I like to think that I was open to the change, I kept on listening they really lost me with IT but to be fair there's another element to be taken into consideration which is age. I was younger when started listening to Genesis, as such much more intense and one tends to romanticize that period I guess. I feel I could have embraced the new course, had the material been stronger according to my personal taste of course. Take the first side of Shades amd perhaps Silver Rainbow 3-4 songs from Abacab and You might Recall and I personally would have hailed it a Masterpiece, no matter the style. There were for my money too many throw away songs though and I simply wasn't used to that with Genesis.
Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like
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I like to think that I was open to the change, I kept on listening they really lost me with IT
See, Invisible Touch is where I came in. So the first big change I had to deal with was Calling All Stations. And it took me twenty years to adapt to that particular change!
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he first big change I had to deal with was Calling All Stations. And it took me twenty years to adapt to that particular change!
I can see that but the difference is stuff like IT is unlikely to grow on you. It is conceived to be immediate, if it doesn't hit you immediately, it sort of misses the point. It is great record too, it serves the purpose extremely well, only that purpose makes me draw a line. I am much more likely to listen to Abacab, no matter how 'thin' I think the material is than IT which is a much more balanced, stronger and smoother record but lack the edge, the quirkiness and the energy of Abacab.
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Y'know I'm almost with you in that I recognise that all the best stuff was done in the 70s.
In some ways I'd even go further because I can't find anything on Duke I love.
Really? You seemed very keen for me to send you an MP3 of Duchess. Did It not pop your toast?
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I can see that but the difference is stuff like IT is unlikely to grow on you. It is conceived to be immediate, if it doesn't hit you immediately, it sort of misses the point.
Well, that's certainly true of the title track and some of the other tunes but certainly Tonight Tonight Tonight, The Brazilian and Domino are not immediately accessible. I put an edit of the album together which includes the three b-sides. For me, it makes for a much more balanced album between the immediate tunes and the heavier numbers. Considering those three tracks are - in my opinion - three of the best songs they've ever made, I couldn't imagine Invisible Touch without them.
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i discovered the genesis discography pretty much in reverse chronological order. i love the later stuff because it brings me back many good memories, and the early stuff because it's more complex and closer to rock [insert guitar emoji]
a certain person i once met many years ago, discovered genesis in the late 80s, but she later claimed to be "gabrielite" since she was born, because at a given time she realised that she would come across as more intellectual or something.
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she later claimed to be "gabrielite" since she was born, because at a given time she realised that she would come across as more intellectual or something.
Therein lies the musical snobbery exhibited by some prog rock fans. The conceit that something is somehow more viable as a piece of art simply because it requires more thought on behalf of the audience is just pretentious.
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Well, that's certainly true of the title track and some of the other tunes but certainly Tonight Tonight Tonight, The Brazilian and Domino are not immediately accessible.
I don't know what to tell you, personally, I find everything on IT cute and pretty, too much for me, when it is not the song per se, it is the sound, the excessive use of drum machines and the production. It just grates me and the accessible stuff: IT, Anything she does, into deep , Throwing it all away is just too much to take for me.
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I don't know what to tell you, personally, I find everything on IT cute and pretty, too much for me, when it is not the song per se it is the sound and the production. It just grates me.
Personally, I have greater issues with the production of Trespass and Nursery Cryme. Who was it who produced the latter? Was it the same producer that Van der Graaf used? Whilst their albums sounded pretty good, Nursery Cryme just sounds appalling.
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Personally, I have greater issues with the production of Trespass and Nursery Cryme. Who was it who produced the latter? Was it the same producer that Van der Graaf used? Whilst their albums sounded pretty good, Nursery Cryme just sounds appalling.
You get no argument form me over how poorly Genesis albums up to Trick have been produced. What I cannot stand about IT is how ''glossy'' the production is, mind you, it wasn't just our heroes that was the sound of the time. An era I find particularly bad for music.
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You get no argument form me over how poorly Genesis albums up to Trick have been produced. What I cannot stand about IT is how ''glossy'' the production is, mind you, it wasn't just our heroes that was the sound of the time. An era I find particularly bad for music.
And for me, the eighties was the last truly great period for music. That's the decade when I started listening to music and a lot of great artists came out of that era - The Police, The Specials, Madness, Duran Duran, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Ultravox, Phil Collins, Soft Cell, Tears For Fears, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, Alison Moyet, The Smiths, George Michael, Talking Heads, Metallica, Iron Maiden...and they're just the ones I can recall off the top of my head.
As for producers, Hugh Padgham, Bob Clearmountain, Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Giogio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Trevor Horn, Prince, Quincy Jones and Rick Rubin are a pretty impressive list.
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In line with the above I’m gonna be equally expansive...
Songs I’m afraid to admit I don’t like:
Everything, and I mean everything, after ‘Duke’.
Actually, even on ‘Duke’ there were worrying signs of the direction of travel. The album is flawed by the inclusion of the two Collins’ numbers: a sickly double spoonful of ‘Manilow Magic’ sitting alongside the hidden 'Duke suite'. But however strong the urge is to reach for your tonsils, the latter is the band’s farewell to prog rock and in this sense, ‘Duke’ is the final chapter that came mid-way through the book. From this point on the band would spend their career pulling a ‘Silence of the Lambs’ act, anxiously sewing themselves a pop music suit out of whatever musical scraps they had left.
