this album, mostly because growing up, I knew the first two tracks and "I Can't Dance", and maybe a couple others, but when I got into prog in my late teen years, and discovered that Genesis had a deeper background than 80's/90's pop led by Phil Collins, it surprised me how this album came about.
After discovering more about their history through the 80's, leading up to this album, I realized that I could finally appreciate the album's songs for what they are, but some of them are just still so...bland to me. Of course, half the album is full of gems, at least 4 and 5 star songs:
5/5 - No Son of Mine, Driving The Last Spike, Dreaming While You Sleep, Fading Lights
4/5 - Jesus He Knows Me, Living Forever, Since I Lost You
3/5 - I Can't Dance, Never A Time, Tell Me Why, Hold On My Heart, Way Of The World
And the two B-Sides from this album's sessions, "Hearts On Fire" and "On The Shoreline", aren't much greater, and this is a case where I don't really mind that they left any songs off. In fact, I wish they had trimmed the album DOWN a bit!!! Had they made a single vinyl-length album, I would've liked to see something like this:
Side 1 - 25:04
No Son of Mine – 6:39
Jesus He Knows Me – 4:16
Driving the Last Spike – 10:08
I Can't Dance – 4:01
Side 2 - 27:22
Dreaming While You Sleep – 7:16
Living Forever – 5:41
Since I Lost You – 4:09
Fading Lights – 10:16
And that's pushing it, with a 27 minute long second side, but it could be done. This would make for a more solid 52 minute album, losing the more filler songs. Had the album been released like this, I would rank it way above the previous 3 albums, and up there with Duke.
-Marc.
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That trimmed down version looks awesome :tup
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That trimmed down version looks awesome :tup
Also,I should give this album another listen. I actually don't mind this album. Way better than that pos Invisible Touch.
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low robotic elephant noise at the beginning of No Son Of Mine ftw
Yeah, that's a cool sound. I have no idea what it's supposed to be, if it's supposed to be something. I guess it's just a sound representing anguish and discomfort, which it does quite well.
I need to relisten to the rest of this though. Everyone knows I Can't Dance, but the only thing I remember about the rest of the album is that Driving The Last Spike bores me to tears. Don't even know if I ever made it past track 5. :P
I like trains and railroad history, so "Driving the Last Spike" drew my attention. It's not a real grabber in the traditional sense, but I like that they did it, and I liked the story it told, so it probably works for me better than most. It is a bit repetitive, moreso than most of their more linear songs, and not in the same class as, say, "One for the Vine", but I think it's pretty good.
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Last Spike and Dreaming are my two favorite songs off the album. I love No Son of Mine as well. Growing up I guess this album was my introduction to prog music so it definitely holds a special place for me
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Multiple choice time!
I Can't Dance is:
a) a bad dream.
b) the worst "hit" by a great band ever.
c) an embarrassment to the Genesis name.
d) a song that should be used to torture captured terrorists.
e) all of the above.
The answer is, of course, "e."
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I first knew that Genesis had a new album coming out when I heard No Son of Mine on the radio. Given that it had been five years since Invisible Touch, and both Phil and Mike had successful solo careers, I honestly had given up on a new Genesis album anytime soon. Needless to say, I was pleased, and I rushed out to buy it as soon as it was released. I noticed how many songs were on it, and figured, much as Orbert did, that there were a lot of shorter ones on it.
Boy was I wrong.
The thing about the long songs on We Can't Dance is that, while you could make a convincing case that the long songs since Abacab were artificially long, the plus six minute long songs on We Can't Dance were organically long. They were long because they wound up long, not because, somewhere in the thought process, the band thought "okay, we need a long song here." There isn't a wasted note or section that feels overly long, even the epic length instrumental break in Fading Lights. There's some filler, as there always is in albums over 70 minutes long, but it's not in the long songs. I remember my sense of awe as Driving The Last Spike just kept building, going and going, and telling a great story along the way, the shock that came when Living Forever ended up being over half instrumental, and the delight that came as Fading Lights, which starts sounding like it's going to be a short, ambient coda to the album, turns into the best instrumental section the band had done since the Gabriel days. (Personally, I think it's only surpassed by the end of the Cinema Show for their entire careers, but I'm sure others will disagree.)
The rest of the album is a blend of quirky pop-rock and a few more of those commercial ballads the band had gotten very good at, for better or for worse, and while I could point at songs that could be cut to make it stronger, I can live with how the album turned out. And of course, I consider Fading Lights to be the last song Genesis did, and the end of their career, because it certainly FEELS like it was meant to be a capstone to their career as Genesis. It would have been going out with a bang, with a song that recalls their past glories while at the same time putting the band to bed. Alas-and to be honest, there are some good songs on Calling All Stations, make no mistake about that-it instead isn't their final moment as a band. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's an amazing song, one of my ten favorite Genesis songs, and my personal favorite for best album closer ever.
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By the way, I wanted to say thanks to Orbert for all these write ups. You definitely helped rekindle my interest in Genesis
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I said it earlier in this topic but this is one of the albums I grew up with so it'll always have that special place for me, looking back on it now with all I know about Genesis and the fact that I've heard their earlier material up until this one I still have to say it's a damn fine album in my eyes, even down to the title track which is silly but meh I like it.
I have got to say that while I love Dreaming While You Sleep and Driving The Last Spike I never really got into Fading Lights, that said it has been a long time since I really listened to it so I think I should give it another go.
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Honestly, I haven't given this album a fair chance. I'll have to relisten to it.
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(Personally, I think it's only surpassed by the end of the Cinema Show for their entire careers, but I'm sure others will disagree.)
I completely agree with you, only the other way around. Fading Lights is my favorite Genesis song ever.
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By the way, I wanted to say thanks to Orbert for all these write ups. You definitely helped rekindle my interest in Genesis
You're welcome!
I had many reasons to do these discographies, including giving myself an excuse to listen critically to every album, but another was hopefully to get others to do the same and "follow along" with me. Genesis is still one of my favorite bands, but as with Yes, I found myself pretty much listening to the same two or three favorite albums all the time. Doing this forced me to revisit all of their albums.
Multiple choice time!
I Can't Dance is:
a) a bad dream.
b) the worst "hit" by a great band ever.
c) an embarrassment to the Genesis name.
d) a song that should be used to torture captured terrorists.
e) all of the above.
The answer is, of course, "e."
I don't really like it, but wouldn't go quite that far. Not quite. I will say, however, that the girls in the video (especially the one who loses "her blues") are pretty hot.
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I like We Can't Dance. It took me ages to like it, but I like it, especially Fading Lights, No Son Of Mine and Jesus He Knows Me, the latter partly because it makes me smile, and partly because I dislike the idea of tele-evangelists intensely, and so I love the way it mocks them. The only part of this album I don't like is Hold On My Heart (at least I think it's that song. Whichever one it is, they played it on their tour in 2007, and it was irritating), but yes. I like this album.
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Came back from a listen to this album. It was alright. Better than the previous album. Fading Lights is good and No Son Of Mine is damn catchy. Decent.
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I like this album for what it is. It's definitely not the same band it once was but I hold this album dearly for personal reasons. It also has some awesome songs like Dreaming While You Sleep and one of my favorite songs ever in No Son Of Mine.
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Multiple choice time!
I Can't Dance is:
a) a bad dream.
b) the worst "hit" by a great band ever.
c) an embarrassment to the Genesis name.
d) a song that should be used to torture captured terrorists.
e) all of the above.
The answer is, of course, "e."
I knew this song long before I knew of old Genesis. I remember being in Kindergarten...first grade...and hearing this song on the bus on the way to school. I still love it today. Perhaps if one grew up with In the Cage, and was then exposed to this, I can see the hatred. But it's easily one of my favorite Genesis tunes post-Hackett departure. How can you not love that riff? Or the video, with that fucked up dance? Oh well, I'm sure on this forum there are many who feel the way you do.
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Actually, I was mostly only familiar with Genesis' 80s hits until the later 90s, so I was unfamiliar with all of their prog stuff when I first heard I Can't Dance (except for having heard The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the song, several times).
