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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: The Letter M on June 15, 2021, 09:53:00 PM
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So I had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with this round. I had thought about just making it the 13th and 14th albums and stopping there, but I didn't felt it was fair to exclude Genesis' Calling All Stations, especially when I included their debut in the first poll. But if I was going to include all three of Genesis last albums, how would I handle the 15th Yes album?
*Technically speaking, Open Your Eyes was their next full studio album after Talk, but they released two Studio/Live albums titled Keys To Ascension, with some really good material from their "Classic Line-up". I thought by including those songs and acknowledging them (especially since they were later released as Keystudio), it might balance out the Yes side a bit more if some opinions on Union and/or Talk are less favorable, especially compared to Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance.
So here we are, from the late 80s into the mid 90s with both bands, but after Calling All Stations, Genesis called it quits, but Yes has continued on since then with 5 more albums (none of which will be represented here in this poll series, sorry!). As for Genesis, I've always enjoyed Invisible Touch, as I knew the singles growing up listening to them on classic rock radio, but when rediscovering them during my prog rock discovery, I found new appreciation for those songs and the whole album! We Can't Dance is a bit of a mixed bag for me - the highs are really high, but the lows are slow and plodding, and being a fairly long album, I don't really spin this one in its entirety very often. Calling All Stations has some great material on it hidden between some mediocre songs, but I don't dislike Ray Wilson at all. I think if the band had taken a second pass at some of the songs and used some of the B-Sides instead of the songs that made it into the album, they may have had a killer album and a chance at doing a second album with Ray. Ah well...
As for Yes, Union is also a bit of a mixed bag, but the idea of having most of all the Yesmen in one album is very appealing, though I've seen many Yesfans say that the Union Tour was much greater given the members involved, but there are still some great songs on Union (even though many fans will call it by their nickname for it, "Onion"). Talk is just a fun and good album through and through, and I enjoy it a lot, especially the fairly proggy three-part "Endless Dream". And of course, probably the proggiest, heaviest stuff they did in the 90s, the Keys studio material is probably some of my favorite post-Drama Yes music. I spun it earlier today, in fact, and still find it a joy to listen to.
Going between these two sets of three albums, I am kind of torn. If you want, your vote can ignore the 15th albums for both bands, if you want to just consider IT/WCD vs Union/Talk, that's fine as well. I just wanted to put the option out there to include Calling All Stations and the Keys material as they both followed We Can't Dance and Talk.
-Marc.
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Ok. Union is obviously hit and miss. But Talk is THE GREATEST “YesWest” album by a long shot, and I personally feel the Keystudio material was a beautiful swan song for the classic lineup that would never record together again.
The Genesis stuff is ok, and Calling All Stations is grossly underrated, but this round should be a landslide for Yes.
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I have zero knowledge of the Yes albums here.
Invisible Touch is a legitimately great pop album with just enough prog sprinkled throughout to keep me happy.
We Can't Dance is not as great as IT and it is over long, but there are some great moments on it. No Son of Mine, Driving the Last Spike, and Fading Lights are great, and I personally think Hold on My Heart is a lovely song. Dreaming While You Sleep is also pretty cool but feels like a Phil Collins solo song.
I am also one of those weird people who thinks Calling All Stations is pretty good. I might even like it more than We Can't Dance (in fact I think I do), though I still kind of think of it as something other than Genesis.
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I'm not even sure how to score this.
Onion is okay; I like the YesWest songs WAY better than the ABWH songs, too bad there are only four. The only ABWH song I really like is "I Would Have Waited Forever" and that's only because of the harmony vocals that Squire brought to the table.
I LOVE Invisible Touch. There are duds - I do not like Land of Confusion and if I never see those fucking puppets ever again, it'll be too soon - but Domino is excellent, and even better live. I listened to this record a LOT at the time.
Talk is EXCELLENT. Really underrated record, and one I listen to a lot. I'm a big Trevor Rabin fan (and before Squire's death, I was hoping for one last go-round). I think the four Rabin albums are of very high quality, and while the best of Yes has Howe, so does the very worst of Yes. There is a consistency to the Rabin records that has otherwise been lost in Yes since at least Drama.
