genesis: duke

"Heathaze" or "Duchess" maybe

or "Turn It On Again" or "Duke's Travels/Duke's End" or

he's the

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN OF OUR TIMES

prefer the Face Value version of "Behind the Lines."

obv I vote for "Turn It On Again," their best single.

i can show you, i can show you
some of the people in my life

This would have been a better album if they had stuck to the original idea of having a side-long piece of music. As I understand it the first three and last two tracks were originally intended to be seamless. Anyway, "Duchess".

16 year old me wd vote for Heathaze and I feel as close to that guy as ever

the trees and I are shook

'Turn it on Again'

I went through a brief phase, I guess, of exploring all the Genesis stuff, but the more that the years go by the more I realise that I don't need very much from this band. Foxtrot is an absolutely essential prog LP for me, but I can take or leave the rest of Gabriel-era Genesis. For Collins-era Genesis, I'll take A Trick of the Tail and a singles compilation, but that's about it.

imo no one ever talks about "cul-de-sac" so i'll prob vote for that, maybe my favorite ever genesis chorus

but i'm also pulled toward the really excellent "back in nyc" rewrite "man of our times"

it's a little uneven in tone with the split-up the epic and all but i think it still works even though "misunderstanding" feels like it belongs to some other project

Heathaze all day long.

I love the hi-hats on "Cul de Sac."

Gosh I love this album. Gonna be a tough one to vote

TURN IT ON AGAIN

Excellent album. It's Duchess for me, Heathaze is a close second.

Duchess, but only recently noticed that Man Of Our Times RULES

Voted for the hit to piss off the proggy folks... :)

lol geir polled this way back when, not sure why it never came up in a search

"Duke"'s Poll (Genesis, not Ellington)

can't argue with those results

Dutchess but also heathaze and most of this album, even Misunderstanding.

I painted a 6-foot replica of this album cover in the hallway outside my dorm room back in 1987.

It's hard to beat the energy of "Behind The Lines" for an album lead-in, but i find the triad of Duchess/Guide Vocal/Man of the Times to be one of the Collins-era high points. "Turn It On Again" and "Misunderstanding" will garner many votes because of their crafty pop constructions, even if they lack much substance to chew on. So, i suppose, i'll cast a lonely vote for "Guide Vocal".

Agree with Alfred on "Behind the Lines."

But I actually - gasp - like "Misunderstanding" more than "Turn it on Again."

Haven't listened to this in, ulp, 37 years. I'd forgotten how much the LP sounds like it was recorded on a 4-track. Really simple arrangements throughout, one part each, as if they just re-did the original jam sessions when it came to record. Never sounds too thin though. Outside the singles, love "Guide Vocal" and "Cul-De-Sac". But voted "Please Don't Ask" in the end; peak hello-you-must-be-going Phil IMO.

I went for "Misunderstanding".

"I'd forgotten how much the LP sounds like it was recorded on a 4-track" haha, this is true; it's also a testament to how strong the writing on most of the record is that it succeeds so well with a stripped down approach; compare it to And then there were three which is murky, cluttered, and filled with not very good material.

nah ATTWT is a way better album than Duke

... looking further into The Archives 2, anyone interested might consider swapping out tracks as follows:

"Misunderstanding" for it's B-Side, Evidence Of Autumn.
"Turn It On Again" for the "Duchess" B-Side, Open Door.

The 2 replaced songs are fine songs, they just never really fit into the album for me (even if TIOA did once occupy the center transition of The Story of Albert). Sure it may make the middle of the album a little less catchy (and a lot more sappy), but, damn, this is the way i'll listen to Duke for the rest of my days.

Y'know, I think I will listen again to every '80s Genesis/Phil Collins LP from Duke to ...But Seriously this week. Yes, including No Jacket Required - I guess one more go 'round with that won't hurt, even if it leaves me with the same opinion it's always done.

Okay, so scratch what I said earlier about me only needing Foxtrot, A Trick of the Tail and a singles compilation. I've got Duke on now and I'm already beginning to wonder why I don't play this more often - I'd forgotten how much parts of 'Man of Our Times' remind me of Gary Numan. Genesis actually assimilated aspects of New Wave music into their sound quite well, which I guess makes sense when you think the members were still only between 29-30 years old when they made it. When I first started listening to Genesis' albums, it was of course when I was in the middle of a full-blown prog phase where I wanted everything to be 20 minutes long, be conceptual and have fast, technically precise musical parts, but I must confess - listening to this album now, it actually fits in more snugly with a lot of the stuff that I've been listening to over the last couple of years than I previously thought. As a result, I can easily see myself listening to '80s Genesis far more these days. I'm actually glad I decided to throw this on tonight. It'll be Phil's solo stuff that'll be the real test, though.

*it=this record.

"nah ATTWT is a way better album than Duke"

NO

yeah no fuckin way

Some of Phil's solo stuff is legitimately slammin.

no jacket required has Take Me Home on it, there is nothing wrong with that song.

Almost everything Phil plays on up to and including No Jacket is worthwhile, imo. Virtually nothing since, really, save a few Genesis songs and one or two guest spots, maybe. Regardless, he's the epitome of a guy who has done so much almost undeniably good stuff that still unjustifiably gets people shrugging and saying, "yeah, but so what, what else has he done?"

Hmm. Face Value on now. 'In The Air Tonight' is still as potent as ever, and 'The Roof is Leaking' into 'Droned' is a really nice moment. The version of 'Behind The Lines' on this isn't as good as the version on Duke, though, and the second half of the record is a bit of a slog. 'If Leaving Me Is Easy' in particular is bland, go-nowhere smoothness. 'Hand in Hand' has a promising intro, but then the horns come in and it turns into chat show theme tune music.

I like his version of 'Tomorrow Never Knows', though!

I Missed Again is a jam.

I Missed Again is beautiful. I take If Leaving Me is Easy as his attempt to write a John Martyn track with keyboards.

"In The Air Tonight" was supposed to be on Duke, but Banks voted it out, apparently. Still, that tune and a handful of other singles (most notably, "Easy Lover") is the only "solo" Collins i'll go back to.

Almost everything Phil plays on up to and including No Jacket is worthwhile, imo. Virtually nothing since, really

agreed with the first point, disagreed with the second as i like most of invisible touch

Oh, my bad, I totally meant to include Invisible Touch. I forgot that came out right after No Jacket!

Hello, I Must Be Going is pretty slept on. "I Cannot Believe it's True" is a monster of a tune, best use of the EWF horns ever. Ditto for "It Don't Matter to Me". Funky Phil rules.

Well, I managed to get through those quite quickly (there's only 8 LP's, after all) ... I'll elaborate later, but basically I'd rank 'em like this:

Duke > Invisible Touch > Abacab > Genesis >>> all Phil Collins solo albums.

However, his solo work is not all terrible - there's one or two good (even great in the case of 'In the Air Tonight') tracks on each album - including No Jacket Required, which still mostly feels to me like it should come with a free briefcase and filofax. Also: horns - love 'em on Parliament and Prince records, sound incredibly tacky on Phil Collins records.

