Absolute Peak of Genesis?

Quote from foxfeeder

Well, if you were joking, it'd be fine, but you're not, are you? Not the first time you've painted yourself into a corner with pointless, dogmatic bullshit that is clearly ONLY for effect on the forum.

I'm pretty sure you yourself have, in the past, used the argument that chart success does not great music define, yet, here you are, trying to make that point, so I assume you prefer Madonna, or Michael Buble to Genesis, cos I suspect they have had more "charty" careers.

We've had spats before, and you've always tried the "I'm a nice guy really" argument, sometimes even in PM's. But sadly, experience has taught me otherwise. And in case you think I seem to have a very short fuse at the moment, you'd be right, cos there are too many troublemakers on the board of late, and not enough moderation.

Why so aggressive?

No i wasn't really joking but I find your reply over the top.

No, charts success doesn't define great music, I still maintain that but we weren't talking about that, were we?

I just made a remark over Tony being possibly jealous of the others' success and you got up in arms because I didn't include Steve.

No, I cannot know but I don't think Tony is envious of Steve's career, again, after all, it's Steve who's playing Tony's music these days, certainly not the other way around.

I even conceded the numbers are in Steve's favor. Numbers are numbers, even unimpressive ones

Troublemakers and good guys? Look at your reply and decide for yourself.

Try to calm down, nothing happened here.

Quote from Backdrifter

By most broad definitions Hackett's albums and singles place him above Banks in terms of chart success. Each have penned very catchy solo songs, some of which were singles, that under different circumstances could have been hits by most definitions but obviously weren't. Profile, brand, promotion, radio play, whatever factors there were meant they didn't reach that special milepost. Both have proved themselves skilled writers so it shows how hard the business of hit songs, however you define it, can be.

That seems like a fair summary.

More noticeable than hits now is that Steve seems to have an ongoing musical presence, consistently producing albums (even if as has been observed in other threads, some of the recent ones are rather less memorable), collaborating on other musicians’ projects & touring - apart from during pandemics. He seems to be contentedly settled into that round of visible activity. Whereas apart from the upcoming Genesis tour we don’t really know what Tony’s being doing. There’s been 3 classical albums in about 20 years & a short classical piece for a concert a few years back, but no sort of consistent musical activity - although in fairness to Tony, the winner of the Not Doing Much Musically for Inordinately Long Periods Competition must be Peter!    

Quote from boredatwork

although in fairness to Tony, the winner of the Not Doing Much Musically for Inordinately Long Periods Competition must be Peter!    

No argument there.

Quote from Liquid Len

He’s comparing a wimpy gentleman’s bout, to a horrific war in which north of 600,000 soldiers were slaughtered. Like they are even close in comparison.

Sorry to be Nancy Nitpicky but I think it's referring to the English Civil War, and the song I think is based on a report of gangland territory disputes rather than "have at you sir" handkerchief-flapping, but yeah it's obviously supposed to be a silly comparison. No argument that there is intentional humour in Genesis songs but for me it's mostly pretty lame, especially post-PG.

Quote from Liquid Len

oh. Never even occurred to me it was about the English Civil War. Should have picked up on that. My American brain just went to our civil war. Your right that some of the humor is kind of cheesy, post PG. Like “you’ll have no trouble until you catch your breath and the nurse will present you the bill”.

I’m not sure I’d characterize any line from Entangled as cheesy. Now Illegal Alien . . . Oy, where do I begin?

Quote from Backdrifter

Almost no point haggling over what constitutes a 'hit'. Regardless of whether there's any kind of official definition it means different things to different people. Some will regard it as something they've frequently heard on the radio, or attaining a certain chart level, or an album that exceeded a certain chart life and/or reached one of the silver/gold/platinum designations. In the UK, the Guiness organisation who issued chart records list books defined a hit single as one that spent at least one week on the official top 75. Even one week at number 75, that was a hit.

Here's some food for thought.

The Sweet's biggest hits, an album released before their first, and only number 1.

Billy Joel, my wife has his "Greatest Hits collection, volumes 1, 2 & 3. 42 tracks in total. He has had one UK number 1, 5, top ten hits.

Bruce Springsteen: again, my wife has his Greatest Hits too (Clearly, her tastes are more mainstream than mine. Better? Hmmmmm!) Bruce has no UK number 1's, 4 top 10's, 2 of which are missing from the album, though one is a Christmas hit.

There are lots of other examples, that illustrate the point that a hit is much more complex than getting to number 1. And just to add weight to the argument: Which do you prefer: Vienna by Ultravox, held off number 1 by Joe Dolce's Shattap You Face? Take on Me, by A-ha, or the song that kept it at number 2 , The Power Of Love by Jennifer Rush. Question by the Moody Blues, or Back Home, which the England World Cup Squad of 1970 pretty soon were, having failed to play better than they sang!

Quote from Fabrizio

Why so aggressive?

No i wasn't really joking but I find your reply over the top.

No, charts success doesn't define great music, I still maintain that but we weren't talking about that, were we?

I just made a remark over Tony being possibly jealous of the others' success and you got up in arms because I didn't include Steve.

No, I cannot know but I don't think Tony is envious of Steve's career, again, after all, it's Steve who's playing Tony's music these days, certainly not the other way around.