First up was ‘Abacab’. A blare of horns announced its arrival in 1981. Yup, horns; as in ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’! Much like a trumpeting fart that is instantly regretted the moment you discover how wet it is, ‘Abacab’ dribbled off the vinyl with that embarrassed look that geriatrics reserve for when they’ve finally lost control of their sphincters. No wonder this material was roundly booed whenever performed in the aftermath of its release; yet the record execs, with a nod to Roger Waters, simply held their noses and whooped: “Welcome to the Machine, boys!” They were well aware that new, younger fans had arrived on the back of the success of ‘Face Value’. The ‘Philly boys’ (as someone on this forum has proudly declared himself) were here: the dumbed down generation with their school leaver exams that awarded them a point for simply spelling their own name correctly. They were willing fodder for easily digestible musical hooks and the band did not disappoint them. Sic biscuitus disintigrat!
If the band lost control of their bowels with ‘Abacab’, by the time ‘Genesis’ was released, they at least had enough of their marbles left to recognise that their glory days were over.
“Let us relive our lives in what we tell you,” they croon in ‘Home by the Sea’.
I’d have happily re-lived the glory days with them if only they’d called it a day and bloody well checked themselves into a home by the sea. But no; they limped on with songs like, ‘Mama.’ But in the naked democracy of the recording studio, who but a half-wit could fail to prefer the symphonic grandeur of early Genesis over that means-tested pauper: a song which may as well be ground out on an organ, accompanied as it is by a monkey with a pantomime laugh.
(Have the ‘Philly boys’ started trolling me yet? I’m conscious of the fact that this is no ‘prog rock’ forum)
The descent into amateur dramatics wasn’t to end here, however. How far from the lofty heights of ‘The Cinema Show’ would the band be prepared to fall? The answer is apparently, ‘Illegal Alien’ and that stick-on moustache. With this Chas ‘n’ Dave style novelty song ringing in our ears all we need now is a takeaway curry and a hand-job in a Tesco car park and that’s the great British Friday night out sorted!
Then comes ‘Invisible Touch’ and we get more of the same. ‘Salmacis’ this most definitely is not, as grammar school Phil is clearly more at home in ham videos monkeying about in a flasher mac. Those old enough to remember ‘Game for a Laugh’, might be forgiven for expecting Jeremy Beadle to suddenly leap out rather than anything remotely connected to Charterhouse. Oh, come back Gabriel, all is forgiven... even your silly psychedelic excess!
And so to ‘We Can’t Dance’, where the energetic clowning has now given way to an arthritic walk aptly reflected in the music. With Phil’s solo career in full flow, it wouldn’t be long now before he would hobble off into the sunset. Would we finally be spared this long drawn out death? Sadly, no! The band lurches on in the blind hope that if Miss Ellie from ‘Dallas’ can hoodwink the world into believing she’s the same person in 84-85 as she was in the previous 7 series, then Ray Wilson can pull off something similar. He can’t and we’re left to squirm through a final album before finally, finally the band is allowed to rest in peace.
“Slow build, slower decay," is how Peter Gabriel summarises everything and sadly, this is a mouth of decay containing no gold fillings. Yet, what a legacy nonetheless! A whole decade of superlative music throughout the 70s. Not even the Floyd managed to pull that off!
RIP Genesis 1970-80. Et in Arcadia ego
Ha ha! Yes, I am a ‘Philly boy’ but this is too well written for me to be annoyed. I can understand how frustrating it must have been to see them change into a fully fledged pop outfit.
Is it really true about Abacab and the booing? I can’t believe it.
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And for me, the eighties was the last truly great period for music. That's the decade when I started listening to music and a lot of great artists came out of that era - The Police, The Specials, Madness, Duran Duran, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Ultravox, Phil Collins, Soft Cell, Tears For Fears, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, Alison Moyet, The Smiths, George Michael, Talking Heads, Metallica, Iron Maiden...and they're just the ones I can recall off the top of my head.
As for producers, Hugh Padgham, Bob Clearmountain, Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Giogio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Trevor Horn, Prince, Quincy Jones and Rick Rubin are a pretty impressive list.
I am perfectly fine with the 80s up to a certain point and indeed there were great bands emerging in the beginning of the 80s by the the mid 80s after say the Live Aid, things really unraveled for me. Phil was pretty much the mirror of that era, I guess that's why he took so much flak. I loved Face Value, I was still on board with Hello I must be Going although his lyrics began to irritate me but he lost me completely with No Jacket.
And again that production, that sound...The horror, the horror....LOL. Only two songs I like on that record.That was too much fo me to take. Some interesting artist in your list, needless to say that I don't quite compare to 70s or 60s artists but that's a matter opinion and taste. I would only say that many of some you listed seem to have left to legacy to speak of. The came and went.
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Is it really true about Abacab and the booing? I can’t believe it.
It happened once out of sixty-eight gigs. At Leiden, I believe.
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I would only say that many of some you listed seem to have left to legacy to speak of. The came and went.
And I'm still listening to them
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And I'm still listening to them
And in some cases so do I but it is not enough to qualify them as artist who left a mark.
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And in some cases so do I but it is not enough to qualify them as artist who left a mark.
I don't think there's any point in asking you to clarify which artists because I clearly disagree, having thought highly enough of them to list them above.
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It happened once out of sixty-eight gigs. At Leiden, I believe.
Make it two. Pisa, Italy, 1982
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Make it two. Pisa, Italy, 1982
Different tour.
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I don't think there's any point in asking you to clarify which artists because I clearly disagree, having thought highly enough of them to list them above.
I would like to believe we can go beyond the boundaries of personal taste and particularly with the benefit of hindsight, admit some artist have been relevant for a certain period and then not so much. I might not like Duran Duran but they had their say. I might like Alison Moyet with Yazoo and solo but she stopped being relevant a while ago. Nobody can dispute the legacy of bands like the Police or Talking Heads and if you are into that even George Michael will be regarded as a gifted songwriter, particularly after his death but artists like: The Specials, Madness, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Ultravox are really not in the big league