A lot of '70s Genesis fans tend to see the '80s Genesis as the moment when Phil Collins started dragging the band in a more pop direction, but I disagree with this. If anything, '80s Genesis was Banks and Rutherford dragging Collins away from blandness.

Heathaze is great, as is the whole Duke's Travels/End - but it's got to be Duchess for me. Just that transition from trippy new age drum machine reverie (sounds like some tranquil Amazonian paradise, teeming with insect life) into crashing, colossal and psychedelic anthemisms will never not thrill me. I wish it went on for hours and hours.

"I Cannot Believe it's True" is a monster of a tune, best use of the EWF horns ever. Ditto for "It Don't Matter to Me". Funky Phil rules.

Also this. The drums on IDMTM - shuffling, shifting, tumbling over each other without ever not being in the pocket, are mind-blowing.

It's an unpopular opinion, but I too prefer ATTW3. They sound far more of a unit on Duke, but the previous album to me is as underrated as it comes. Let the album gets very little love, least of all from the band

*yet

I'm happy to play the Geir role here. I like prog Genesis, not pop Genesis. Duke has plenty of fine moments, but it signalled the beginning of the end for me and I have no use for anything that came after. ATTWT is great because it merges pop concision with a prog sensibility.

pvmic

The drumming throughout Duke is pretty spectacular, particularly on the last couple of tracks.

There's a really cool drum effect in "I Don't Care Anymore" (one of my fave Phil vocal tracks). It starts out big and roomy - his Bonham sound - and then they gradually shift from the room mics to the close mics and the sound gets super tight, controlled and compressed. It's really neat.

I guess when it boils down to it - I rate Collins highly as a drummer, and as a singer I think he's got a great voice. As a songwriter though, I find him frustratingly inconsistent and I suspect a lot of the material I've enjoyed on Genesis records has come from either Banks or Rutherford.

I suspect Mike Rutherford is the secret weapon here. An at-times canny bassist & arranger, passable guitarist in the Andy Summers mold, and pretty crafty with the pop hooks. Even the big Mechanics hits, Patrick Bateman aside, have staying power.

He's a pretty boring guitarist. And while after a while the band credits all the songwriting collectively, which makes it hard to tell who does what, don't underestimate the amount of cheesy music and lyrics that have come from Banks and Rutherford. Phil gets way too much blame on that front, whether you like the cheesy stuff or not.

Was it Soto that observed Banks' uncanny ability to always pick the worst preset synth sound for every song?

I have no doubt that Banks and Rutherford have also been involved in creating some awful music, but given how much I prefer the '80s Genesis records to Phil Collins' solo stuff, I could probably put a safe bet on my favourite Genesis material either being written by Banks or Rutherford, or they were the starting point of the composition.

As a guitarist, Rutherford mostly gets out of the way, in contrast, say, to the hammy Daryl Stuermer. I'm not being critical of Phil, and I'm sure there's cheese sprayed from all directions, I just suspect that Mike's role in the band's pop turn is key. Tony's solo material, at least what I've heard of it, is tuneless and plodding, much as I love his big operatic chords and proggy arpeggios in Genesis. I guess I've come around to Mike as the band's invisible hand.

Banks was certainly their most gifted composer. Wind & Wuthering, my pick for best Genesis album ever, was mostly written by him. And his first solo album A Curious Feeling is a gem.

banks is also def mvp on the lamb imo

I tweeted this to chaki
But I often think of breaking up Yes and Genesis, and reforming: Gabriel, Hackett, Howe, Squire, Collins, and Banks

Genesyes

Another thing I like about Duke is that it's one of those records where you can tell the band knew what they were going for, and what kind of record they were trying to make. Therefore, you've still got the prog, but the new wave elements are brought into the sound in a very natural way, with some passionate vocal performances and great rhythm section work. There's plenty of hooks, but it isn't all-out pop. It reminds me of Rush's early '80s work in that sense.

And while after a while the band credits all the songwriting collectively, which makes it hard to tell who does what, don't underestimate the amount of cheesy music and lyrics that have come from Banks and Rutherford.

when I learned that Rutherford wrote the awful lyrics to "Land of Confusion," I wept with gratitude, thinking Collins had been exonerated.

Again - Invisible Touch - the band knew what they were going for and hit the mark.

Compare this with the noticeably more confused and patchy Abacab and Genesis - which, although they have their highlights, are essentially both the sound of three rich, successful men dicking about. Some of it works, some of it doesn't.

ehhh i think both abacab and the s/t are considerably better and hit their respective marks better than invisible touch, much as touch kinda represents the total solidification of the style they'd been heading toward since duke

when I learned that Rutherford wrote the awful lyrics to "Land of Confusion," I wept with gratitude, thinking Collins had been exonerated.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 4, 2017 3:51 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't have bothered weeping for the guy that wrote 'Another Day In Paradise' before fucking off to Switzerland, myself.

every song on abacab is great, the s/t is only marred by illegal alien

though i guess the worst song on invisible touch ("anything she does") isn't as bad as "illegal alien"

God, "Duchess" IS amazing. I voted too soon.

i guess the mark for abacab would be "hella progged out new wave record" and the mark for the s/t would be "pop record with slippery prog edges" and the mark for invisible touch would be "geometrically precise pop record but also featuring 'domino'"

three rich, successful men dicking about.

but that's Genesis since 1977! it's description, not criticism. Banks is too uptight and Rutherford and Collins too practical in the what-is-this-bullshit sense for me to ever take their attempts at Gabriel-esque tales of chivalric doom seriously.

'Illegal Alien' is indeed terrible, indefensible shit, but then again so is 'Who Dunnit?' ...

Personally, I don't think Invisible Touch has a bad track on it, and I definitely think that song-for-song it crushes Abacab. I'm not going to be making any Batemanesque comments about it being their undisputed masterpiece, but it's one of their strongest records, IMO.

The eponymous album sounds more like a would-be Collins solo record than Invisible Touch does.

"who dunnit" is fun as hell and there's nothing on invisible touch that even approaches "abacab" the song but let's agree to disagree

The eponymous album sounds more like a would-be Collins solo record than Invisible Touch does.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 4, 2017 9:05 AM (seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

between "home by the sea" and "silver rainbow" i really disagree

you could say that about "mama" though

On Duke and Invisible Touch were written by three rich, successful men, but I get no sense of dicking about and fumbling for a direction on those records - they knew what they were doing.

*-On

I wouldn't have bothered weeping for the guy that wrote 'Another Day In Paradise' before fucking off to Switzerland, myself.

Phil defends himself pretty forcefully from this in his book. I think he got shit for being a tax avoider or something, but that had nothing to do with it. The woman he married (and recently remarried, iirc) was Swiss, and her whole family, including aging parents, was in Switzerland, so he was basically, why wouldn't I move to Switzerland?

oh, think twice

"who dunnit" is fun as hell and there's nothing on invisible touch that even approaches "abacab" the song but let's agree to disagree

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, July 4, 2017 4:05 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's fun in the sense that you get the impression that Genesis were deliberately trolling their fanbase, but beyond that it really is a stupidly annoying bit of fluff.