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As with many, I originally had some problems with this album - it was quite a bit different than anything they had done before it, and to be honest, anything they'd do after it! It took me a longer time to warm-up to this album than it did the 3 after it, but in recent years, after I got the 2007 box sets, I revisited the album with fresh ears, and found some cool things to enjoy. I still cringe a bit during "Whodunnit?" but otherwise, I have found myself quite enjoying the other 8 tracks on the album!
For me, the top tracks would be "Me And Sarah Jane", "Dodo/Lurker" and "Abacab", with tracks "Man On The Corner", "No Reply At All" and "Keep It Dark" being middle-of-the-road. The rest are okay, with the aforementioned "Whodunnit?" at the bottom.
Side 1 is pretty great, and Side 2 was a bit more experimental. I do wish they had kept the Suite on there, though, and when I learned of it, I made a mix of the four tracks blending together (both when I got the 97 reissues and again in 2007 after I got the boxset remasters). It's a pretty interesting suite and I really like how "Submarine" blends in to the ending of "Lurker".
Indeed, they did have over 70 minutes of music over 14 tracks, and I would've enjoyed them all (to some extent), but I'm glad they made another single album, however, that hadn't stopped me from making my own double-album version with all 14 tracks on it!
Side 1 - 17:05
Abacab
No Reply At All
You Might Recall
Side 2 - 16:53
Me And Sarah Jane
Keep It Dark
Me And Virgil
Side 3 - 19:06
Naminanu
Dodo
Lurker
Submarine
Who Dunnit?
Side 4 - 17:28
Man On The Corner
Paperlate
Like It Or Not
Another Record
-Marc.
So I finished hunting down all the outtakes from Abacab, and loaded them onto my iPod so I could enjoy my newly augmented version of the album. The problem is that all the new ones came from the box sets and archives, so they've been remastered and sound louder and brighter than the original Abacab tracks which I ripped in 2008 at 128k. Back then, I was more concerned with hard drive space and how much my growing mp3 collection would take, and since Abacab was something of a "lesser" Genesis album, I figured 128k was fine.
Nowadays, I shoot for at least 192-320 variable, and storage space is no longer an issue. I happened to stop at the library the other day to pick up some Brubeck, and thought I'd check the Genesis section just to see what they have. The one remaster from the 2007 box sets sitting in the regular section was Abacab. So I ripped it, and now they all sound great.
Typically, I just slip the outtakes between the original Side One and Side Two, and put them in some kind of order that sounds good. Here, however, we know that "Naminanu" and "Submarine" have specific places. Also, I wanted "Paperlate" to start off the new Side Two. Somehow it seemed appropriate, since it's the other song with horns. Yeah, I know; albums on CDs and iPods don't have "sides" to them. But albums I originally had on LP will always be mentally divided into sides for me, even if the sides are twice as long now.
Abacab
No Reply At All
Me And Sarah Jane
Keep It Dark
You Might Recall
Me And Virgil
Paperlate
Naminanu
Dodo / Lurker
Submarine
Who Dunnit?
Man On The Corner
Like It Or Not
Another Record
110 minutes. Definitely would've been a double LP, even without the original, longer version of the title track.
Also, I watched the DVD interview segment which talked about Abacab, the album. They talked about The Farm, the property they'd bought out in Surrey which they'd always wanted to do, to have a place to write and record. They talked about the word "abacab" and how it came about. Yeah, yeah, we knew all that.
"Who Dunnit?" was Tony's idea. :omg: It started with him playing around on his Prophet 5, making all kinds of weird sounds. It kinda worked into a riff at some point, and Phil added some stupid words. Eventually it became a song. Since they'd decided at this point that Abacab was going to be their break from tradition, their "punk" album (or as punk as Genesis gets anyway), when it came down to including "Who Dunnit?" or "You Might Recall", they went with "Who Dunnit?"
I have to say, if they'd gone with "You Might Recall", my initial and overall opinions of the album would've been much, much higher. But oh well.
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Hmm, still can't delete posts. What ze heck?
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I just, in 2012, picked up WCD for $1. I always liked NSOM and ITD. I never really liked the title track or JHKM. But I noticed some longer songs on it and figured, for $1, it was well worth it. I was pleased. Aside from the 2 tracks I don't care for (and even those are humorous when I'm in the right mood), it's a better than solid album and a reminder that PC, MR and TB still had "it" in them.
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Volume One: The Shorts (1992)
(https://i.imgur.com/uADrWEo.jpg)
Land of Confusion
No Son of Mine
Jesus He Knows Me
Throwing It All Away
I Can't Dance
Mama
Hold on My Heart
That's All
In Too Deep
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Invisible Touch
Volume Two: The Longs (1993)
(https://i.imgur.com/nXBwFhI.jpg)
Old Medley
Dance on a Volcano
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
The Musical Box
Firth of Fifth
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Driving the Last Spike
Domino
Part 1 - In the Glow of the Night
Part 2 - The Last Domino
Fading Lights
Home by the Sea / Second Home by the Sea
Drum Duet
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Tony Banks: Keyboards, Background Vocals
Phil Collins: Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford: Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
with
Daryl Steurmer: Bass, Guitar, Background Vocals
Chester Thompson: Drums
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There had only been three studio albums since their last live album, but that was over 10 years ago. Genesis had continued to change and evolve during that time, plus there was the possibility that We Can't Dance would be the last Genesis album and tour, so it made sense to document it.
The Way We Walk was a double album, released one disc at a time. Volume One: The Shorts was released late in 1992, and Volume Two: The Longs followed early in 1993. As their titles imply, Volume One is the radio-friendly hits, while Volume Two focuses on the longer pieces. Genesis was well aware of the divided nature of their audience. Longtime fans who still followed the band tended to prefer the longer, more adventurous songs, but there was a much larger segment of the fanbase who had discovered Genesis later and were more interested in the hits.
Although I completely understand it, I can't say that I like having things divided up this way, and it just seems like pandering of the highest order. "First we'll release all the hits and make a lot of money, then later we'll release the other stuff, you know, just for completeness." What I did was hunt down a setlist from the We Can't Dance tour, combined the two volumes, and rearranged the tracks to more closely represent a concert.
Land of Confusion
No Son of Mine
Driving the Last Spike
Old Medley
Fading Lights
Jesus He Knows Me
Home by the Sea / Second Home by the Sea
Throwing It All Away
Hold On My Heart
Domino
Drum Duet
I Can't Dance
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight / Invisible Touch
Mama
That's All
In Too Deep
The concert usually ended with "I Can't Dance". The encore was a shortened version of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" cutting into "Invisible Touch" rather than going into the break. I can only imagine attending one of these concerts and having them come out for the encore and start "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" only to have them smash cut to yet another pop hit. Talk about a tease. The last three songs -- "Mama", "That's All", and "In Too Deep" -- weren't played on the We Can't Dance tour, so they came from previous tours. They were hits from this period and pretty much had to be included, instead of "Dreaming While You Sleep" which was actually played on this tour. But this live album represents the final period of Genesis, not just the We Can't Dance tour.
You may find some sources online (Wikipedia, for example) that give a more extensive list of songs included in the "Old Medley". This is because Genesis has slipped instrumental quotes from other songs into "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" since at least as far back as Seconds Out. "Stagnation", "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" and others commonly make appearances. Here, Phil ups the ante by singing lines from "That's All", "Illegal Alien", "Your Own Special Way", and "Follow You Follow Me" before the return to "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", so sometimes you'll see those titles included as well, even though we usually only get a line or two.
Each Genesis live album has its own character. With Genesis Live, it was amazing to hear how well such intricate arrangements could be executed live. Seconds Out caught Genesis during their transitional period, and we got to hear Phil's takes on Gabriel-era classics, plus a taste of the newer sound. With Three Sides Live, the still-proggish leanings of the three-piece band became focused into tight, hard-rocking jams, and Genesis showed the world that a band could have both radio hits and actual musical talent.