I generally like not love We Can't Dance. The high points are high - Driving The Last Spike, Living Forever, Fading Lights - but the low points are abyssmal - the almost-title track, the ballads (I can't name them they're so bland).
I think Keys is so much missed opportunity. It is good, but it should be SO much better. I can do without "Janey on crack time" or whatever it is. I know why they released the studio stuff with the live: the live is where the magic is. They SHOULD have done a whole 2CD set of the entire show (or even a box of the three shows).
I also think Calling All Stations is a missed opportunity. I think had they written with Ray instead of just bringing him in it might haev been better. I'm also bitter; I had a chance to see them in Munich when I was there and I didn't go, and I regret that now. Haha.
I would rate this:
Talk
Invisible Touch
We Can't Dance
Keys to Ascension
Onion (YesWest)
Calling All Stations
Onion (ABWH)
Dead heat that I will give to.... Genesis, for really no reason at all.
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I'm going with Genesis on this one.
Invisible Touch was another hugely important album in my childhood, and I will always be a fan of the Simmons drums Phil used on that record. The only dud track is In Too Deep. Everything else is solid, and Throwing It All Away is one of their best Collins era ballads. We Can't Dance is definitely padded out, but the highlights are very strong. Fading Lights is the perfect closer for the Collins era. Calling All Stations was their only real mis-step. It has some moments, but I don't think Mike and Tony had a real clear plan for moving forward after Phil's departure, and Ray Wilson was such a milquetoast frontman and vocalist. Watching live clips from that era, the band was rock solid, but Ray was clearly the weak link, both in terms of vocal performance and stage presence. Honestly, they should've just hired Nick D'Virgilio for both vocalist and drummer, and had him in at the beginning of the writing process. Or, brought in Kevin Gilbert for vocals and Nick for drums and have them involved from the beginning. Either way, big swing and a miss from a band who largely had their eye on the ball throughout their career.
With Yes, this is where the missed opportunities start to pile up. I liked Union a lot when it came out, but over time, the weaknesses become clear. It's funny to me how everyone in the band hates that album, but sad that they didn't care about the legacy or reputation enough to work out a decent album. Talk was decent, and Endless Dream is amazing, but the fact that they couldn't get their management worked out enough to get Wakeman on board is just mind-boggling. The Keys to Ascension discs were another massively missed opportunity. The live set should have been released on its own, with the studio tracks given their own proper release as an official album. If I remember correctly, this is why Wakeman left for the fourth time. :facepalm: :facepalm: The Keys studio material is, in my opinion, second only to Going For the One in terms of the quality that the Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman, White lineup produced. Had it been properly released as an official Yes studio album, Open Your Eyes would have been avoided altogether.
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Calling All Stations was their only real mis-step. It has some moments, but I don't think Mike and Tony had a real clear plan for moving forward after Phil's departure, and Ray Wilson was such a milquetoast frontman and vocalist. Watching live clips from that era, the band was rock solid, but Ray was clearly the weak link, both in terms of vocal performance and stage presence. Honestly, they should've just hired Nick D'Virgilio for both vocalist and drummer, and had him in at the beginning of the writing process. Or, brought in Kevin Gilbert for vocals and Nick for drums and have them involved from the beginning. Either way, big swing and a miss from a band who largely had their eye on the ball throughout their career.
This would have been a stroke of brilliance, but at the time NDV didn't have a track record as a singer and had really only played on The Light in terms of studio performances, so he didn't have a track record as a writer either. Nick told a story in an interview somewhere where he mentioned that years later Tony Banks asked him "why didn't you tell me you could sing too?" Of course nobody really asked him and Nick wasn't going to push for something like that in his position. If the whole thing had happened even 6-10 years later after Nick had several more albums and singing credits under his belt (including his solo album), maybe that would have been an option. But alas.
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I'm going with Genesis on this one.