I like 'Abacab' (the song) - particularly the full-length album cut - but I'd take any song on Invisible Touch over it, particularly side one. Or any song from Duke!

Phil, can you help me?

Yeah, he married a Swiss woman and everything, but c'mon, the guy knew what he was doing.

xxxxpost - agreed Turrican, though (imo) no band ever did a better job of evolving through the years while maintaining the essential thing about their band than Rush, but I think this and Abacab do a good job of it too

re: three rich successful men dicking about

I think that's sort of the charm of a lot of stuff from 78-83ish, there was a certain grand imperial era of rock that allowed tremendously talented people to sort of muck around in sometimes very interesting ways. which I understand at the time was probably stifling but as they say we won't see their like again, or albums like Duke. so few artists even get to have careers now let alone float lazily through the decades like a luxury yacht picking up and trailing the detritus of various musical styles of the moment as they pass by

Phil defends himself pretty forcefully from this in his book. I think he got shit for being a tax avoider or something, but that had nothing to do with it. The woman he married (and recently remarried, iirc) was Swiss, and her whole family, including aging parents, was in Switzerland, so he was basically, why wouldn't I move to Switzerland?

At the time there was a lot of talk about Phil giving an interview before the 1997 election (or maybe it was 1992) that if Labour got elected and raised taxes he would leave the country. He's since denied saying those things, and I've never seen anyone find the original source material for those quotes, but I think that's why he got accused of tax avoidance (again, it could be and probably is bullshit, but it was in the air at the time he left).

Collins has admitted speaking to The Sun about politics and claims to uave regretted it since. It was in 1992, I think.

"i think both abacab and the s/t are considerably better and hit their respective marks better than invisible touch"

of course! invisible touch is 1/2 dire. abacab is all class and s/t only has illegal alien against it.

as they say we won't see their like again, or albums like Duke. so few artists even get to have careers now let alone float lazily through the decades like a luxury yacht picking up and trailing the detritus of various musical styles of the moment as they pass by

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 4, 2017 4:28 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I understand what you mean - one of the fun things about getting into a band that has several albums over multiple decades is hearing how a band changes in its approach to developing material or hearing the changes in production styles.

akm it's like you're my brain talking back to me

I'm not even going to ask which half of Invisible Touch is meant to be dire, because the idea of the record being 50% dire is just wtf.

Has Genesis not been ballot polled yet? Seems like there's a fair bit of discussion on them in multiple threads lately.

would genesis + solo records be too much

Yeah, I think it would be. The Genesis discography itself is huge enough without having to think about Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Steve Hackett, Mike & The Mechanics and everything else the guys have been involved in...

oh god yeah gabriel is the one who tips it over i think (i just mostly would've wanted to include voyage of the acolyte tracks in my ballot)

I don't blame you - it's a great record!

There have been tracks polls on here covering entire genres, so I'm not sure. It depends in part on the number of voters.

it doesn't make any sense to add the solo stuff in there as there is so little crossover stylistically between most of them that's it's not fair to compare them.

if you count all the record sales and charting of both eras of Genesis, solo Collins, Gabriel, Mike + the Mechanics, various other stuff, I wonder if they as a collective wouldn't be close to the biggest money rock group of all time.

Gabriel's So, Genesis Invisible Touch, and Collin's No Jacket Required combined would get you north of 25 million worldwide

then I'd imagine, jeez another 15 at least Platinum
records between them all?

Gabriel's So, Genesis Invisible Touch, and Collin's No Jacket Required combined would get you north of 25 million worldwide

and that's just 1985-1986!

It's quite something when you think about it - a bunch of proggers that have been around the block a while, all in their mid-to-late thirties, having these mega, million-selling blockbuster smashes in the era of Duran Duran etc.

And they played four nights at Wembley Stadium. I don't know if it still is, but at the time that was a record.

def keepers: "Turn It On Again", "Misunderstanding", "Abacab," "No Reply at All," "Home by the Sea," "Domino."

pretty okay: "Throwing It All Away," "Man on the Corner," "That's All."

For those I will forgive "Anything She Does," though I am not quite ready to forgive "Illegal Alien."

I like Anything She Does. And Throwing It All Away is an unexpected exemplar of Phil Collins's Bonham groove.

There's a special kind of irony to "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight," a song about addiction being used in a beer commercial more or less contemporaneously with Eric Clapton's take on "After Midnight," Clapton being one of the era's most famous addicts, and Collins collaborators.

Also, in 'Domino', there's the lyric "look at the beautiful river of blood", and in the '70s Clapton came out in support of Enoch Powell... while drunk! #wow #mindblown

I've actually found myself wanting to listen to Duke quite a lot now - I'd easily rank it now as one of my three favourite Genesis records.

Clapton / Collins / Phillinganes / East was a pretty good band.

Collins' hair style circa No Jacket Required/Invisible Touch was, uh, certainly something...

impossible to divorce his image at that time from the Spitting Image puppet

Phil's mull' in full effect here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTVtphUTwQw&index=5&list=PLWsPdBjhn3_sgvpnf1WKaVxHkHDHIlZiv

impossible to divorce his image at that time from the Spitting Image puppet

― akm, Tuesday, July 4, 2017 9:56 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, yeah! When he had short hair circa Duke/Face Value he didn't look too bad, but his 1985-1986 look is just fucking horrific. I can hardly watch Phil Collins/Genesis music videos from this period without thinking "fuck man, what was he thinking?"

competing with bono

From Invisible Touch onwards the golden rule was long hair for Genesis, short for solo. Never mind the fax, fucking with this system circa 'Both Sides' ended his midas touch

it doesn't make any sense to add the solo stuff in there as there is so little crossover stylistically between most of them that's it's not fair to compare them.

I have been patiently waiting for several years now to vote for Over My Shoulder in the scheduled ilm Genesis + solo ballot poll, please do not take this away from me

Never Mind the Fax should totally be the title of a Phil Collins bootleg.

been listening to this a ton and honestly I actually have always liked "Misunderstanding" as a song I remembered hearing on the radio but it's just such a sore thumb on this album, really messes up the flow...

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

According to Collins, the song was modeled after The Beach Boys' "Sail On, Sailor", Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" and Toto's "Hold the Line".

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 5, 2017 4:43 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed also that's a way better song...if, as suggested upthread, he brought them "In the Air Tonight" and they passed I think that, while it's not totally in line with the rest of Duke, would have injected some menace instead of seeming like a little breezy out of place pop song.

'Man on the Corner' does fit in better on Abacab than 'Misunderstanding' does on Duke, but I think 'Misunderstanding' is the superior song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

A tangent from upthread re: 80s Clapton/Collins collabs, I was listening to bits of August yesterday ("Hung Up On Your Love," "Bad Influence"). Underneath the schlocky/glossy overproduction, the rhythm section work is fuckin stellar.