Here, I'm honestly not sure how much the live versions have to offer over their studio counterparts. Since the songs themselves are generally more stripped down, there's not a lot of challenge to the performance or the arrangements. Tony's keyboard parts, even during the instrumentals, are composed rather than improvised, and he even uses the same patches. Chester does a great job of copying Phil's style and sound, perhaps too good; he basically sounds like Phil. Mike seems to be the only one taking chances, musically. His guitar lines tend to be improvised most of the time; he's the one who talks about going for "feel" rather than "notes" with the music of this period. With Mike playing guitar most of the time, Daryl mostly plays bass. And while he's great at it, there's just not much room for him to play, and the songs themselves tend to sound better with simpler bass lines anyway. He only really gets one moment to stretch out, and that's when he plays Steve Hackett's solo from "Firth of Fifth". I know it's a matter of taste, but he's really milking it, his one chance to shine, and it just doesn't work. That solo is all about the sound, the angst, not about shredding.
Then there's Phil. By this point, Phil had been spending more time on his own solo tours than fronting Genesis, and I think he forgot that there's a difference between the two. Or he just decided that since he's 1/3 of Genesis, his personality should not be hidden just because he's not the "star" of the show. So he sings and babbles incessantly during intros and outros, adds extra words to verses, and generally has me shouting, out loud, at least a few times, "Phil, will you please just shut up?!"
Obviously that's not fair. My own prejudice is that Genesis music is awesome, elegant, powerful, subtle, and speaks for itself. It's not about showing off or carrying on; it's about just making great music. Tony is amazing, but always completely reserved. Mike cuts loose a bit, but there aren't that many times where the guitar gets the spotlight anymore. Phil, as the front man, seems to feel the need to fill a void which simply isn't there. He doesn't have to keep singing after the verses have ended and the band plays for a while, but he does. He doesn't have to make up chants during the intros when the music is building up, but he does. And it practically ruins the album for me.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot:
Live - First live album, one word, one LP.
Seconds Out - Second live album, two words, two LPs, contains the word "second".
Three Sides Live - Third live album, three words, three LP sides of live music, contains the word "three".
The Way We Walk - Fourth live album, four words, four LP sides.
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These two albums are the oddity in my Genesis collection. Other than From Genesis To Revelation, I don't actually own them. In fact, of the two, I've only heard The Longs, and then only once at a friend's. I've never had the urge to buy them, and I think it all stems from the gimmicky nature of how they were released. I think had it been issued as a double CD, properly reflecting the touring the band did in that time frame, I likely would have bought it. Likely, not definitely, though. We Can't Dance was such a brilliant summation of everything that the band had done as a three piece, and Fading Lights just felt so much like "goodbye" that these two live albums felt redundant to me, almost surplus to requirements. To me, Genesis was done, and this just felt...unnecessary. By 1993, live albums simply didn't have the cachet they used to have for me, and I'd stopped buying them. In fact, in the 90s, at the time of their release, the only live albums I actually bought were Y&T's Yesterday And Today Live, Dream Theater's Live At The Marquee and Once In A Livetime, Marillion's Made Again...and curiously Alive III by Kiss. Go figure. I haven't exactly, since then, gone back and bought a lot of 90s era live albums period, although I did resume buying live albums eventually, as we'll see a bit further on in the thread; maybe three or four 90s live albums I've bought since then.
So maybe it was more me than Genesis, but really, these live albums just felt unnecessary to me.
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That pretty much sums up how I felt about these two as well. They, plus Calling All Stations, are the only Genesis albums I don't own in at least one format. I downloaded these, and ripped Calling All Stations from the library, so I could give them proper listens and write them up here, but I'll be deleting them. "Unnecessary" is kinda harsh, but yeah, that's how I feel.
Mike has some nice guitar work. The weird thing is, the live versions sound so similar to the studio versions that I expect to hear the same thing. Tony plays the exact same thing, the drums sound the same, I expect to hear the same guitar lines as well, and Mike does something else. I can't see buying a double live album just to hear a few cool guitar licks, though.
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Of their four live albums, this is the one I listen to the least, although it has at couple saving graces, one of which is the GREAT live version of "Fading Lights". Even Mike's little solo near the end is a little longer and better than the studio version.
Since the 2007 re-issues have came out, I deleted my original Shorts/Longs version of the album off my iPod and have kept the integrated show on there, but even since then (09? when I got it), I haven't listened to it more than once (with a couple song exceptions). Like you said, Orbert, they're not all that different from the studio versions, and they aren't really that adventurous with their live performances here - it's by-the-numbers on many tunes, aside from Phil's additional ranting/scatting, which, I agree, does get annoying after awhile.
-Marc.
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I don't have the albums but what I do have is the DVD of the tour with all the tracks ripped to my iPod. I too have to question breaking it up, yes I also can see why but I think that people wouldn't have been too bugged by the longer tracks being a part of it and probably would have skipped past them anyway. Add to which I can't think of many casual fans of a band who tend to buy live albums anyway, every so often one will sell a lot and make waves but I don't really hear of people rushing out to get a live album. DVDs yes, albums not so much.
I do however like the DVD, the Old Medley was my introduction to older Genesis, it was from there I would hear a few licks, solos and the like which made me seek out the older material so got to give it credit for that. I disagree with you about Phil's adlibs, they honestly don't bug me at all but then again I knew Genesis from We Can't Dance and this tour backwards, so I would imagine if I had perhaps discovered them in a different order I'd feel differently about it.
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Genesis: Calling All Stations (1997)
(https://i.imgur.com/yN3pv9A.jpg)
Calling All Stations
Congo
Shipwrecked
Alien Afternoon
Not About Us
If That's What You Need
The Dividing Line
Uncertain Weather
Small Talk
There Must Be Some Other Way
One Man's Fool
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Tony Banks: Keyboards, Background Vocals
Mike Rutherford: Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
Ray Wilson: Vocals
with
Nick D'Virgilio: Drums
Nir Zidkyahu: Drums
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As mentioned earlier, Genesis had officially become a side project, an entity that existed when its members chose to get together and create music and/or tour, but which was on hiatus otherwise. In 1995, Phil Collins announced that he had officially left Genesis, leaving only Tony and Mike. Tony and Mike chose to continue with Genesis, and began auditioning new singers.
They ended up choosing Ray Wilson, who had most recently been fronting the Scottish grunge band Stiltskin. Stiltskin had been around since 1989, and Ray had joined them in 1993, but when he left them in 1996 to join Genesis, Stiltskin broke up. Ray's voice has a darker tone than Phil's; it is much more reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's, which many believe is why Tony and Mike chose him.
The album yielded three singles, "Congo", "Shipwrecked", and "Not About Us", and while all three made the charts, only "Congo" could really be considered a hit. Overall, the album was not well received by either fans or critics. Ticket sales in the U.S. were so poor that the U.S. tour was cancelled. They carried on with the European leg, which fared slightly better, but upon its completion, Tony and Mike put Genesis on an extended hiatus. Calling All Stations would appear to be the final Genesis studio album.
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Shortly after it was released, this album stayed in the CD player of my car for a week. I wanted to like it, perhaps I wanted too much to like it. I wanted to believe that with Phil Collins out of the band, Mike and Tony could return to making great prog music. Even though Phil, Tony, and Mike all insisted that the change in direction that Genesis had taken in the 80's and 90's was a mutual decision, and that the goal of the band had always been to make hit records, I didn't believe it, or I didn't want to believe it.
It starts strong. Mike's electric guitar comes sliding in, the bass and drums come in with a bang, the synths build, and when Ray's voice comes in, the first thing you think is that it sounds like Peter Gabriel, only older, and deeper. Except that we know what Peter's voice sounds like, and it's not that deep, and we know that this isn't Peter anyway.
That's okay, the title track is interesting. It seems to have a darker edge to it, something that the cover art implied. It doesn't hurry; it has a relaxed, exploratory feel to it. It's definitely not pop, though I wouldn't call it prog. Is there such a thing as "regular rock" anymore? And then inexplicably, the song fades out. I say that because it's at a point in the song that doesn't feel like a normal fadeout point. It hasn't returned to a chorus and begun to repeat; it hasn't done anything to imply that the musical statement is complete. In fact, Ray is singing what seems to be another verse, and they just start fading him out.