Invisible Touch was another hugely important album in my childhood, and I will always be a fan of the Simmons drums Phil used on that record. The only dud track is In Too Deep. Everything else is solid, and Throwing It All Away is one of their best Collins era ballads. We Can't Dance is definitely padded out, but the highlights are very strong. Fading Lights is the perfect closer for the Collins era. Calling All Stations was their only real mis-step. It has some moments, but I don't think Mike and Tony had a real clear plan for moving forward after Phil's departure, and Ray Wilson was such a milquetoast frontman and vocalist. Watching live clips from that era, the band was rock solid, but Ray was clearly the weak link, both in terms of vocal performance and stage presence. Honestly, they should've just hired Nick D'Virgilio for both vocalist and drummer, and had him in at the beginning of the writing process. Or, brought in Kevin Gilbert for vocals and Nick for drums and have them involved from the beginning. Either way, big swing and a miss from a band who largely had their eye on the ball throughout their career.
With Yes, this is where the missed opportunities start to pile up. I liked Union a lot when it came out, but over time, the weaknesses become clear. It's funny to me how everyone in the band hates that album, but sad that they didn't care about the legacy or reputation enough to work out a decent album. Talk was decent, and Endless Dream is amazing, but the fact that they couldn't get their management worked out enough to get Wakeman on board is just mind-boggling. The Keys to Ascension discs were another massively missed opportunity. The live set should have been released on its own, with the studio tracks given their own proper release as an official album. If I remember correctly, this is why Wakeman left for the fourth time. :facepalm: :facepalm: The Keys studio material is, in my opinion, second only to Going For the One in terms of the quality that the Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman, White lineup produced. Had it been properly released as an official Yes studio album, Open Your Eyes would have been avoided altogether.
They hate the album, but all - except Howe - loved the tour. It's an interesting story, and it really involves ANderson and Jonathan Elias, who, as I understand it, took the tapes and did a sort of "Phil Specter on Let It Be" to them. There's a lot of music on there that wasn't performed by the 8 members of the Onion lineup, and of course, none of the songs feature all 8 at the same time. I think it would have been damn near impossible, but had they actually tried to do something within the confines of the band, it might have been different.
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The best album out of all of these is "Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford, Howe" but it isn't listed... ;)
Based on what I know from the albums listed, I go with YES on this one, if only for Keys to Ascension alone. They released all the studio cuts as "Keystudio" and that's what I listen to if I ever make my way over to this era of YES. It is nice to have all the 'new' material all in one place. I definitely need to revisit this era of their albums.
The Genesis albums, I can't say I know them well enough, definitely not enough to comment much on them. In fact, I don't think I've ever listened to We Can't Dance.
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We Can't Dance is more miss than hit, but Fading Lights is awesome, with the latter half being one of the highlights of Tony Banks' entire career.
Not an impressive batch of six here overall, but Talk is great, and still one of my five favorite Yes albums. So they get the nod merely off of the strength of that record. Union has a handful of really good songs, but the rest is a mess.
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Yes for me. I agree with most of what others have been saying. Talk is the best Rabin era album. That one was a pain to track down years ago but well worth the hunt. I adore Keys. I actually organized the studio tracks into the Keystudio order on my iPod and put the SLO show as it's own entry. Mind Drive is just a killer track.
I love Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance is strong as well. Never heard the non-Phil album.
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The best album out of all of these is "Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford, Howe" but it isn't listed... ;)
Based on what I know from the albums listed, I go with YES on this one, if only for Keys to Ascension alone. They released all the studio cuts as "Keystudio" and that's what I listen to if I ever make my way over to this era of YES. It is nice to have all the 'new' material all in one place. I definitely need to revisit this era of their albums.
The Genesis albums, I can't say I know them well enough, definitely not enough to comment much on them. In fact, I don't think I've ever listened to We Can't Dance.
The problem with Keystudio is that it is an afterthought. They should have released the studio tracks from Keys 1 as an EP, and then disc 2 of Keys 2 as its own studio album. There was a great chance to promote it as the new studio album from the classic lineup of the band. Then, a proper tour as a full reunion of the classic lineup, and they go into the turn of the century ( ;) ) riding a wave of momentum. Instead, we got Open Your Eyes and The Ladder. :facepalm:
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People (rightly) praise Mind Drive, but I don’t think That, That Is gets enough attention. Just a fantastic song.