Y'know, as much as I dislike large portions of his solo work - and concentrating solely on the music here - I still think that Collins has taken a lot of unwarranted shit over the years. The guy deserves a knighthood for his drumming on 'The Musical Box' alone, and his drumming throughout Genesis' catalogue, even as late on as ...And Then There Were Three and Duke has been great. I think 'In The Air Tonight' is the very definition of classic, and the relative poppiness of the '80s era was as much down to Banks and Rutherford as it was down to Collins. They never really stopped being a prog band until the very end of Collins' stint with the band, I think - even as late as Invisible Touch, you can tell the difference between a Genesis record and a Phil Collins solo record and the proggy tendencies are still there. The guy has also been a session drummer on a number of very good to great records and he has a great, expressive, immediately identifiable voice. With all this in mind, I really wish I could get more out of Collins' solo work - but I don't, and that's perfectly fine because it's only a very, very small part of what the guy has done and not representative of his entire career. I dislike 'Sussudio' (it's always been a weak version of '1999' musically) and I loathe 'Another Day in Paradise' ... but it's a very small fraction of what he does.

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 5, 2017 4:43 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed also that's a way better song...if, as suggested upthread, he brought them "In the Air Tonight" and they passed I think that, while it's not totally in line with the rest of Duke, would have injected some menace instead of seeming like a little breezy out of place pop song.

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

See my post above; and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8h0Wz6Z5nU

Yeah that would be a lot better Misunderstanding

Disagree about Turn It on Again though, that totally fits and is one of their best songs

Collins's drumming has always been melodic and hooky. It's something Bill Bruford doesn't quite capture on Seconds Out.

Another hooky contemporaneous deep cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsV-1FDLTW0

Something like 'Anything She Does' strikes me as being the sort of thing which would be misattributed to Collins, though as far as I'm aware it is primarily the work of Tony Banks

I imagine it's a much-loathed song by a certain type of Genesis fan, but to me it absolutely blows away the breezy pop in a similar mould on 'No Jacket Required', i.e. 'Don't Lose My Number'

Also in the rarefied company of Van Halen's I'll Wait and J. Geils Band Centerfold of songs about a guy in love with a magazine centerfold model.

I imagine it's a much-loathed song by a certain type of Genesis fan, but to me it absolutely blows away the breezy pop in a similar mould on 'No Jacket Required', i.e. 'Don't Lose My Number'

he shouts a lot

"Man on the Corner" is a Collins solos song for all intents and purposes. Even the synthesizer style is closer to what Collins would play..

'Anything She Does' rules and I agree, it's much better than songs that are in the same mould on No Jacket Required.

It's not better than Who Said I Would or I Don't Wanna Know.

wish he could have recorded this own version of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XVu5Xp9w5k

'I Don't Want To Know' has that neat trick of going into 6/4 for the chorus, which isn't quite as strong as the one on 'Anything She Does' ... 'Who Said I Would' is a bit nothingy.

"I Don't Wanna Know" has that oddly syncopated solo after the second chorus. It's a monster of a percussion track.

speaking of Collins the drummer, I'm not a huge fan of Brand X (I like the first album ok) they are a little fuzak for my taste but damn the stuff he plays in that band makes his Genesis drumming seem like the Ramones

I think my favourite drumming on a Genesis track is on 'Dance on a Volcano', simultaneously ferocious and technical... it's a great bit of drumming. I always preferred it when '70s Genesis went for it rather than do these extended folky things.

Good song!

Huh, I always thought of Brand X as full on Weather Report-esque fusion, not fuzak. Him and Percy Jones make for a great rhythm section (which is why they sound so good backing Eno on those handful of tracks).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wau stompage

I'm now on a full-on Genesis kick for the first time in a very long time - both Gabriel and Collins era...

His drumming on the live Lamb discs from that weird overdubbed box set is smoking. Gives credence to his claim of being high behind the kit for much of that tour.

Pot and booze, maybe, but Rutherford was the coke dude. Collins was just obsessed with playing and practicing all the time.

I did wonder, when watching their Wembley 86/87 (?) show for work a few years ago, just how coked up phil seemed for the R'n'B medley at the end (which I bet Tony moaned the fuck about all through the tour)

Wait.

Coke.

These three? Collins said recently that Banks would fall over if he just smelled wine.

Finding it kinda hard to picture Mike Rutherford on coke

lol

Fantastic Genesis doc on BBC4. Tony Banks - possibly the worst man in rock ever. Makes Mike Rutherford look like Mark E Smith.

— luke haines❌ (@LukeHaines_News) May 6, 2017

Tony is dreadful tbf. Possesses complete inability to mute his hair-up-my-ass shrillness and difficultness even in the presence of video cameras

Finding it kinda hard to picture Mike Rutherford on coke

― PaulTMA, Friday, July 7, 2017 7

he could've used some tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQr9GDK0cs

Anyway:

Did the drugs ever become a problem? Rutherford points to his nose. “I had to have my septum operated on in the late 70s,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Yuh, you know, that bit in the middle of your nostrils.”

Apparently several years of cocaine use had taken its toll on the membranes. “This was pre-social, though, pre-social,” he insists. “Cocaine was simply taken as a way to keep you going on the road. Never by Tony or Pete, though.”

As for Phil, he doesn't skirt away from substance abuse in his book, but it's alcohol that's the real problem, especially (much) later. I think he's just an eager to please theatre kid, which to be fair could be confused for cocaine fiend.

If you watch his stage antics and demeanor on the 1980 tour clips up on YT you'd prob think right off "coked up and have n' fun" or, yeah, showoffy theatre kid. Great either way.

* havin' fun

As for Phil, he doesn't skirt away from substance abuse in his book, but it's alcohol that's the real problem, especially (much) later. I think he's just an eager to please theatre kid, which to be fair could be confused for cocaine fiend.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, July 7, 2017

I actually believe him when he said he barely touched booze + drugs during the '80s and '90s – he was too damn busy! Look at those credits and the pace at which he accumulated them and tremble.

Yeah, he never turns down a gig.

While I have no doubt that Collins had an ego, particularly during the '80s, it is a bit strange that a lot of scorn gets directed at him from various angles - sometimes more than a little unfairly - when Tony Banks is a far easier personality to dislike. I could at least imagine being stood at a bar having a relaxed chat with Collins, whereas Banks would get on my tits within seconds.

Also, man these guys loved using pedal tone/changing chords over the top of a sustained bass note... it's pretty much their defining musical characteristic throughout all eras.

In that Genesis doc from a couple of years back, Tony is still a total dick. You can see Pete just patiently putting up with him during the interviews.

I think a lot of the hate Collins gets/got in the media was in part because he was infinitely more visible than Tony, infinitely more successful, but also a class thing - Phil's the oik trying too hard to impress, Tony's the snidey cunt at boarding school cutting everyone else down to size. Kind of feel a lot of journos, etc, in the 70s/80s would have identified more with Tony than Phil, though this is just conjecture.

He really is just trying so hard during those R'n'B medleys at Wembley though, much as I loved them when I was a kid.

Yeah, Collins couldn't have been any more visible during the '80s - he was pretty much inescapable and a huge celebrity, and if you remain too visible and too successful for too long, people start to look for ways of tearing that down.

and he mugged as awfully as McCartney. No wonder they detested each other.