In all, 10 of the 11 tracks on this album fade out, with at least half of them fading because it just seems like they didn't know what else to do. Overall, the album has an "unfinished" feel to it. What I recall from interviews with Tony and Mike seems to support this. Tony and Mike wrote the songs with a drum machine, since it was just the two of them and they didn't have a drummer. They got a singer, and hired some drummers, and -- I don't know -- maybe the studio time was already booked or something, but to hear them tell it, they got to recording the songs and realized that they hadn't written any endings to them.
In general, I don't like fadeouts anyway; it always seems to me like a way to end the song when you couldn't think of a proper ending. At the very least, you should fall into some kind of repeating pattern and fade out on that. Here, the songs really were unfinished. And they sound like it. There are a few good ideas; many of the songs start off well, but then don't seem to go anywhere. And then they fade out, sometimes in what seems like the middle of a verse or while heading into another section.
I never did buy this one. That week I had it, I'd borrowed it from the library. I borrowed it again a few years later and gave it another week, just to see. My impression was about the same. By then, I'd read more about the album and how it came about, and it all made sense. After nearly five years, they'd rushed this album, released it half-baked, and it shows.
I borrowed it again this past week and have been listening to it again for this writeup, and something unexpected happened: Some of the songs started to click. Many still sound half-baked, but some of the songs could have been really good, given just a little more work, and proper endings. Some of them are pretty good now. I like "The Dividing Line" (the one song that actually ends). The drumming (courtesy of Nir Z) is extraordinary. Actually, all of the playing on this album, the drumming, the guitars, and the keyboards, is great. Mike plays a lot of guitar on this album, and some of it has some real bite to it. Tony's keyboard sounds are dark and cool. And the vocals are really quite good.
So I ended up liking this album more than I did before. Before, there were literally no songs I would say I liked. Now there are a few. And while the sudden fade-outs are still disappointing and mar what are otherwise decent songs (sometimes), at least I know they're coming and can deal with them a bit better. But overall, this album just wasn't ready to be recorded, by the band's own admission.
The tour was a disaster. Ray's voice is lower than either Phil's or Peter's, so they had to lower the key for most songs. And let's face it, with the huge Genesis back catalogue, fans were going to want to hear their favorites. But Ray also had a very different style. He was not the electric, eccentric front man that Phil had become, and he wasn't the thespian storyteller that Peter was.
Basically, this was a different band. To be blunt, if Tony and Mike had wanted to continue, they could have, but they should not have called this band Genesis. Not just because this album sounds nothing like anything that came before it. The biggest thing is that if you call the band Genesis, and the band Genesis has a couple dozen well-known hits and several other well-known, well-loved songs, people will want to hear them in concert, and you have to be able to play (and sing) them. This band could not do that, and all they were doing was setting themselves up for failure. The songs didn't sound the same, and that wasn't Phil Collins up there. This was not Genesis.
Even though longtime touring drummer Chester Thompson had asked to be the new permanent drummer for Genesis, they instead hired Nick D'Virgilio and Nir Zidkyahu to play drums on this album. And even though Nir Z appears in two of videos -- along with Tony, Mike, and Ray -- he was not officially a member of the band; neither drummer was.
Overall, this is a strange album, and rather a poor note for Genesis to end on. Particularly disappointing is that it has a lot of potential. The playing is great, and the production is excellent. Some of the songs are pretty good, but every song could have been better, and some really good, with just a little more work.
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This album is one of the better cases of misjudgment in the history of music. I bought this album actually in a blind, futile hope; I had heard Phil had left the band, and seeing a new Genesis album out, so unexpectedly, made me hope against hope that Phil had returned and I had missed the press release. Because there was no way Tony and Mike would continue without him, right?
So much for that idea.
First off, let me say this: the title track, despite the odd fade out, is really, really damn good. I'd say that it'd make a hypothetical Genesis top 50 if I was to make one. It's a great song, a great, straight up rock song that builds to a particularly magnificent climax...then kind of peters out. I like Shipwrecked a lot, and Alien Afternoon feels like it fell right out of the cracks somewhere between Abacab and the self-titled. Other than that, though, the rest of the album is particularly half baked. It doesn't really know what it wants to be, and it honestly feels like Tony and Mike said "you know what, we don't need Phil!", only to find out, to their utter chagrin, that they really, really did. I will give the drumming credit-it sounds like Phil in his prime on steroids-but finding out now that the band went into the studio with the songs unfinished really explains a lot of it to me.
I have heard, and I'm not sure if it's actually true, that one of the singers considered for the job was Fish from Marillion. Which may have been a bit too on the nose for some people, but it makes a lot more sense than Ray Wilson turned out to be. Genesis really should have ended with We Can't Dance, and really, to me, they did.
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Fish sang on one of Tony's solo albums, and was great. He would've been cool as the new Genesis singer.
In 1995, Tony got together with Jack Hues (singer/guitarist from Wang Chung) to release Strictly, Inc., which stylistically fits right between the last two Genesis albums. Jack would've been another good choice for the next Genesis singer. Strictly, Inc. is something like Bankstatement from 1989; both are albums which seem to be self-titled albums from bands (only a single title appears on the cover), but they're really Tony Banks solo projects. He wrote all the songs, put the bands together, and obviously plays all the keys. Anyway, Strictly, Inc. is a pretty good album, and I just thought I'd mention it and Jack Hues.
Genesis really should have ended with We Can't Dance, and really, to me, they did.
Yeah, me too.
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I can agree with you two that I really like the title track, even though it fades out before it really builds up to anything. The rest of the album just fails to deliver though. It's like the album can't even make it to the end of the first song without giving up. :lol Whole thing's a throwaway. To me, at least.
And since I've only heard the studio albums, I suppose this is where my participation ends, so I'd just like to thank Orbert for doing another one of these topics. They're really fun and interesting, and best of all, give me an excuse to revisit these albums, regardless of quality.
Barring the debut, the way I own these albums are through the 2007/2008 box sets, which are fantastic packages, btw. Always hoped to get the live box set, but alas. Mostly just for collector's sake, as I'm more of a studio album kind of guy.
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In 1995, Tony got together with Jack Hues (singer/guitarist from Wang Chung) to release Strictly, Inc., which stylistically fits right between the last two Genesis albums. Jack would've been another good choice for the next Genesis singer. Strictly, Inc. is something like Bankstatement from 1989; both are albums which seem to be self-titled albums from bands (only a single title appears on the cover), but they're really Tony Banks solo projects. He wrote all the songs, put the bands together, and obviously plays all the keys. Anyway, Strictly, Inc. is a pretty good album, and I just thought I'd mention it and Jack Hues.
I need to look into that Strictly, Inc. album. That sounds like an interesting combo, albeit one I never actually THOUGHT of. :rollin
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I could never get into Calling all stations and this is coming from a fan of Van Halen with Gary Cherone. And the album art really leaves a lot to be desired.
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and this is coming from a fan of Van Halen with Gary Cherone.
I knew there had to be another one...high-five. :tup
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In 1995, Tony got together with Jack Hues (singer/guitarist from Wang Chung) to release Strictly, Inc., which stylistically fits right between the last two Genesis albums. Jack would've been another good choice for the next Genesis singer. Strictly, Inc. is something like Bankstatement from 1989; both are albums which seem to be self-titled albums from bands (only a single title appears on the cover), but they're really Tony Banks solo projects. He wrote all the songs, put the bands together, and obviously plays all the keys. Anyway, Strictly, Inc. is a pretty good album, and I just thought I'd mention it and Jack Hues.
I need to look into that Strictly, Inc. album. That sounds like an interesting combo, albeit one I never actually THOUGHT of. :rollin
It's pretty good; I like it. Even though it is presented as a band, a collaboration by Tony and Jack, like I said, it's Tony's project, so unfortunately there's not a lot of Wang Chung feel to it. I liked Wang Chung. They did some weird, edgier stuff like the "To Live and Die in L.A." soundtrack, and even the song "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" is actually a more complex tune than people realize. Plus Jack's pipes, holy shit that guy can sing.