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This is the hardest one yet. I'm a Yes fan, so it's been pretty easy to vote for Yes in every poll so far. But...
Invisible Touch is a great album. We Can't Dance is solid, it is what it is. Calling All Stations isn't as bad as some people would have you believe, but's it's still pretty awful, despite having NDV on it.
But on the other hand, Union is appalling. Most of the songs are OK, but the whole doesn't work, and getting session musicians to re-record Wakeman and Howe's parts was criminal. Talk is by far the best album of the Rabin era, and one of their best overall. There's some great stuff on K2A, but let down by record company BS and bewildering marketing decisions. Poor old Yes, they really suffered at the hands of record company pricks during this period, didn't they? Left to their own devices, they'd have produced some great music, and the K2A studio tracks show that.
So on balance, I had to vote for Genesis this time round.
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I don't think I can vote here... lost interrest in both and only have Union of these.
Though I picked up Magnification and Fly From Here later.
Still..... the golden days were gone (but according to what I hear here I guess I should give Talk a chance.
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Another vote for Genesis from me.
I even learned to like Invisible Touch, which is one of Genesis bottom three albums for me (the other ones being the debut and Calling All Stations). But Domino is great. Land Of Confusion is very sophisticated harmonically for a pop song - which can't be said for the title track, by far my least favorite track on the album and one of Genesis weakest tracks imo. Throwing It All Away is beautiful. Tonight wants to be another Mama (or In The Air Tonight) but has a great atmosphere and Phil sings great.
We Can't Dance is the best post-Duke album in my opinion. Driving and Fading Lights are brilliant. Especially the later shows the perfect chemistry between the three guys. They never really abandoned their prog roots entirely. Hold On My Heart is another song with more difficult harmonies than you might think. Dream While You Sleep ALSO wants to be another Mama (or In The Air Tonight or Tonight, Tonight, Tonight haha). Fantastic production. Great playing. Phil is on fire on this album. Have you guys realized why Jesus He Knows Me has such an incredible drive? Because Phil never plays the bass drum on a 1 (except for the bridge). As I mentioned earlier, nobody is like Phil.
Yes made some great music in all of their eras, but they also made some music I don't like as much. Genesis released less albums but were more consistent in my opinion. Still, Union has some great songs (I Would Have Waited - with that awesome 6/4 riff), Talk even has a callback to the early prog days (Endless Dream). And I WISH Keys would get a proper remix and remaster AND a proper release. That halfassed live/studio release thing was just a terrible idea.
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Yes for me. I agree with most of what others have been saying. Talk is the best Rabin era album. That one was a pain to track down years ago but well worth the hunt. I adore Keys. I actually organized the studio tracks into the Keystudio order on my iPod and put the SLO show as it's own entry. Mind Drive is just a killer track.
That's exactly what I did as well. When I rip the CDs to my network drive, I'm going to arrange them in that manner as well.
The problem with Keystudio is that it is an afterthought. They should have released the studio tracks from Keys 1 as an EP, and then disc 2 of Keys 2 as its own studio album. There was a great chance to promote it as the new studio album from the classic lineup of the band. Then, a proper tour as a full reunion of the classic lineup, and they go into the turn of the century ( ;) ) riding a wave of momentum. Instead, we got Open Your Eyes and The Ladder. :facepalm:
i see what you did there! I think I agree with this; certainly that last half. We COULD have potentially had more music from the classic era, and instead we got The Ladder (which isn't THAT bad, but we're talking about Yes here) and Open Your Eyes (which is that bad).
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Definitely went Genesis here, even though I just can't get down with Calling All Stations. Talk is the only Yes album listed that I enjoy. Invisible Touch is solid. Love Tonightx3, Domino, Land of Confusion, The Brazilian. Anything She Does is so catchy, Throwing is nice too, and In to Deep I don't want to like as it is pretty cheesy, but I can't help but not enjoy it. The title track is probably the weakest. I love We Can't Dance as well, but you could trim the fat and add On the Shoreline and have an incredible album. I love Driving, Fading Lights, Dreaming While You Sleep, No Son, Jesus He Knows, Living Forever, Way of the World, and Never a Time (another really catchy short track). Add On the Shoreline, and the album would be boss!