As for Banks... well Banks, Rutherford and Gabriel are all old Carthusians, able to be put through private education by comfortably well-off families... in the UK, this is an exception rather than the rule. Gabriel and Rutherford come across as being self-aware and seem to understand how lucky and fortunate they are, Rutherford even coming across as someone who wanted to rebel against his background. Banks, on the other hand, comes across as a spoilt and entitled brat who doesn't actually seem to have left school. The way he acts at times, it's like "of course I had a great education and I ended up in a huge-selling band, it was my right."

Pretty otm. He also seems like the one to boast that music played better is better.

BTW, there was an intriguing letter in the New Yorker re: the prog essay.

Sanneh’s excellent survey of prog rock overlooked one explanation for why it came to dominate the United States mainstream in the seventies: its first fans were the last children of America’s peak middlebrow culture, whether or not they’d call it that. This was a generation reared on Liberace and regularly exposed to opera and classical performances alongside their pop idols on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It’s perfectly logical that they would embrace a strain of rock that aspired to cultural and technical sophistication. With the disappearance of classical music from television, so went the ability to understand how anyone could like prog rock. For prog artists with lofty pretensions to high art, “middlebrow” may be the most stinging insult of all.

Banks had Gabriel's voice mixed down during the end section of 'The Musical Box' because he felt that Gabriel was "singing over his bit" ...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAzSglBXYAAygNK.jpg

“This was pre-social, though, pre-social,” he insists.

haha

Ppl on this thread seem to be ignoring a more obvious explanation as to why UK music press critics didn't like Phil Collins records at the time...

why not?

what is that?

Because they were garbage?

Nope.

*scales fall from eyes*

The last couple days, both here and in the Trump thread, have been educational.

I've said this before but Nathan East is the muthaflippin MAN.

Oh and I highly recommend NOT watching the Dan Rather Phil Collins "Big Interview." Not because of Phil Being Phil - that was going to happen nevertheless - but because Rather's questions are vacuous in the extreme.

I am a print-era journalist-type creature; I have never really followed TV news d00dz. But I'd vaguely assumed that because Rather had a career that was tangentially related to journalism, he might have at least picked up some pointers on the way. Like, do some research into your subject beforehand. But no.

Rather, Rather* appears to have been handed a half-dozen index cards by a 23-year-old intern who had glanced through Wikipedia half an hour before. Not only was it evident that he had no exposure to Collins's music apart from "famous guy who sang some Disney themes." Further, Rather appeared to be only vaguely familiar with rock music, let alone the life of a rock musician of global stature.

He lurches from goofy inanities like "Really? Drummers get injuries? I never thought of that." to vague abstract shit like "I think we have enough rapport that I can ask, 'who ARE you,' I mean, as a man and as a person?"

* = see what I did there?

http://cdn1-www.musicfeeds.com.au/assets/uploads/4b931b052d3460ee7b0aa085c99eb44b.gif

I think a lot of the hate Collins gets/got in the media was in part because he was infinitely more visible than Tony, infinitely more successful, but also a class thing - Phil's the oik trying too hard to impress, Tony's the snidey cunt at boarding school cutting everyone else down to size. Kind of feel a lot of journos, etc, in the 70s/80s would have identified more with Tony than Phil, though this is just conjecture.

There's that great quote from Tony, where supposedly at a Genesis reunion table featuring obscure and famous members, raised his glass and said something like "well, we managed to fire you all!" I think it was Steve Hackett who shared that one.

Banks in that BBC doc speaking of Phil:

"“He was our friend – we wanted him to do well. But you didn’t want him to do that well!"

I hate it when someone who can play/write the kind of beautiful passages that Banks has is also a raging twat.

I like to think that he's just deeply socially awkward when it comes to presenting himself publicly.

It must be that alone.

voted "turn it on again" but kinda surprised "duke's travels" only got one vote

Collins's drumming has always been melodic and hooky. It's something Bill Bruford doesn't quite capture on Seconds Out.

― dinnerboat

Agreed; i'll take Chester Thompson any day.

I don't really know what the UK music press (NME/Melody Maker/Smash Hits) line was on Collins' albums during the '80s... I'm guessing the NME and Melody Maker disliked Collins, Smash Hits were a little more keen and Q Magazine keener still. Strictly talking during the '80s here, of course.

I can understand people disliking Collins' solo stuff... but he had a lot of personal shit thrown at him from not just the music press, but from the tabloids and even Genesis' own fans.

Any criticisms one has with '80s Genesis can and should be assigned collectively. But as a solo artist Phil had nowhere to hide. Heart on sleeve lyrics and a hammy stage persona didn't help him.

I love 'Invisible Touch' (the song) but can't watch the video for it.

Many references to the '80s hit factory that Collins provided for himself, Genesis and others; none of them hold a candle to Gabriel's So (which is more soulful, arty, and funkier than anything from the aforementioned). Apples and oranges, i know...

Phil's heart-on-sleeve lyrics are pretty effective, tho - Against All Odds is the utopian ideal of self-pitying "You fucked me over" ballads, with implied "I got my own back though, I killed myself" chaser

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

I've probably listened to this album > 50 times, including a few times just this month. But after glancing at the poll results, I couldn't bring to mind the song "Heathaze" (which got 3 votes, and is repped several times in this thread).
So finally I went to youtube and brought it up. And I'm still not sure I've ever heard this song before in my life.

You must feel like an alien — a stranger, in an alien land.

I love that song. As a very I*N*T*E*N*S*E 10yo Genesis obsessive it inspired me to write a very bad short story about a cowboy environmentalist on a horse who travelled from city to city sabotaging nuclear power plants.

I pray that the story is never discovered.

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

― ant banks and wasp (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 4:08 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM! It sounds like a long lost Gary Numan track (well, it would if it wasn't for that Banksian twiddly keyboard lick that pops up from time to time) ...

man of our times is epic! could fit on the lamb even.

This album is a revelation. Soulful Phil vs Prog

It's way better than And Then There Were Three

I think I posted on a different Genesis thread that this is really the best of both Genesis worlds.

yeah I really fell in love with this album this year, picked it up on vinyl for cheap on a whim

so good

such a weird record

like you couldn't be a band that made a record like this unless you'd already been one type of band and were turning into another type of band

but you couldn't start out or end up being a band like this (on duke and also abacab)

yes

omg i forgot i made this poll

Please don’t ask is so cringey, Phil exposing his feelings too much !

I just listened to it for the first time and "Please Don't Ask" was the easy standout for me. I hate "Misunderstanding" tbh

"Misunderstanding" has such great, simple drums.

Phil is amazing, so much range as a drummer. so few were with his insane chops would do that

Misunderstanding is post-Gabriel Genesis doing Supertramp yet I still love it.

Duchess is so amazing. Recommend me electronic music that sounds like the first two minutes of Duchess (esp the Three Sides Live version)

I think I had the CD long box of this on my wall back when I would save them as posters.