Strictly, Inc. closes with a 17-minute song called "An Island in the Darkness". Before you get too excited, this is not a prog epic in the old-school sense. But after most of the album restricting itself to "regular" songs, this one takes its time and really stretches out. It has a lot of orchestration in the form of Tony's banks of keyboards, and of course it goes through an extended instrumental section featuring lot of changes and those great chord sequences that we've come to expect from Tony.
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Crappy album. Shipwrecked is a gem though. And I also really like the title track. Other than that,meh. Would have loved to see Fish sing for Genesis.
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As cool as it would have been to see Fish in Genesis, I'm sure there would have been some huge personality issues. Fish certainly seems to piss people off. Outside of Frank Usher I don't think there is anyone in his solo band that has been with him for a long time.
Another thing that could have been interesting is that Kevin Gilbert was likely to have auditioned with the band. However he passed away right before that happened. That could have been interesting.
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I have an odd affection for this album. Some of my favorite tracks include the title track, "Shipwrecked", "Not About Us", "Alien Afternoon", "The Dividing Line", "There Must Be Some Other Way", and "One Man's Fool", which is a great closing track! I love the way it builds and builds to the end, despite the fade-out.
And speaking of fade-outs, I've grown to ignore them a bit on this album, considering that they were becoming more and more commonplace in Genesis songs since Abacab. The rest of the album is OK, not GREAT, but I find songs like "Small Talk" and "Congo" slightly more listenable than half the tracks on IT and WCD. And I enjoy Ray Wilson's voice on this album, despite never having listened to any of his other material.
I noticed no one has mentioned the EIGHT B-sides that did not make it on this album:
Anything Now (my favorite of the bunch)
Sign Your Life Away
Run Out Of Time
Banjo Man (tied for my least favorite)
Papa He Said (also tied for my least favorite)
Phret and 7/8 (both instrumentals)
Nowhere Else To Turn
The last one is a rarer B-Side, not having been released on ANY single, but somehow made it's way to the internet! The first three were the only ones remastered for the '07 Box Sets, which is fine by me. The remaining five weren't so great, although "Phret" is a soothing instrumental.
And for the curious, here's my 2-Disc Remix playlist of this album including all the songs:
Disc 1
Calling All Stations
Congo
7/8
Shipwrecked
Anything Now
Alien Afternoon
Sign Your Life Away
Not About Us
Banjo Man
If That's What You Need
Disc 2
The Dividing Line
Nowhere Else To Turn
Uncertain Weather
Papa He Said
Small Talk
Run Out Of Time
There Must Be Some Other Way
Phret
One Man's Fool
It's the complete CAS set, for me, and it's not a bad bunch of songs all in all, but still not what one would expect from Tony and Mike, let alone Genesis.
-Marc.
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I knew there were a number of B-sides, and did some digging around and found out that there were a ton, but my writeup was getting pretty long and I figured they could come up later. I was right. ;)
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In all, 10 of the 11 tracks on this album fade out, with at least half of them fading because it just seems like they didn't know what else to do.
There must be some other way...
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Oh you!
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Genesis: Live over Europe 2007
(https://i.imgur.com/HzcKQ0k.jpg)
Duke's Intro (excerpts from Behind the Lines and Duke's End)
Turn It on Again
No Son of Mine
Land of Confusion
In The Cage (including excerpts from The Cinema Show and Duke's Travels)
Afterglow
Hold on My Heart
Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea
Follow You Follow Me
Old Medley (excerpts from Firth of Fifth, I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), and Stagnation)
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Conversations With 2 Stools
Los Endos
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight (Excerpt)
Invisible Touch
I Can't Dance
The Carpet Crawlers
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Tony Banks: Keyboards, Background Vocals
Phil Collins: Lead Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Mike Rutherford: Guitar, Bass, Background Vocals
with
Daryl Steurmer: Bass, Guitar, Background Vocals
Chester Thompson: Drums
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15 years after We Can't Dance, the last album with Phil Collins, and 10 years after Calling All Stations, the final Genesis studio album, the band reunited for one final hurrah. They had been trying to get Peter Gabriel to rejoin them for years, but despite professing a "never say never" attitude for many, many years, it really did seem that he wasn't interested. Steve Hackett had also been asked to join them, which would have made it a full reunion of the classic five-piece lineup from the early 70's, but when Peter ultimately declined, the offer to Hackett was withdrawn. Apparently a reunion of the three-piece lineup which had enjoyed huge commercial success had great potential, and the original five-piece lineup had great potential amongst aging progheads who'd been waiting 30 years for such an event, but the four-piece lineup really didn't have the drawing power of either. So they went on a reunion tour with the three-piece band, augmented as always by Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Steurmer on bass and guitar, and this is the document of that tour.
The sound is great. The production is great. The performances are excellent, and the band sounds like it hasn't been 15 minutes, let alone 15 years, since they last played together. Except for one very important thing: The key of almost every song has been lowered, to accomodate Phil's aging voice.
The problem is that after 30 years, we know what these songs sound like. We know exactly what the songs sound like, and even if you don't have perfect pitch, you can tell that they're not being sung in the original keys. It doesn't bother some people at all; as long as everyone's in tune and there aren't any screw-ups, it all sounds fine. Some people are bothered a bit, but it's not enough to ruin things. Then there are people like me. I don't have perfect pitch, but I do have "pretty good" pitch, and these songs just don't sound right.
In most cases, the lower key robs the songs of some of their beauty. An F# has a certain ring to it that is unmistakeable. That's why so many songs in D (where it's the major third) or B (where it's the fifth) sound so bright and happy. It's that F# ringing. Play the song down a step or two or three, and it's just not the same. An F isn't the same. An E is so common that it's boring. An Eb is downright mellow. There is a reason why songs sound better in certain keys. Western music is not even-tempered. It does make a difference what key you sing a song in.
Adding to that, many of the later songs have the drum machine and other sequenced percussion, and those are pitched sounds. We know what the song sounds like relative to those pitches, and when Phil starts singing, it sounds like he's in the wrong key.
I'm not going to go into the specifics of the performances, because they're all excellent. Look at the list of songs. Every era is represented, though some more than others. Some of those titles are really just excerpts, but it's a killer setlist no matter how you slice it. The band is well-rehearsed; they're completely tight. They literally sound just about perfect, excerpt for the key shifts, and that might even be part of the problem. It all sounds so good that it almost doesn't sound like a live album, or at least it doesn't sound any different from The Way We Walk. The "In the Cage" medley is pretty much the same, as is the "Old Medley" and even "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" leading into "Invisible Touch" instead of the break.
So if you're not bothered by bands lowering the key to accomodate aging vocal chords, and live versions of songs that sound pretty much like the studio versions, or at least like earlier live versions, then by all means check this out. But if you're bothered by pitch compensation, or would like live versions to vary from the studio versions by more than a few extra guitar licks and chopping a lot of good songs up into medleys, then there's no real need to get this album.
I'm not slamming Genesis for doing what they did. They wanted to end things on a positive note; they've said so. But to do it, and have Phil sing, they had to make certain adjustments, which may or may not bother you. And the performances are great. They're perfect. And somehow they're nothing special.
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EPILOGUE
Well, it's been fun. Another discography completed. While Yes is still around -- they're actually working on a new album right now -- Genesis is gone, and sadly, they went out with a whimper rather than a bang, then came back and tried to give their story a proper ending, and just didn't have it in them. And that's just how it goes sometimes.
Tony now writes orchestral music and the occassional movie soundtrack. His SEVEN A Suite for Orchestra (2004) and SIX Pieces for Orchestra (2012) are both excellent. (He refers to them as "Seven" and "Six") They have the wonderful Tony Banks chords and cadences from the best instrumentals of Genesis, expanded and scored for orchestra. I recommend both of them.