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Definitely went Genesis here, even though I just can't get down with Calling All Stations. Talk is the only Yes album listed that I enjoy. Invisible Touch is solid. Love Tonightx3, Domino, Land of Confusion, The Brazilian. Anything She Does is so catchy, Throwing is nice too, and In to Deep I don't want to like as it is pretty cheesy, but I can't help but not enjoy it. The title track is probably the weakest. I love We Can't Dance as well, but you could trim the fat and add On the Shoreline and have an incredible album. I love Driving, Fading Lights, Dreaming While You Sleep, No Son, Jesus He Knows, Living Forever, Way of the World, and Never a Time (another really catchy short track). Add On the Shoreline, and the album would be boss!
Yeees. But the trimmable fat would probably vary from fan to fan. My ideal WCD would probably be:
No Son
Jesus
Driving
Dreaming
Tell Me Why
On The Shoreline
Hearts On Fire (!!!)
Living Forever
Hold On
Fading Lights
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Anyone who hasn't, it's worth your time to seek this out (https://youtu.be/Ao34UhjV5ZM).
I don't have a "favorite band" per se; I like too much music too much. But at moments like this - from about 3:50 to 8:40 - Genesis is far and away my favorite band. This is my second favorite bit of live music ever recorded (the In The Cage medley on 3SL CD is first) and not only do I get goose bumps every time I hear this, I've even been, depending on my mood at the time, moved to tears. This is everything I love about music wrapped into 4 minutes and 50 seconds. I especially love how Phil plays the beat, he accents (alternatingly) both Tony and Mike's figures, AND throws in his own fills in between, all at the same time. Add to that the subtext of the material being played by the three members only (note Chester and Daryl are NOT on stage at this moment) and it's about as pure an expression of musical emotion as I can point to. Add to THAT the subtext of the lyrical content (and the subsequent events around the band) and it's almost too much fucking emotion. Hahaha.
Another time it might have been so different
Oh, if only we could do it all again
But now it's just another fading memory
Out of focus, though the out line still remains
Like the story that we wish was never ending
We know some time we must reach the final page
Still we carry on just pretending
That there'll always be one more day to go
Another chance hello, another goodbye
And so many things we'll never see again
Days of lives that seem so unimportant
They seem to matter and to count much later on
Far away, away, fading distant lights
Leaving us all behind, lost in a changing world
And you know that these are the days of our lives, remember
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^^^^What he said. :tup
Genesis has several moments like this, and one of my favorite aspects of Tony Banks as a keyboardist and as a composer, is that, while his solos are never flashy, they definitely tell a story. That, to me, is his true brilliance, and why he is in many ways, my favorite prog rock keyboardist. And when they go on those extended flights like this, it's never just licks over a root chord: he's soloing over some pretty intense and interesting harmonic changes, and he always, always, finds an interesting path through those changes. There are so many examples in their catalog: Firth of Fifth, The Cinema Show, Robbery Assault and Battery, Los Endos, In That Quiet Earth, Duke's Travels, Second Home by the Sea, and others, that bear this out. Genesis were near peerless when it came to moments like these.
Also, if no one has checked it out yet, you should also check out Frost's "Nice Day For It", which is such an amazing tribute to the genius of Tony Banks and Genesis. When he wrote the track, main man Jem Godfrey said he tried to imagine what Tony Banks was up to, maybe gardening, and the track basically wrote itself from there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qER1CFuQzk
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Genesis are/were a magical band.
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Anyone who hasn't, it's worth your time to seek this out (https://youtu.be/Ao34UhjV5ZM).