XP - Maybe the first couple of OMD albums or some Monoton?

This album was a great disappointment to me after ATTWT, which is still one of my favourite Genesis albums. The songs that go to make up the Duke suite are excellent, but it was a real failure of nerve not to put them together as they should have been. Misunderstanding and Please Don't Ask are just dross and should have been saved for Collins's solo albums, where they would have fit much better. The problem was that both Banks and Rutherford had just made excellent solo albums and had used up all of their best material on those. This was the beginning of the end for my many years of Genesis fandom. Sad!

"Genesis' Duke . . . anybody remember that album. Genesis' Duke. You're no ATTWT, one of the great Genesis albums. . . The Duke suite . . . songs are excellent, but they were such losers not to put them together as they should have been. Misunderstanding and Please Don't Ask were Very Bad! Banks and Rutherford used up all of their best material. Duke! More like Duchess! This was the beginning of the end for my many years of Genesis fandom. Sad!"

vg :)

In its original form, "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End" were one 30-minute track that told a story of a fictional character named Albert which had a working title of "Duke". The group chose this name because the fanfare melodies on "Behind the Lines" and "Duke's End" conjured an image of royalty.[16] The band decided against sequencing the tracks this way on the album, partly to avoid comparisons to their 23-minute track "Supper's Ready" from Foxtrot, but also to have certain segments of the suite, such as "Duchess" and "Turn It On Again", released as singles.

Misunderstanding is post-Gabriel Genesis doing Supertramp yet I still love it.

― fish quits shock (Matt #2), M

omigod

yeah that nails Misundestanding tbh

xxxxpost thanks maresnest!

They did roll the Duke songs together on the 1980 tour, with some introductory context - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5tt-TboWaQ

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

― ant banks and wasp (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 11:08 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

as a pre-tween Genesis obsessive I used to wonder if they cribbed Tonight Tonight Tonight off that refrain within the verses of Man Of Our Times

one thing that's cool about streaming is that it just took me like 5 minutes and now i'm listening to duke's suite as a playlist interesting to hear how it flows

as a big fan of the full abacab suite they edited down into "dodo/lurker," i'm sympathetic to ppl who think the duke suite should've all run together. however... "turn it on again" being isolated so they could release it as a single was totally the correct choice

This album was a great disappointment to me after ATTWT, which is still one of my favourite Genesis albums.

I might have to have another listen then, I think Duke is great and never remember a single thing about ATTWT besides the final track

ATTWT usually seems to be one of their least popular albums among fans and the band themseleves, definitely of their 70s output, reckoning they hadn't yet found their feet without Hackett. It was the one album I missed out on 30-ish years ago, so approached it with fresh ears and other than the weak Ballad Of Big, I don't really get the criticism - it sounds at once like the 'debut album' of the hit-making group and the swansong for their more traditional prog sound.

I haven't heard Duke yet, but the 78-83 era of Genesis is an unusual mix of often-beautiful melodies and striking chord progressions with some lame arrangements, wildly variable lyrics and Phil's over-singing.

Turn It On Again is probably the best of that era that I've heard, with Undertow.

i knew "Turn it On Again" had some complex meter stuff going on - especially for a single! - but this is wild

http://www.rebelmusicteacher.com/blog/2016/8/9/changing-meter-in-genesiss-turn-it-on-again

Analysis: The opening to the song is heard in inconsistent time signatures, including bars of 4/4 and 5/4, and when the initial riff is heard, the time signature alternates between 6/4 and 7/4 (which could be considered 13/4, although there is a sense of division as though there are two measures heard within the main riff). The chorus delves into cross-rhythm, moving into compound meter where the rest of the song is heard in simple (duple) meter.

xps I also prefer ATTWT to Duke, though "Duchess" is my favorite song on either album. I just love ATTWT's lush, glowing polysynth-saturated production and strong melodies throughout. "Deep In the Motherlode" in particular knocks me out every time. Abacab is the absolute peak of the Collins era though

i can show you
iii can show you
some of the meters in my life

The coolest thing about "Turn It On Again" is that they make the tricky meter pretty inconspicuous. That's harder to do than it seems. The fact that the 13/8 signature can be broke down into more manageable (to the ear) pieces probably helps. The National is actually really good at this, like this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIB3ojwqdg

I think it could be broken down as either alternating measures of 9/8 and 4/4 or one long count of 17.

I've never grokked Trick Of The Tail and I find a lot of Wind & Wuthering quite bleak and dreary - though I've grown to love the most bleak and dreary track, Blood On The Rooftops, since my Genesis-obsessed pre-tween years, and I've always loved Unquiet...In That Quiet Earth, and Afterglow is their best pre-stadium success ballad, IMO. I've always felt ATTWT to be a bit... wet. Like, for me Trick and Wuthering mark a kind of interregnum period - Peter's gone, and Phil's yet to become what he will become - and ATTWT is the interregnum of the interregnum: now Steve's gone, and they're sort of relieved, you sense, but they feel they still need some of that gloopy over-aware poeticism in there.

But then you get Duke, and then Abacab, and it's like, the 80s are here, and Genesis are changing for the new decade - it's bolder, simpler, more pop, more sprightly, punchier and tighter. And I'm not crazy about the album that follows - some great stuff on Genesis, but loads that seems like bum notes, too - but then Invisible Touch seems the apotheosis of everything Duke and Abacab were leading towards, and then, inevitably, this brief balance of pop and prog that makes them a commercial behemoth cannot hold, they split, Phil's own solo career begins a slow decline, and so on. And Invisible Touch is possibly my favourite of the Phil era, but Duke and Abacab are close seconds, because they seem to be very much what they want to be, and have a vision of what they want to be.

I think my alignment is Abcacab > Duke > Genesis > ...And Then... > Lamb > some other stuff > Invisible Touch > still more stuff

Does anyone have an opinion on the 2007 remix of this record? Never having heard the original, is it different enough that I should avoid the remix?

I'm actually doing a lockdown cover of TIOA with my old school band buddies at the moment and I wanted to check out how the 'I....I...I...get so lonely" section was written out.

The sheet I’m using as a guide has it down as two bars of 3/4 one 2/4 two 4/4 then three of 3/4 one 4/4 and another three of 3/4 as it comes out of it and there's syncopated quaver tied over each bar line.

Hard to comment on the actual remixes because the digital mastering is brutal, they sound pretty horrible and unlike the originals IMO.

I think my alignment is Abcacab > Duke > Genesis > ...And Then... > Lamb > some other stuff > Invisible Touch > still more stuff

― fade into bolivian (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, January 11, 2021 5:43 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

not having Foxtrot up in the top 3/4 is wild imo

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

Anyone who ranks an album with "Just a Job to Do" over an album with "Firth of Fifth" has very different aesthetic sense than me.

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

seconded.

What is impressive is not just that the passages are great, but so many of them could seem random or disjunctive, but end up contributing to the whole. Take, for example, the long series of solos in the latter part of Dancing With the Moonlit Knight, or the ambient coda on that same song, or the Vicar sequence in Epping Forest, or the whole construction of After the Ordeal.