In 2011, Mike + The Mechanics released The Road, their first album in seven years. And saying "their" is probably misleading, since Mike is the only original member left, and even before Paul Young's death in 2000, there was starting to be longer and longer gaps between albums, and more frequent lineup changes.
Anyone who has seen video footage of Phil playing the drums knows that he had a very odd, crouched stance on the drum stool. Years of playing in this position has caused permanent damage to his spinal column, and despite several operations, he lives now with chronic pain, which is increased when he plays the drums or piano, or even when he sings. Because of this, he has been battling depression, and formally announced his permanent retirement from music a few years ago.
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My copy of this CD lists the Old Medley as "Firth of Fifth (Excerpt)" and "I Know What I Like" as two separate tracks, but it is essentially a scaled down version of the Old Medley.
My reason for buying this was simple: I wanted to get the bad taste out of my mouth left by Calling All Stations. While my love for Genesis stretches all the way back to the start, it was the three piece version of the band that I fell in love with, and this touring line up actually was together as Genesis live longer than any other. And going into it I knew it'd be a by the numbers Genesis live album, with allowances for age in the vocals.
Still bought it anyway.
As live albums go, especially Genesis live albums go, this one is workmanlike. There isn't the fire the band had on Live, the confidence and power they had on Seconds Out, or even the swagger that came with success on Three Sides Live. This live album is more an old friend coming to pay you a visit. You're talking about the same old things, the same old familiarity, and maybe telling the same jokes you always did. It's not doing anything amazing-it hardly feels live at all. But yet, it's still Genesis, playing live, being that old friend you met back around 1981 or so, still telling you the same old jokes (and surprising you by including songs like Ripples in the playlist) and being that old familiar friend you knew, one last time. It isn't quite the goodbye we could have had if Fading Lights had truly been the end, and we'll never know, with Phil's retirement, what could have been. But in the end, it's Genesis. And that's all you need to know about this album.
Thanks for this thread, Orbert. While I enjoyed the Yes thread, I really liked this one. Genesis was my first progressive rock love, and they're still my favorite band from the classic prog era, and one of my five favorite bands period. This has been a blast.
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It's a DECENT live album, but since there's not much NEW on it, you can basically find much of this material, with better sound and performing, on earlier live albums and singles. It does have a sort of "Here's one last release, for good ole times' sake" feeling, but that's about it. A shot of nostalgia for fans of 80's/Collins-led Genesis, but that's about it. At least they gave some Gabriel-Era fans more bits this time around, and surprises like "Ripples..." and "Los Endos" are nice, but I feel they could've been FAR more adventurous with the set list.
-Marc.
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My copy of this CD lists the Old Medley as "Firth of Fifth (Excerpt)" and "I Know What I Like" as two separate tracks, but it is essentially a scaled down version of the Old Medley.
I always start by listening to the albums "blind", and I recognized the Old Medley right away. When I went to write up the track listing, I was actually surprised that they'd listed the songs that way, but I hate using "segue" and "excerpt" and stuff like that. So I just listed the song titles. It seemed more "complete" that way.
Then I realized that that was misleading. Don't put "Firth of Fifth" or "The Cinema Show" if they only play part of it. And in my writeup, I mentioned that many of the songs were just excerpts. So I went back and added "(excerpt)" to "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" and messed with the "Duke's" and "Cage" medleys to try and make some sense out of them, but I don't have a physical copy of the album and I don't trust how things are written up on Wikipedia (I've been burned once too many times) so I just did it my way. And let's face it, the "Old Medley" went through numerous changes over the years, and this was just another version of it. It has always annoyed me that that was the best title they could come up with, and in a way, it was almost cool that they didn't use it here. But I took some creative license because people who listen to this album know what it is, and those who don't won't care.
I had to fight myself to work up the ambition to write this one. Eventually, I just wanted to get it over with. This was such a great band. Yeah, it was nice to get a somewhat more positive ending to their story. But if we're gonna go with the analogy of one last visit from an old friend, it was hard to enjoy this visit because he's old and decrepit now, a shadow of his former self but with just enough spark remaining to remind you of the old days, and make it that much more tragic what he's come to. The songs weren't slowed down, but lowering the keys so much just changed them, robbed them of their energy and beauty.
It was nice to hear "Ripples" one last time.
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I really like this final album, although I have to admit, part of it is because of the memory of the songs being played live. It's not their best work, but it's brilliant, and I love it. I'll admit, Ripples sounds wrong transposed down, but that's because it's Ripples. It's meant to be shiny, but we have the Hackett Gen Rev II version, which I think more than makes up for the lack of shiny in this version.
I've not heard any of the Mike stuff, but the Tony Banks orchestral CDs are really good. My stepfather has both.
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I just realized there's still MORE albums you/we could be talking about! What about both Archive sets, which feature live material from all across Genesis' career, and then there's the bonus stuff on the 2007 remasters/remixes/re-releases, like the Rainbow show? And what about the Live Box and Movie Box sets as well?
Sure, most of that stuff is LIVE stuff, and I know that doesn't generate a lot of discussion, but it'd be interesting to note and document otherwise.
-Marc.
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Thanks for doing this, Orbert. Genesis is one of my favourite bands ever, although I didn't participate in their post-Hackett stuff.
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I just realized there's still MORE albums you/we could be talking about! What about both Archive sets, which feature live material from all across Genesis' career, and then there's the bonus stuff on the 2007 remasters/remixes/re-releases, like the Rainbow show? And what about the Live Box and Movie Box sets as well?
Sure, most of that stuff is LIVE stuff, and I know that doesn't generate a lot of discussion, but it'd be interesting to note and document otherwise.
I could, but the focus for me has always been a band's official studio and live albums. You can get really carried away with all the compilations, especially those of bands that have been around for a long time (which is most of the bands I listen to). So I made a decision up front to stick to "regular" albums, studio and live.
Also, I don't have most of those extraterrestrial compilations anyway. I have the first Genesis archive because it was a gift, and the first two boxes because Amazon screwed up one time and had them for the same price as a regular single CD for about half a day, so I grabbed them. But in general I see those as money-grabs by the label, and out of principle I tend not to buy them.
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Thanks for doing this, Orbert. Genesis is one of my favourite bands ever, although I didn't participate in their post-Hackett stuff.
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Y'all are welcome. :coolio As always, I'm just sharing what I've got, hopefully in a way that others can gain something from. (Man, that is a poorly constructed sentence. Sunday morning and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.)
Marc, if you want to discuss the box sets and archives and stuff, feel free to do so. I originally conceived of the discography threads as a way to examine how the band's sound changed over the years, and how changes in personnel may or may not have contributed to those changes. But a closer examination of the output itself is always a part of that, so it's not exactly out out place.
There's always the official Genesis appreciation thread (or whatever it's called), where pretty much anything goes that's related to the band. If you talk about them there, you might get more participation, and I'll contribute what I can, since I do have some of that stuff.
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One of my biggest regrets in life is not seeing Genesis on this tour.
:millahhhh
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Thanks for doing all these write-ups! :tup
I didn't really participate in the discussions, but I sure read everything. Thanks again!
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I'll echo the thanks for this thread. Genesis was not my first prog love--I was a metal fan first, and wound my way from Maiden to DT to Rush to Yes to a number of other bands before finally getting to Genesis pretty late, when I was in college (mid-90s). I'm no Genesis fanatic--but I think they grew as young musicians into one of the best albums ever recorded (Selling England by the Pound) before experiencing some growing pains, then managing to more absolutely wonderful albums (Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering) before starting a long, slow, pretty sad demise. I have other albums of theirs--Duke, Foxtrot, Lamb, a few others--but these are the three I return to most.
It's been a lot of fun visiting the whole catalog here.
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From the Chicago thread:
Good luck on getting into the early Genesis. It's definitely different from their later stuff, and folks who started with the later, more popular version of Genesis don't always take to the earlier material.
Don't get me wrong, I was never into Genesis at all. I would sing a long with Radio hits but I never had a desire to collect their music. Pre-Abacab I just literally didn't know existed until about 1998. I've tried on several different occasions to absorb/appreciate their music mainly because of folks like you who's opinions I admire. But, I struggle...mightily. I thought this thread would be my last best shot.