I even conceded the numbers are in Steve's favor. Numbers are numbers, even unimpressive ones

Troublemakers and good guys? Look at your reply and decide for yourself.

Try to calm down, nothing happened here.

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So, I was right, you weren't joking, but I'm the one whose over the top?

And no, I don't buy your "Who? Me?" attitude, about being aggressive. You've pulled that stunt before, at least once on me, and one others. You throw stones, and when someone dares to throw one back, you cry foul.

I've looked. I've decided. I'm not taking the blame for your issues. Again!

Quote from foxfeeder

So, I was right, you weren't joking, but I'm the one whose over the top?

And no, I don't buy your "Who? Me?" attitude, about being aggressive. You've pulled that stunt before, at least once on me, and one others. You throw stones, and when someone dares to throw one back, you cry foul.

I've looked. I've decided. I'm not taking the blame for your issues. Again!

Talking about Steve's albums taking the world by storm can ONLY be interpreted as tongue in cheek, I thought it was clear even, to a fanboy of your caliber. Still no justification for your vitriol. I couldn't give a bigger F... about what you buy or less, I know what I meant to say and what my intentions were. It's not my fault you and others misconstrue my unwillingness to lash out on the internet which I find lazy and frankly a bit coward for appeasement or worse hypocrisy Lots of assuming on your side, quite incorrect and frankly delusional. I'm done.

Quote from Fabrizio

my unwillingness to lash out over the internet

Thank you, I just aspirated a mouthful of salad.

I haven't been around here much lately but have enjoyed catching up on some threads and reading about the absolute peak. (including the argument on about Steve or Tony being the most successful.!) Anyway q lot has been said about the TBOEF and the humour in the lyrics. What I want to know is this....... What does the politically and socially advanced 71 year old Peter Gabriel think of the 23 year old Peter Gabriel

singing line "and Harold Demure who's still not quite sure" in the way he did.

Quote from Liquid Len

I love that voice, one of the best parts of the song.

REALLY?!

It's interesting hearing what are the things that do or don't appeal to fellow fans... if occasionally utterly baffling.

I'd go with your assessment of PG's likely reaction. It's just one of those things - it was acceptable at that time to do that voice, usually accompanied by a 'limp wrist' gesture, but yes any reasonable person would cringe at it now... though no doubt someone will come in and start berating people for being "easily offended"!

Silly voices in songs generally make me cringe anyway, this being no exception.

Quote from Liquid Len

I try not to take the music too seriously. There is little that offends me; I appreciate and am always interested in everyone’s differing points of view.

Taking any music by anyone "too seriously" or not isn't something that ever occurs to me, to be honest. It's more that when musicians are clearly intending to be humorous it rarely works for me as music is rarely a good vehicle for humour and I certainly don't think Genesis ever mastered it. It doesn't come across as offensive, just quite lame. On a tangent, I'm never offended by anything. I don't really get the concept of "offence". But anyway, that's for a different thread.

Quote from thefarmer

What does the politically and socially advanced 71 year old Peter Gabriel think of the 23 year old Peter Gabriel

singing line "and Harold Demure who's still not quite sure" in the way he did.

I'd say he thinks it's a little nugget of shite in a great big bag of shite.

Quote from thewatcher

I'd say he thinks it's a little nugget of shite in a great big bag of shite.

Quote from Backdrifter

REALLY?!

It's interesting hearing what are the things that do or don't appeal to fellow fans... if occasionally utterly baffling.

I'd go with your assessment of PG's likely reaction. It's just one of those things - it was acceptable at that time to do that voice, usually accompanied by a 'limp wrist' gesture, but yes any reasonable person would cringe at it now... though no doubt someone will come in and start berating people for being "easily offended"!

Silly voices in songs generally make me cringe anyway, this being no exception.

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I sort of agree with both.

When I first heard this song I guess I must have been about 16 or 17 , ( late 70s) I thought it was masterpiece amongst masterpieces. Now it's it seems like a flawed piece of whimsy ( maybe trying to bring whimsy up to date or pythonesque, but coming up with a cross between great prog and Carry On) which I can enjoy and usually brings a wry smile to my face. Looking back, when I was growing up , Gay ( homosexuals then being the polite term, ) men were a figure of fun or threatening and lesbians a dark unknowing secret. Like many, I began to question the awfulness of that attitude at about that time. PG was one to always question attitudes and I guess he never would have sung that line just a few short years later. It makes me realise Genesis were ,despite their genius, just young men and a product of their time, like us all.

I still maintain that that smashing Rob the nob across the gob is the second best line in rock history. (The greatest of course being did you ever see a woman coming out new York city with a frog in her hand. A tribute to PG that he could even get close. )

I think I'll play BOEF now.

Quote from martinus

Apparently I'm not noticing something here. Perhaps a non-native speaker thing. Could you please explain? What is so special about the line and the way it was sung back then?

I'll let native speakers explain that but I totally understand you, even after having lived in the UK, it took me sometime to catch on to that and all the other references for that matter. When I first heard the album, the only thing helping us making sense of the lyrics were Armando Gallo's notes and as helpful as they were, they were nearly not enough to shed some light on everything. He would translate and try to provide a reference when things were typically British, but even if you get the words the references, colloquialisms and nuances completely escape you.