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

Thirded. It actually more or less permanently lives in my car's CD player for those times I can't find anything on the radio.

noticed they just did a colored repress of this. great record but what shop doesn't have a half-dozen used copies of this already? why not make it a 2xLP rather than cram 55 minutes on a single? certainly the sound quality ain't as good as the CD - Collins sounds like he's behind the instruments

I think the people buying the $25 white vinyl 180g version at Urban Outfitters and the people flipping through the dollar bins are 2 distinct market segments.
(also I hate the 2xLP's where there are 13 minutes of music on each side, so i'm happy to sacrifice a little sound quality to not have to flip the record every 3 songs)

Loved the long-form review in Pitchfork today (was worried it was just going to be the history of the band without actually discussing the album, but he gets there, eventually).
But then at the end, it says:

They had made better albums (nearly everything from the ’70s)

sure why not

That review was like the equivalent of an epic side-long suite. Very on point.

That was a nice piece. Also, I think, the first time Pitchfork has had anything substantial on Genesis.

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound. (Not surprisingly, the similarity was consciously by design. I'm surprised a songwriting dispute has yet to come up since the bar for litigable plagiarism has inched lower and lower over the years.)

*Toto song

yeah i mentioned that in the songs that sound like other songs thread. it’s a clear sly stone lift, but with a shuffle beat that is kinda similar to that toto song

as if Wind and Wuthering and ATTWT never happened

nah the writer has it right, W&W and ATTWT are both way better than Duke

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound.

I don't disagree but Phil explicitly says in the DVD documentary that accompanied the reissue a few years back that the song is based around him playing that Toto shuffle.

Didn't agree that was the album that caused a number of fans to get off the bus, always thought Abacab and s/t would have been more obvious points

Well yeah Duke was the last one I ever bought, and liked it with reservations. Heard enough of Abacab on the radio to know that I wanted nothing to do with Genesis from then on.

xps I think "Misunderstanding" also has some of Led Zeppelin's "Fool In the Rain" in its DNA, in that they're both shuffles with similar chord progressions and virtually identical lyrical themes

I'm not really a fan of Duke or Abacab, but when I was going through the catalog this past week, I was pretty sure I could cobble together my favorite parts from both and come up with an LP I'd kind of like.

funny, duke is the only genesis album i've really had time for

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound.

jeez, this hadn't occurred to me. OTM. I'd say, "'Hot Fun...' as played by Toto."

A line in that review makes me wonder... were there any established bands who became "more prog" in the late 70s? Rush, I suppose, maybe The Enid? Any others?

Or even bands who stayed "just as prog" as they were before?

not quite "late 70s" but Todd Rundgren's prog phase was from 1973-1977 which is pretty late to jump off the deep end

True, but as soon as late 1977, Oops Wrong Planet made a big shift to AOR.

yes made "awaken" in 1977, that's pretty prime prog. tho sure, the rest of the going for the one album was not quite as "progressive"

Phil has cited Beach Boys' Sail On Sailor as an influence on Misunderstanding, Hold The Line way more bombastic and generally unchill than either

xxp yeah and Hermit of Mink Hollow was perhaps a bigger shift

for context this is what was happening in 1978 so I don't blame everyone for getting out

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bg_f-oSfYJ4/VbUlJQA2fII/AAAAAAAAObk/sfNnzcB7XdU/s1600/ELP%2BCRAIG%2BPlayboy.jpg

You would just figure, for all of the fans who complained about these groups "selling out" etc., that there would have been a market share for at least one of these groups to "hold the line" and stay loyal to the progressive cause. I guess a lot of one's point of view depends on whether you think 80s King Crimson "went commercial" or "stayed progressive".

there would have been a market share for at least one of these groups to "hold the line" and stay loyal to the progressive cause

prog isn't always on time

I guess the first 70s act to "regress to progressive" was Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe in 1989, giving audiences the multipart suites and show-off playing they had been waiting for for more than a decade.

Rush definitely, Hemispheres (78) is the apex of their prog tendencies

but then start retooling (inspired by the Police, Talking Heads, etc)

Selling Out Fans by the Pound

the tracklisting on the AWBH album makes it seem way more progressive than it actually is

it is kind of surprising that none of these bands tried a comeback in the mid-80s when Marillion was hitting it big. I guess most of them were broken up or just not getting along.

Mid-80s? Yes had a pop comeback, Floyd had vanished up Waters' arse, Genesis were making $$$, Tull were pootling along towards dad-rock, ELP tried and failed with the ELPowell album.

No-one else much was big enough to survive punk/new wave, other than soft proggers like Camel or BJH who also headed dad-rockwards.

There was The Enid but they were more like a creepozoid religious cult by then.

i guess if we're counting floyd, animals was possibly their proggiest effort and that was '77.

There's the popular conception of prog musicians as "dinosaurs" by the time punk hit, although many were not much older than 30 (and Genesis were all younger than that). But I wonder to what extent the energy of youth fed into progressive rock in its golden era. As they aged, it was just easier to play triads on a synth pad than to try and write a concerto with every song, especially when the synth triads get you an ovation from the crowd.

It's not well regarded now but Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd was really huge (4X platinum in the U.S.)was huge for kids, "Learning to Fly" and that music video were huge and definitely got a newer generation of fans.

Pink Floyd in 1987 was my first concert, and that album has a lot of progressive trappings like instrumentals and extended running times, but I said elsewhere that "Sorrow" is "Heartbeat" by Don Johnson dragged out for eight minutes.

Lately when I've listened to Duke it reminds me a lot of Gloss Drop-era Battles

It's not well regarded now but Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd was really huge (4X platinum in the U.S.)was huge for kids, "Learning to Fly" and that music video were huge and definitely got a newer generation of fans.

The only time I ever saw Floyd was on this tour.

I luv them

Been listening to this today, great to hear them in a small-ish room with a very happy, singalong crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmXwxXZtIN8

still wonder what this album's reputation would've been had they kept the Duke suite intact. might've been seen as a modern way of doing a prog epic. album would've made more sense too though "Misunderstanding" just don't fit regardless, it feels like a bonus track from a different session. oh well killer album and as mentioned upthread they really were the only ones keeping the prog flame alive in 1980. and Turn it On Again is legitimately one of the coolest pop songs ever. you can't play it!! ever see a band attempt to work it out? even when you figure it out your brain just can't play that way without a ton of practice (I assume? tried both the drums and the bass keyboard part and needed total focus to even get it right once) Tony Banks, baby

A friend of mine, who is in his late-'50s, was telling me about perusing the record bins as a kid and coming across all these albums by Genesis, which all seemed so mysterious and magical to him, with their inscrutable album covers and whatnot. And then one day he's listening to the radio and hears "Misunderstanding," and the DJ comes on to say it's Genesis, and it reverse blew his mind. This is Genesis?

yea it's my least favorite part of the record and def should've been punted for Face Value. speaking of wasn't In The Air Tonight originally meant to be on this album? god, imagine that.

something I've noticed is how damn long every single one of Genesis's LPs were from Foxtrot -> Duke. even the doubles like The Lamb and Seconds Out. every LP is over 50 minutes long. this one is 55! you gotta crank up the bass hard!

