Genesis, Genesis Album

    I've always said that Side A was in my opinion their new course peak, much more focused than Abacab where their main concern seemed to be change things by throwing stuff at the wall and see what stuck. Very few did imo. Side B to me is even worse than Abacab but at least they had one side and a couple of really memorable tracks to carry the album. I can understand why many prefer IT but they completely lost me with that which is a bit funny because when I look at it, THERE ARE good songs on it, alongside some really atrocious, tawdry stuff though. I'm not a fan of the production either, I prefer Abacab's sound, even though they sound almost similar

    Quote from chema

    'genesis' was probably a rushed album, it makes sense given the point where the band and their individual members were at that time. but even so, it includes three genesis classics: mama, that's all and home by the sea. this proves how talented this band was.

    I think it's telling that in Phils autobiography, there is just half a page on the Genesis album, talking about drum machine & grand master flash & 3 pages dedicated to Against All Odds all in the same chapter.

    I just gave the album a listen (not because of this discussion), and I have to say I'm not quite in agreement with the common dislike of Side 2 as compared to Side 1.


    I do understand it, though, since Side 2 has nothing on the level of "Mama" or "Home By The Sea." And then, of course, there's "Illegal Alien," which manages to be wrong about its subject matter according to every possible viewpoint; I can't take it seriously enough for it to bother me, though, and there's nothing wrong with it musically. Besides all that, once that awful edited version of "It's Gonna Get Better" is replaced by the proper full version, we have a bunch of songs that I like just fine. In fact "Just a Job To Do" is one of my favorite songs on the album.

    Quote from DecomposingMan

    I just gave the album a listen (not because of this discussion), and I have to say I'm not quite in agreement with the common dislike of Side 2 as compared to Side 1.


    I do understand it, though, since Side 2 has nothing on the level of "Mama" or "Home By The Sea." And then, of course, there's "Illegal Alien," which manages to be wrong about its subject matter according to every possible viewpoint; I can't take it seriously enough for it to bother me, though, and there's nothing wrong with it musically. Besides all that, once that awful edited version of "It's Gonna Get Better" is replaced by the proper full version, we have a bunch of songs that I like just fine. In fact "Just a Job To Do" is one of my favorite songs on the album.

    I gave it a listen too, admittedly because of this discussion and because it had actually been a while, probably years, since I had listened to Side B properly, I suspect I'm not the only one. I wanted to see if I could dispel any preconceived idea. I partially reassessed my position on Silver Rainbow which I used to find dreadful and now I find OK but no more than that. I like the keyboards on It's gonna get better but I find the song unconvincing and meandering, the rest, I must admit, is not something that would even be in my radar if it didn't have the name Genesis on it. The only thing remarkable about Just a job to do is in my view Phil's vocal performance. Taking it all too hard sounds like an unfinished demo. Illegal Alien is just crass humor, musically it does nothing for me. Someone said the album sounds rushed, I'd agree and it makes sense considering their schedule at the time. They released Duke in 1980, Abacab in 81, 3SL in 82 and Genesis in 83, plus the solo records and all the touring. Duke aside which I find quite solid I think the material suffered a bit.