Being an insomniac (you know how it is at our age) I found myself up at 2:00 am last night and had a go at From Genesis to Revelation , Trespass and Nursery Cryme while reading along with this thread. Aren't headphones a wonderful thing while the wife and pets sleep? Any way, I'm going to need to re-listen to at least NC and maybe Trespass because so far only The Knife stood out to me as worthy of an iTunes purchase.
I have some real hurdles with trying to get into this band but this isn't a thread (or site really) for negativity. The kindest way for me to put it is I like rock and roll and I really like rock and roll bands to rock out! I get, and adore, that Art Rock (Prog) has all these different influences, moments, inspiration and elements. To me Genesis is more Modern Performance Music if there is such a genre... I don't know, I want to appreciate but I may never get it.
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Thanks for this thread. I've largely missed Genesis in my catalog. Born in 1978 and really when I was young appreciated Invisible Touch and Phil's solo efforts listening to the radio while in the car with my dad.
It wasn't until the early 90s when I started to find my own musical way, and the 90s were about grunge and metal for me. It's taken me until this last decade to really go back and examine things I've missed due to age and closed minded taste of music in the 90s.
That said I've got MOST of the Genesis discography on the way to me (used). Save for the live albums, Duke, Genesis, From Genesis to Revelation and finally Calling All Stations.
So I guess, aside from Duke I will have the most beloved of the Genesis library. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into it.
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From the Chicago thread:
Good luck on getting into the early Genesis. It's definitely different from their later stuff, and folks who started with the later, more popular version of Genesis don't always take to the earlier material.
Don't get me wrong, I was never into Genesis at all. I would sing a long with Radio hits but I never had a desire to collect their music. Pre-Abacab I just literally didn't know existed until about 1998. I've tried on several different occasions to absorb/appreciate their music mainly because of folks like you who's opinions I admire. But, I struggle...mightily. I thought this thread would be my last best shot.
Being an insomniac (you know how it is at our age) I found myself up at 2:00 am last night and had a go at From Genesis to Revelation , Trespass and Nursery Cryme while reading along with this thread. Aren't headphones a wonderful thing while the wife and pets sleep? Any way, I'm going to need to re-listen to at least NC and maybe Trespass because so far only The Knife stood out to me as worthy of an iTunes purchase.
I have some real hurdles with trying to get into this band but this isn't a thread (or site really) for negativity. The kindest way for me to put it is I like rock and roll and I really like rock and roll bands to rock out! I get, and adore, that Art Rock (Prog) has all these different influences, moments, inspiration and elements. To me Genesis is more Modern Performance Music if there is such a genre... I don't know, I want to appreciate but I may never get it.
Supper's Ready.....please God, go listen to Supper's Ready!!!
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Supper's Ready.....please God, go listen to Supper's Ready!!!
Jammin,
I've had Supper's Ready, well all of Foxtrot really, on my music player for a few years. I've yet to see why it elicits responses like yours from people. My best friend gave me the album for my birthday a few years ago and told me that I should be familiar with Supper's Ready simply because it was considered an important moment in the development of progressive rock. A few weeks later I asked him what he thought of it because I was having difficulty finding anything of merit in the music. He laughed and said, "There's a reason I haven't listened to it since the 80's. Gabriel Genesis is crap." And then he laughed himself sick.
*shrug*
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To each their own, I guess....
The soft beginning, building to the lunacy of Willow Farm...then crescendoing into the Apocalypse in 9/8...and then the majestic repeated theme at the end. I view it as the quintessential progressive rock song....the blueprint for which all other sidelong epics would ever be constructed from....and IMO, the greatest rock song ever recorded.
But...other people's mileage varies...
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Well, obviously different people have different tastes. Most artists do what they like to do, and if other people also like what they do, then cool. If not, oh well. The Art Rock movement was all about pushing boundaries, seeing how many other influences and outright craziness you could include, and still call it rock and roll. It doesn't work for everyone.
There's a lot of prog that I like, and a lot that I don't like. Most of the time, though, I can at least appreciate what they were trying to do. And sometimes it really did come out crap.
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Second listen through Nursery Cryme without having first listening to the previous albums helped a lot. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed is worth the price of admission alone. I'll maybe do a third listen and then move on.
There's a lot of prog that I like, and a lot that I don't like. Most of the time, though, I can at least appreciate what they were trying to do. And sometimes it really did come out crap.
Look, I may have given you fellas the wrong impression. I readily admit the deficiency is mine and I'm determined to remedy that if I can. Genesis is full of talented musicians and songwriters. I do appreciate what they were trying to do. Something in my personal biases based on where I've been in my life these past 50+ years is messing with me. I love so much music that is similar to early Genesis that it makes little sense for me to struggle so.
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I guess it was the comment that you were having difficulty finding anything of merit in the music. That can mean different things, but it just seemed wrong coming from someone with such a diverse musical background as yourself. But like I said, there can be differences in meaning. I consider something worthy of appreciation, even if I don't like the result, if there is artistic merit. And early Genesis may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hard to deny their incredible musicianship.
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My copy of Foxtrot came from a used vendor with missing bits of the top label that made the disk transparent in spots. :censored
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/994594_10201193175783065_1776180170_n.jpg)
I guess I need to get them to send me another copy.
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I guess it was the comment that you were having difficulty finding anything of merit in the music. That can mean different things, but it just seemed wrong coming from someone with such a diverse musical background as yourself. But like I said, there can be differences in meaning. I consider something worthy of appreciation, even if I don't like the result, if there is artistic merit. And early Genesis may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hard to deny their incredible musicianship.
Yes, poor choice of words on my part. I've always had difficulty communicating precisely.
We all expect music to move us to a certain degree. I'm not a very emotional guy so what I hope to gain by listening to music is a sense of excitement and on that rare occasion awe. And while I'll readily admit to their remarkable musicianship--I'm most impressed with Collins and Rutherford--and even superior lyrical poetry I'm having difficulty with the excitement part. This thread really does help. It's fun to read everyone's thoughts and about your excitement.
I'm progressing...
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'Tis cool. We're on the same page. :tup
On a side note, I've renamed this thread to "Genesis Discography" to distinguish it from the "Genesis Appreciation" thread and hopefully cut down on the confusion. I didn't want my discography threads to clog up the appreciation threads for the respective bands, but it was kinda funky renaming them for each new entry (which I felt was important) and funkier still once they were done. I think this will help.
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I personally know the girl that Invisible Touch was written about.
Story/Pics/Proof or BS. :justjen
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Okay, I had one more run through Nursery Cryme and enjoyed the trip much more than previously. I have hopes for future listens when I came back to it.
I put on Foxtrot and because I was already familiar with it, plus it has a similar vibe as NC, I got bored with it quickly. So, after lunch I decided I'd come back to Foxtrot another time and moved on to Selling England By The Pound since I have never heard it before.
I'm not sure what the difference is but I was excited by the experience and can't wait to listen to it again! Woohoo :lol
Orbert, do you feel that I'm cluttering this thread? I'm a little confused by your earlier announcement. ??? I figured this was the appropriate place for me to share my experience and thoughts about this particular journey through their discography.
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Since you're working your way through the discography, the discography thread can't be considered the wrong place IMO.
But about my comment. I browse DTF via the "Show new replies to your posts" button. The first thing I always check is threads that I'm currently participating in. The other day, it showed new replies in both the Genesis Appreciation thread and a thread just called "Genesis" which I didn't even remember. It was my discography thread; I must've gotten lazy with the renaming. So I renamed it, again. My "announcement" was just to clarify that I'd done so. Since it caused some confusion, I should've just kept quiet. I have trouble doing that sometimes.
I think of the Genesis Appreciation thread, or any Appreciation thread, for "general" appreciation posts. Somebody picks up a new CD, or hears a song for the first time in a while and wants to post about it, or ask a question, that kind of thing. My discographies are specific efforts to study how a band's sound has changed over the years because of the passage of time and/or changes in membership. So like I said, since you're working through the discography, your journey parallels the thread and therefore it's appropriate to comment here.