I don't have a "favorite band" per se; I like too much music too much. But at moments like this - from about 3:50 to 8:40 - Genesis is far and away my favorite band. This is my second favorite bit of live music ever recorded (the In The Cage medley on 3SL CD is first) and not only do I get goose bumps every time I hear this, I've even been, depending on my mood at the time, moved to tears. This is everything I love about music wrapped into 4 minutes and 50 seconds. I especially love how Phil plays the beat, he accents (alternatingly) both Tony and Mike's figures, AND throws in his own fills in between, all at the same time. Add to that the subtext of the material being played by the three members only (note Chester and Daryl are NOT on stage at this moment) and it's about as pure an expression of musical emotion as I can point to. Add to THAT the subtext of the lyrical content (and the subsequent events around the band) and it's almost too much fucking emotion. Hahaha.
Another time it might have been so different
Oh, if only we could do it all again
But now it's just another fading memory
Out of focus, though the out line still remains
Like the story that we wish was never ending
We know some time we must reach the final page
Still we carry on just pretending
That there'll always be one more day to go
Another chance hello, another goodbye
And so many things we'll never see again
Days of lives that seem so unimportant
They seem to matter and to count much later on
Far away, away, fading distant lights
Leaving us all behind, lost in a changing world
And you know that these are the days of our lives, remember
Agreed! I watch that version of Fading Lights at least once a week, and always get chills or shed a tear. It is simply amazing! Hopefully Fading Lights appears (or at least part) in the setlist for the tour.
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Definitely went Genesis here, even though I just can't get down with Calling All Stations. Talk is the only Yes album listed that I enjoy. Invisible Touch is solid. Love Tonightx3, Domino, Land of Confusion, The Brazilian. Anything She Does is so catchy, Throwing is nice too, and In to Deep I don't want to like as it is pretty cheesy, but I can't help but not enjoy it. The title track is probably the weakest. I love We Can't Dance as well, but you could trim the fat and add On the Shoreline and have an incredible album. I love Driving, Fading Lights, Dreaming While You Sleep, No Son, Jesus He Knows, Living Forever, Way of the World, and Never a Time (another really catchy short track). Add On the Shoreline, and the album would be boss!
Yeees. But the trimmable fat would probably vary from fan to fan. My ideal WCD would probably be:
No Son
Jesus
Driving
Dreaming
Tell Me Why
On The Shoreline
Hearts On Fire (!!!)
Living Forever
Hold On
Fading Lights
I’m guessing there are a few tracks everyone agrees on (No Son, Driving the Last Spike, Fading Lights, probably On the Shoreline), but then a bunch of different opinions on the rest. I’ve done this a number of ways in the past and have included songs like Hearts on Fire before, but I think the following is a really solid hour length album (59 minute and change):
No Son of Mine
Jesus He Knows Me
Driving the Last Spike
Dreaming While You Sleep
On the Shoreline
Living Forever
Hold on My Heart
Way of the World
Fading Lights
Call it either On the Shoreline or Fading Lights.
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No Son of Mine
Jesus He Knows Me
Driving the Last Spike
Dreaming While You Sleep
On the Shoreline
Living Forever
Hold on My Heart
Way of the World
Fading Lights
Call it either On the Shoreline or Fading Lights.
I did this same playlist minus Way of the World and it holds up surprisingly well.
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No Son of Mine
Jesus He Knows Me
Driving the Last Spike
Dreaming While You Sleep
On the Shoreline
Living Forever
Hold on My Heart
Way of the World
Fading Lights
Call it either On the Shoreline or Fading Lights.
I did this same playlist minus Way of the World and it holds up surprisingly well.
I almost dropped Way of the World but I kind of dig the keyboard solo.
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Anyone who hasn't, it's worth your time to seek this out (https://youtu.be/Ao34UhjV5ZM).
I don't have a "favorite band" per se; I like too much music too much. But at moments like this - from about 3:50 to 8:40 - Genesis is far and away my favorite band. This is my second favorite bit of live music ever recorded (the In The Cage medley on 3SL CD is first) and not only do I get goose bumps every time I hear this, I've even been, depending on my mood at the time, moved to tears. This is everything I love about music wrapped into 4 minutes and 50 seconds. I especially love how Phil plays the beat, he accents (alternatingly) both Tony and Mike's figures, AND throws in his own fills in between, all at the same time. Add to that the subtext of the material being played by the three members only (note Chester and Daryl are NOT on stage at this moment) and it's about as pure an expression of musical emotion as I can point to. Add to THAT the subtext of the lyrical content (and the subsequent events around the band) and it's almost too much fucking emotion. Hahaha.