I can't deny that Misunderstanding doesn't fit on this record, but I also can't deny that I love Misunderstanding, the first Genesis song I knew -- and it does fit, for me, into the band's work as a whole.

Phil pitched "In the Air Tonight" to the band (just like Mike Campbell pitched "Boys of Summer" to Tom Petty) and the band passed.

Phil is (rightly) defensive about his reputation for softening Genesis. For example, Mike Rutherford wrote the bulk of "Follow You, Follow Me," their first hit, and later the bulk of stuff like "Taking It All Too Hard" and "Throwing It All Away," two songs that people probably think Collins had a big hand in writing. (Fwiw, he also wrote the lyrics for "Illegal Alien.")

I like "Misunderstanding" too, even if though I don't count it among their best stuff - beyond Duke, Abacab was the last time I kind of enjoyed their pop songs before they really went bland.

I've never thought Misunderstanding doesn't fit and tbh I'm not sure what you're getting at. It feels distinctly of that period of Genesis in pretty much every regard and (this will sound clunky but) it's a textural and compositional fit for Duke imo (that said, it also reminds me of McCartney a bit - not in sound so much but just as a song).

Was listening to And Then There Were Three the other day and thought how unforgivably insipid Follow is. And I *love* their pop ballads, generally - Throwing It All Away is a genuine highlight of Invisible Touch for me - but there's something so grey and dull about it. It's no Afterglow, for sure.

IME 'Turn It On Again' is not so difficult to play, frogbs. My mates and I did a little remote version during lockdown and it was a lot of fun working it out.

Once you get into the odd signature groove, it's pretty straightforward, though I can imagine just one person deviating a bit too much throwing it off.

I don't mind "Misunderstanding" at all, and I like "Follow You," too, mawkish though it may be. Typically passive aggressive-y quote from Banks on wiki:

It was our only truly group-written number. Mike played the riff, then I started playing a chord sequence and melody line on it, which Phil then centralized around. It worked so well as a very simple thing; it was enough as it stood. I'd just written a simple love lyric for "Many Too Many", and I think Mike was keen to try the same thing. Maybe "Follow You Follow Me" was almost too banal, but I got used to it. I think we find it much easier to write long stories than simple love songs.

yea once you figure it out it doesn't deviate much but its just such an odd meter, idk my brain just isn't used to playing something like that

anyway I do like Follow You Follow Me, I'm a sucker for overtly pretty pop songs like that, but I'd make the same argument, it doesn't really fit into the album at all for me. even stuck on the end like that it just feels like a bonus track

I just love every Genesis single until Illegal Alien.

(And I don't even mind that one much. It's obvious what's awful about it but the instrumental is GREAT.)

yea for a while I had all the CDs from Nursery Cryme to Trick of the Tail and then a separate best of which was all later tracks (plus a new version of Carpet Crawlers), was kind of surprised how much I liked it

in fact I remember playing it once as the summer help for a utility company, my boss came in and went "ah yes Genesis, they were good but I actually only like the stuff they did before this, they had a different singer actually, you probably don't even know..." and I wanted to say how much I was really into those records but had to go on my route in 5 minutes so just didn't have time to get into a prog discussion, lol

Throwing It All Away is Follow You Follow Me done better (and balder)

I think PaulTMA is right. Throwing It All Away is Peak Rutherford.

He went back to its sound again for Living Years, which is another good piece of music hampered by mawkish lyrics.

something I've noticed is how damn long every single one of Genesis's LPs were from Foxtrot -> Duke. even the doubles like The Lamb and Seconds Out. every LP is over 50 minutes long. this one is 55! you gotta crank up the bass hard!

Controversial Genesis opinion: nearly all the 70s-era albums would be improved by lopping 15 minutes off the running time.

Throwing It All Away is Follow You Follow Me done better (and balder)

― PaulTMA,

otm -- one of Rutherford's better lyrics. Blame him for the sheer terror of "Land of Confusion."

xp well I definitely don't agree with that but I do find the amount of long atmospheric passages a bit curious, particularly say the end of "Moonlit Knight" which just tweedles on for several minutes. wonder who decided that was essential

Having a 1978-81 Genesis afternoon in the late summer sun.

I've always said that "Throwing It All Away" is one of Phil's deceptively simple peak drum performances, a total Bonham groove, which is unexpected for a ballad.

It's my favorite Patrick Bateman-era ballad.

In Too Deep's lovely as well, if I'm honest.

Also, Abacab onwards, Genesis albums (until the awful We Can't Dance) are a lean 47 minutes or so

We Can't Dance, Be Here Now, Disintegration, Daydream Nation - the four tenants of the 12 track, 71 minute album.

The latter-half sections of both Knight and Volcano are both Steve-driven and seemingly dropped from later live performances

well that's just 3 - Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. and I think all those are still longer than any album by say King Crimson, at least until the CD era

the outlier in their catalogue is Nusery Cryme...not even 40 minutes!! wow!

Eh, We Can't Dance is not all bad. "Driving the Last Spike," "Dreaming While You Sleep," "Fading Lights," those three long ones are pretty good, and together they run almost 30 minutes, lol. For the short ones, I don't really like the singles much, tbh, and a lot of the tracks do veer closer to Phil Collins solo dreck than most Genesis material does, but I do like "Tell Me Why" and "Living Forever," which kind of sounds like it could be slotted between self-titled and "Invisible Touch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHx9MqCfCjw

Controversial Genesis opinion: nearly all the 70s-era albums would be improved by lopping 15 minutes off the running time.

No argument here. They all have at least that much that is a bit dull or underwhelming, especially Lamb which otherwise is my favorite album but really would've been better as a single LP (albeit one on the long side).

It's funny how they celebrated the dawn of the CD era by making shorter albums

(Until WCD obviously)

Think a lot of my emnity towards WCD comes from the fact that I'd been a Genesis obsessive in my pre-teens, but WCD had the misfortune to arrive at the same time as Nirvana's Nevermind and my finally getting into music for kids of my age, and I felt I had to reject it. But also, I remember buying the CD out of curdled loyalty when it came out, and besides the chorus to No Son Of Mine, which I loved, it all felt like middle-aged-man ballads and old people shit. And then there was I Can't Dance, which was and is execrable. Perhaps I should revisit it.

That live thing, 'The Way We Walk: The Longs' has Fading Lights and Driving... and is a good context in which to listen to the record, but not.

I saw em at Knebworth on that tour, a mate got free tickets through his sister. And it was so removed from this band that I'd had such an intense, solitary relationship with when I was 11 or so, I remember feeling really weirdly about the whole thing (also we saw Steve Punt reviewing in the VIP section for a broadsheet w/his notepad out). But I'd be up for checking it out now.

I bloody love Domino so I'm definitely open to it being good.

Halfway thru the "old medley" and loving it of course

Argh and then Phil drops some lines from Illegal Alien in I Know What I Like, like a turd slipping into the gravy

eeets noh fahn