Re-arrange Genesis albums

  • 1. What leads you to this conclusion?

    2. From this, you've decided it supports your belief that the Shapes album is about motherhood?

  • I was just carrying on with a kind of brainstorm on some of my ideas. I am not aiming to impose my opinion on others. They were only hypotheses that I wanted to share. As I said previously I have for a long time the belief that We Can't Dance (best album ever) is about Fatherhood and Shapes is about Motherhood (in other words some kind of concept albums) and finding in this thread the other day that We Can't Dance's working title was Father+Son made a bell rung with me and got me thinking that maybe I was not the only one. That's All.

  • All I can say is that I can sort of see where you are coming from with WCD, but not with Shapes. I fail to see how e.g. That's All, Just A Job To Do, Home By The Sea or Illegal Alien concern motherhood. A concept album has to involve more than one song. As has already been explained, Mama is not about someones mother and even if IGGB was about what you claim, how does that involve motherhood?

  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tony write the lyrics to Fading Lights?

    I have found this:

    According to Phil, in an interview with the late Geoff Parkyn for the Genesis fanclub magazine, We Can't Dance was the first album for which he had written the vocal lines for all the songs, not just the ones he wrote.

    (Source: "Phil: I’m Open to Genesis Reunion With Son on Drums -- Rolling Stone Article" Thread Comment by StillCan'tDance on 19th Aug 2018)

  • I have found this:


    According to Phil, in an interview with the late Geoff Parkyn for the Genesis fanclub magazine, We Can't Dance was the first album for which he had written the vocal lines for all the songs, not just the ones he wrote.


    (Source: "Phil: I’m Open to Genesis Reunion With Son on Drums -- Rolling Stone Article" Thread Comment by StillCan'tDance on 19th Aug 2018)

    I think he wrote the vocal melodies, not necessarily the lyrics. I could be wrong

  • I think he wrote the vocal melodies, not necessarily the lyrics. I could be wrong

    Yes and it's also possible he's misremembering. It's pretty well established Banks wrote Fading Lights.


    Also agree with your comment on the need to find threads, themes and patterns in things, especially members on a fan forum picking over the work of their favourite bands. Understandable and logical, but in this case the suggested "themes" for these two albums are an extremely tenuous over-stretch.

    Abandon all reason

  • As I said previously I do not want my aim to impose my ideas on others, just to share them. I have held for a time the intuition that We Can't Dance has a connection with the Fatherhood topic and finding that We Can't Dance was going to be called at first Father+Son had left me amused.


    I said We Can't Dance is the best album ever, because it is so and I do not miss any occasion to vindicate it.

    8o

  • :D

    As I said earlier, it's not a bad album at all, but probably too long, with 3 or 4 songs that could have been ditched, because to me they don't add anything interesting.

    It is too long, a symptom of that time when cd albums often were very long largely because it was possible.


    See earlier in this thread for examples of it being rearranged to be shorter.


    How's that for bringing it back on topic? Eh? YEAH.

    Abandon all reason

  • By the way, what is obvious is that the We Can't Dance title is a lampooning nod to that of Madonna's album You Can Dance. Remember that Madge is (or was in his teen years) Simon's favourite singer.

    I thought they were lampooning all the dance music of that era; I ddin't even know Madonna did an album of that title (the line comes from the song Vogue, anyway). By Simon I presume you mean Simon Collins?

  • I thought they were lampooning all the dance music of that era; I ddin't even know Madonna did an album of that title (the line comes from the song Vogue, anyway). By Simon I presume you mean Simon Collins?

    It was indeed a lampooning towards all the dance music scene (the criticism was not directed to the whole genre but to the dance music that was hollow).


    They simply made up a world-play from the title of a remix album by Madonna from 1987 (You Can Dance) as a kind of answer or mockery (We Can't Dance).


    Regarding Madge's album: its cover is quite known (maybe her most famous cover: dressed as an Andalusian, peroxided, red background and white letters, quite used as a poster), it featured the song 'Spotlight' (the only original one instead of a reworking), 'Vogue' is from her 1990 album I'm Breathless and there is also an issue with the cover of another album by Madge.


    And yes, Simon is Simon Collins.

  • The line 'you can dance' is from Into The Groove.

    It was indeed a lampooning towards all the dance music scene (the criticism was not directed to the whole genre but to the dance music that was hollow).


    They simply made up a world-play from the title of a remix album by Madonna from 1987 (You Can Dance) as a kind of answer or mockery (We Can't Dance).

    When did they say this, and what does "the dance music that was hollow" mean?

    Abandon all reason

    Edited once, last by Backdrifter ().