Another time it might have been so different
Oh, if only we could do it all again
But now it's just another fading memory
Out of focus, though the out line still remains
Like the story that we wish was never ending
We know some time we must reach the final page
Still we carry on just pretending
That there'll always be one more day to go
Another chance hello, another goodbye
And so many things we'll never see again
Days of lives that seem so unimportant
They seem to matter and to count much later on
Far away, away, fading distant lights
Leaving us all behind, lost in a changing world
And you know that these are the days of our lives, remember
I had never seen that, thanks for posting it!
Awesome stuff. Certainly one of the best Genesis songs ever. :hefdaddy :hefdaddy
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Invisible Touch is great pop, but I don't listen to Genesis for great pop. Their pop just doesn't do anything for me, and that's most of the album. Calling All Stations is weak, a missed opportunity. We Can't Dance has some great songs, but some duds as well. I could probably put together a single disc of songs I like from the last three Genesis albums.
I like most of Union, most of Talk, and most of the studio tracks from both Keys releases. Yes wins this round for me.
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Even though I really like the Genesis material here…and CAS more than almost anyone…I’m shocked at the results. I don’t think enough of the voting people have heard the Yes material. One person earlier admitted as much.
Admittedly due to the management and record company issues discussed earlier, they are not as widely available as the Genesis albums are. Heck, I think Talk (which IMO might be the best of all 6) was out of print and fairly hard to find for quite some time.
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I don’t think enough of the voting people have heard the Yes material. One person earlier admitted as much.
Admittedly due to the management and record company issues discussed earlier, they are not as widely available as the Genesis albums are. Heck, I think Talk (which IMO might be the best of all 6) was out of print and fairly hard to find for quite some time.
Yeah, that was me. I was trying to pull up Talk on Amazon Music earlier, and it’s not even there.
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maybe I’m late to the game but I had never seen this Genesis footage of the Invisible Touch era
https://youtu.be/ouBKr4go7vw
Too bad the whole show doesn’t seem to be out there. It’s a great performance and so much more intimate than the huge stadium shows, like the Wembley concert video, I’m used to seeing.
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maybe I’m late to the game but I had never seen this Genesis footage of the Invisible Touch era
https://youtu.be/ouBKr4go7vw
Too bad the whole show doesn’t seem to be out there. It’s a great performance and so much more intimate than the huge stadium shows, like the Wembley concert video, I’m used to seeing.
This is fantastic footage. The In The Cage Medley is really, really good. I know there's audio out there of that medley from the first N. American leg of that tour where they came out of In That Quiet Earth and went into Apocalypse in 9/8-As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs that is also really cool. I think they had to scrap it because it was too hard for Phil to sing the "666! Is no longer alone!" section. So they brought Afterglow back for the rest of the tour.
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Even though I really like the Genesis material here…and CAS more than almost anyone…I’m shocked at the results. I don’t think enough of the voting people have heard the Yes material. One person earlier admitted as much.
That's the biggest problem with polls like this. Sure, people are allowed to vote their opinions, but saying "Well, I've never heard <...> so I'll vote for the other choice" is lame. Sorry if anyone here is offended by that, but I thought the idea was to get the opinions of people who have actually heard both of the choices. Otherwise it's just a poll to see how many people have actually heard both choices, and Genesis will automatically win because they're so much more popular. We already know who wins the popularity contest. I'd rather discuss informed opinions about the music.
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Even though I really like the Genesis material here…and CAS more than almost anyone…I’m shocked at the results. I don’t think enough of the voting people have heard the Yes material. One person earlier admitted as much.
That's the biggest problem with polls like this. Sure, people are allowed to vote their opinions, but saying "Well, I've never heard <...> so I'll vote for the other choice" is lame. Sorry if anyone here is offended by that, but I thought the idea was to get the opinions of people who have actually heard both of the choices. Otherwise it's just a poll to see how many people have actually heard both choices, and Genesis will automatically win because they're so much more popular. We already know who wins the popularity contest. I'd rather discuss informed opinions about the music.