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Supper's Ready.....please God, go listen to Supper's Ready!!!
Jammin,
I've had Supper's Ready, well all of Foxtrot really, on my music player for a few years. I've yet to see why it elicits responses like yours from people. My best friend gave me the album for my birthday a few years ago and told me that I should be familiar with Supper's Ready simply because it was considered an important moment in the development of progressive rock. A few weeks later I asked him what he thought of it because I was having difficulty finding anything of merit in the music. He laughed and said, "There's a reason I haven't listened to it since the 80's. Gabriel Genesis is crap." And then he laughed himself sick.
*shrug*
The first time I ever heard Supper's Ready was on Seconds Out. I'm not sure if that is the main reason, but that has always been my favorite version of the song. The double drums in Apocalypse in 9/8 and the slower tempo at the end of the song are things that stand out as vast improvements over the original. I also prefer live versions with Gabriel in the band where the two things I just mentioned don't come in to play.
To me the standout track on Foxtrot is "Can Utility and the Coastliners". This short song has a lot of things I love about early Genesis: 12 String acoustic guitars, melotron, and awesome bass and drum playing. It is only missing a signature Steve Hackett guitar solo.
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I still think Duke's Suite is the best thing the band has done.
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Wow Podaar, I never thought I'd meet another person on this board who's been as underwhelmed with Supper's Ready as I am. :lol
I find Foxtrot as a whole really underwhelming.
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I still think Duke's Suite is the best thing the band has done.
If it was one track it would be top 3 for sure!
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Supper's Ready is the quintessential prog epic as far as I'm concerned. It has drama, atmosphere, zaniness and keeps my interest for the entire song. Yes attempted the side long epic several times, it often worked but it still took time for them to refine. Genesis perfected it on their first try.
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I don't know about that. "Close to the Edge" was the first epic from Yes, and many consider it to be about as good as it gets. Most prog polls for Best Epic end up "Supper's Ready" and "Close to the Edge" as the top two with "Close to the Edge" coming out on top just as often.
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Close to the Edge is a pretty fantastic song, but it doesn't touch the glory of Suppers Ready IMO.
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I don't know about that. "Close to the Edge" was the first epic from Yes, and many consider it to be about as good as it gets. Most prog polls for Best Epic end up "Supper's Ready" and "Close to the Edge" as the top two with "Close to the Edge" coming out on top just as often.
I think CTE is great and is one of my favorites but I dunno, Supper's Ready just takes it to a completely new level. There are parts of CTE that I think could've used some improvement.
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I'm completely opposite of you, Mosh. I think Close to the Edge is a lot more mature than Supper's Ready. Yes was really on top of their game then. The first and last five minutes of Supper's Ready is absolutely ethereal, but sometimes the middle fifteen are a chore.
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I'm completely opposite of you, Mosh. I think Close to the Edge is a lot more mature than Supper's Ready. Yes was really on top of their game then. The first and last five minutes of Supper's Ready is absolutely ethereal, but sometimes the middle fifteen are a chore.
:justjen
See for me, that song just *TAKES OFF* at..... "A Flower??"
If you watch the DVD interviews with the band, Banks says (and I whole heartedly agree) that he felt that the song was dragging a bit in the middle when they were writing it....but then they had been working on a separate piece which became "Willow Farm", and he felt that when they added that section in the middle, it broke things up enough in the middle that it really *MADE* that song.
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Willow Farm was the part that really grabbed me on the first listen. I can see how the middle section can be seen as dragging, but I like the ominous vibe and dark atmosphere.
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Don't get me wrong; I love "Supper's Ready". But it's too obviously made up of other parts of things that they found ways to put together. "Close to the Edge" is a unified work from start to finish. It actually has a very basic structure: two verses (The Solid Time of Change, Total Mass Retain), a break (I Get Up, I Get Down), a solo, and the recapitulation (Seasons of Man). It's the kind of epic that's a song on a large scale, not the kind which goes through a bunch of different movements, although it does that also.
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Maybe that's why I prefer Supper, actually. Listening to it is like going on an adventure, with a ton of twists and turns. Close To The Edge does feel like a more unified piece, it certainly doesn't feel like 20 minutes. All of these things are positive traits, as far as I'm concerned.
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I prefer The Cinema Show.
Other favorites are In the Cage and The Knife :metal
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DAT BASS on The Knife
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My copy of Foxtrot came from a used vendor with missing bits of the top label that made the disk transparent in spots. :censored
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/994594_10201193175783065_1776180170_n.jpg)
I guess I need to get them to send me another copy.
Looks like you got a case of the pinholes. That stuff plagued a lot of the earlier discs. They should play through.
It was one of the early manufacturing defects. A few of my Rush CDs have that.
Unacceptable for someone to sell you that without mentioning it though.
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bump.
Supper's Ready Illustrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4HfFwVy-h0
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Part I – The Gabriel Era
Like Yes, I was introduced to Genesis sometime in the 80’s by their POP hits. I even have both Genesis and Invisible Touch CD’s in my collection – purchased sometime way back in the late 80’s. Unfortunately, back in the 80’s there was no Genesis classic compilation album to act as a bridge and provide access to their earlier work in a neat, concise package for someone trying to get into the band like there was for Yes. I was familiar with only a few of the 70’s songs via the local radio: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Squonk and Follow You Follow Me and that’s it.
So having moved through the Yes discography, I moved on to Genesis. The Den had me covered with every title available and various generations of remasters for many. This was new territory so to speak and I really didn’t know what to expect.
Like Yes, I don’t have and have not heard their first album.
Trespass
Though not quite as proggy as the later albums I really like this one. I put this one on often when I’m working on the computer. Every track is good and I don’t skip a song. With the exception of The Knife the songs do sound similar but they are unique enough that they stand out from each other.
Nursery Cryme
This was the first album I listened to, The Musical Box being my entry into the world of classic Genesis beyond the few songs mentioned above. I was impressed. Dynamic, shifting back and forth between lighter and heavier sections, it was nothing like I expected from hearing their 80’s albums. The sound they presented on Trespass was still present in songs like Seven Stones but The Musical Box, The Return Of The Giant Hogweed and The Fountain Of Salmacis really pushed their composition and sound to a new level.
I was impressed and anxious to get to the rest of albums.
Foxtrot
I agree that this album and Nursery Cryme have a very similar sound. Like its predecessor I like everything on this album. Get ‘Em Out By Friday didn’t grab me right away as I don’t typically like songs with “talking” in lieu of “singing” but the music is excellent and the dynamics keep it interesting. Can-Utility And The Coastliners showcases some awesome guitar / keyboard interplay.
I’d heard of Supper’s Ready in conversations with people when I would talk about Dream Theater’s long epics so I was really looking forward to hearing this. I like it a lot because it’s a different take on the long form epic style song but still has the unique genesis sound. I do think it has that patched together sound but it doesn’t distract from the great piece of music it is.
Selling England By The Pound
Definitely a step ahead of the previous two, this is my favorite of the Gabriel era Genesis albums. The Battle Of Epping Forest is the weakest of the four longer tracks as the first few minutes seem to drag and the “talking” brings it down a bit for me. Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth and Cinema Show are all top 10 songs to me. More Fool Me is the only track I skip. Banks’ keyboards and Hackett’s guitar really shine on this album.
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Putting the convoluted story (lyrics) aside, this album is musically on par with Selling England By The Pound to me. Genesis pack a lot of different styles into this album making it somewhat of a summary of the style of music written during the Gabriel era. The first album is pretty solid - The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging is only song I dislike. The second album is dragged down a bit by the uninteresting instrumental passages like The Waiting Room and Ravine. In The Rapids is a slow grind but seems more of an intro to It which itself is just okay. Don’t ask me about the story as I don’t have a clue as to what Gabriel was trying to get at. It doesn’t really bother me though and I can enjoy the album without having to embrace the story.
I listen to all of these albums on a semi-regular basis.