You can get my half informed (and half baked) opinions about the music, or you can get discussion from the 4 people on the forum who own every single album by both bands. :-P
I am making an effort to at least check out the Yes albums I don’t own or haven’t heard very much. This is the first grouping though where I’ve never heard any of the options from Yes.
I do think it’s an interesting question which band is more popular. I’d say Yes were the bigger act up until the 80s, and the 80s Genesis albums generally aren’t held in as high of esteem by prog fans, though overall I’d guess Genesis probably sold more records.
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Maybe that came out wrong. I'm all for people contributing to the discussion with whatever they have. I just don't think it makes sense to vote if you're literally only familiar with one side and not the other. Not everybody has heard every album, especially these later ones. But just saying "Oh well, I like Genesis better so I'll vote for them" defeats the whole point of Marc creating these specific pairings. I make no secret about Yes being my favorite band, and I've kinda surprised myself by voting for Genesis most of the time in these polls, because the specific pairings worked out that way. If we ran into a pairing that included options I'm not familiar with, I just wouldn't vote that round, leave it to the informed voters. In general, I find polls and rankings boring. But as a catalyst for discussion and introspection they can be very interesting.
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Orbert, I totally get what you are saying, and even though I create a lot of threads with polls, the polls are incidental. They are basically a launching point to generate music discussion.
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Orbert, I totally get what you are saying, and even though I create a lot of threads with polls, the polls are incidental. They are basically a launching point to generate music discussion.
Right. Apologies, Marc, if you feel that I wrecked your polls (you can just dock one from Genesis for each one!). I assumed this was less about science and more about engagement and discussion. If nothing else, it has caused me to go and explore the parts of Yes’ catalog that I’ve been missing out on, which I’ve genuinely enjoyed.
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Right. Apologies, Marc, if you feel that I wrecked your polls (you can just dock one from Genesis for each one!). I assumed this was less about science and more about engagement and discussion. If nothing else, it has caused me to go and explore the parts of Yes’ catalog that I’ve been missing out on, which I’ve genuinely enjoyed.
Yep, that is where the value of these types of threads come into play. I hadn't really listened to much Genesis in a while, but these threads that Marc started got me listening to them a bit off and on this week, and it's always great to return to a favorite that I had been away from for a while. :tup :tup
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With regards to well-informed voting, I do make these kinds of polls and threads with the hopes that anyone who votes is at least familiar with all the choices involved. Otherwise, discussion of one band or the other could just be done in their respective threads. I had this poll series idea as a way to contrast and compare these two juggernauts of the classic prog world, both of which were very important in my formative years as a prog rock fan, and were also very influential to many modern prog bands that I listen to and love.
But obviously I can't stop people from voting if they're not entirely familiar with the options presented in the poll, but I would like to hope that if they're not familiar with everything that they take the time to familiarize themselves with every option so they can make a more well-informed decision.
I do appreciate that these threads (may) have gotten folks to pull these albums out for the first time in awhile. In fact, I myself have uploaded some live albums to my phone to spin them for the first time in MANY years (since I don't find myself listening to live albums very much anymore after their initial release dates). It's also gotten me to listen to many of the Yes and Genesis albums I haven't listened to in awhile, and it's great to revisit old classics like these. It always surprises me how many of the words and lyrics I remember when I listen to these songs, too, which just goes to show the kind of impact they had on me when I was discovering them.
I also just hope that everyone has a good time listening to and discussing these albums and bands, especially since neither have done anything noteworthy as of late, even though Yes still tour, many Yes fans might agree that they aren't who they used to be, and Genesis have a (once postponed) final(?) tour coming up after nearly 15 years since their last tour. It's been enjoyable reading everyone's thoughts about these two bands and their albums through these polls!
-Marc.
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Yes by far. I can maybe get an album and a half likeable out of the Genesis material and that includes the B-sides Calling All Stations is the best of the Genesis bunch as a whole album probably.