Posts by Dr. John

    Thanks Backdrifter, I wanted to start this topic for quite a while.

    It is interesting that Supper's Ready and Carpet Crawlers kept the fade-out even in live versions! Or at least what an emulation of a fade-out becomes when played live. These songs cannot have a better ending, the fading is like the main hero riding into the distance at the end of a movie.

    I don't have a problem with fading down in a live performance. Genesis have always been great with dynamics. In these cases, they fade down to a true ending.

    I think fadeouts are a bit of a lazy way to end a song. Prior to recordings, music was only live and all songs and musical pieces had to end.


    Genesis can end songs well without a fadeout. The Knife, The Musical Box, Watcher of the Skies, etc. all ended just fine.


    Genesis can also create totally fine live endings for songs that originally had fadeouts. Firth of Fifth just took the repeated sequence to resolution. Ripples ended the repeated choruses the way they naturally end in the rest of the song. Los Endos has a perfectly good ending. Abacab has a great ending. Carpet Crawlers is fine with a gentle ritard. Afterglow has a majestic ending. It makes me wonder why they didn't try a little harder to end the songs for the studio versions.


    Genesis can also create pretty dire live endings for songs that originally had fadeouts. The ending for Cinema Show on Seconds Out makes me cringe every time. The ending for Mama is so weak compared to the power of the rest of the song.

    It’s interesting as currently Genesis is are the number one selling item on acoustic sounds , both of the recent re issues have both sold out. Plus there is an incredible demand now for high resolution re issues. You also have to consider why Genesis are selling out on Acoustic Sounds?. I myself think there is demand they have got a lot of new fans since 2007. I think it would be worth a shot?. Plus as you say the work has already been done.

    That is interesting. My question is how big a reach does Acoustic Sounds have? What does selling out mean in terms of numbers? Dozens? Thousands?


    We live in an era where owning physical music is not really a thing, except for maybe vinyl and for us crotchety old dinosaurs. Most people stream and aren't looking to own CDs and blu-rays. While there is an audiophile market, is it enough to motivate Genesis management to work on more releases?

    It is totally a private enterprise, with no aspirations to serve anyone but themselves. That said, for the longest time they favoured American-based artists and artists that have had a big impact on the American music landscape. However, that bias has shifted in the past decade or so, hence the admission of artists such as Genesis, Yes, Rush, heck even The Cure. If anything, Phil has more mainstream acceptability in the U.S. than some of these other artists I mentioned. So I do expect that at some point he will get in.

    Probably making a lot of money In the process, plus make a load of fans very happy.

    I also disagree about this. The original box sets were released in 2007, when the band was again fairly prominent due to the TIOA Tour. None of them achieved any of the silver/gold/platinum statuses of sales in any country that I am aware of. So that is not likely a great return on investment, since a lot of work went into creating these box sets, including the interviews for each album. I wouldn't be surprised if these sets actually lost money.


    Nowadays, the band pulls in even lower sales. The Last Domino?, their latest hits collection, didn't achieve any silver/gold/platinum status either. It was only a double-CD. Unfortunately, I can't imagine that some kind of re-release of the box sets would lead to significant sales.

    It might be a deliberate riff off the Face Value cover and I don't mind if it is. Visual art often references previous work and certainly album covers have done this before.


    For example, David Byrne's Grown Backwards cover looks similar to Phil's But Seriously.


    My guess, as with other decisions or lack of decisions, is that:

    1. Someone has calculated that there wouldn't be adequate return on investment to do this kind of re-release. I'm guessing the market for Blu-ray releases isn't sufficient to warrant releasing these versions.
    2. No one in the band cares enough to be more actively curating their catalogue further.

    While this doesn't really stand alone well as a single song, I do like it. The main section is catchy and has some rock grit to it. The second part is a musical recapitulation of Broadway Melody of 1974 (the backing rhythms and chord progression), so I don't think it was intended as a bridge leading back to the main section but was instead meant as a transition to The Waiting Room.

    I agree with much of the above discussion.


    I think Ray has a good voice. CAS is an OK album, but it would take a superlative album (like ATOTT) to firmly establish a new lead singer in just one go. I certainly haven't heard anything that has made me want to explore his solo work.


    As it is, I haven't explore much of the solo output of any Genesis member, other than Peter. I like Phil's first few albums. I have liked some of what I've heard of Tony's solo work, but I own none of the albums. I have only listened to a few of Anthony's and Steve's solo albums and own none of them also. I most appreciate Genesis as a group, not as individual musicians.


    I can give many other examples of this. I have nearly everything officially (and much unofficially) released by The Beatles. However I only have a few solo albums by John, Paul, and George, and none by Ringo. Paul is the one I have the most albums by (8), so I am hardly a completist with him.


    For me, the whole is often much greater than the sum of the parts.

    What I'd love to know is what made him even think of bringing the idea up to the rest of them in the first place? From the way they all tell it Peter was the driving force behind them meeting up, and had he not seemed sincere I don't think the rest of them would have agreed to meet. And yet he seemed to arrive to the meeting already hesitant.

    Peter was invested enough in his Genesis legacy that he went and rerecorded all those vocals for the Archive 1 tracks. Maybe that got him thinking. We also know that he proposed doing at least a part of Supper's Ready for one of his solo tours, only to have his band suggest this wouldn't work. So I can believe that part of him was interested in doing a reunion and part of him was ambivalent about it nonetheless.

    I don't really know how commercially viable a 5-man or 4-man tour would have been in the 2000s and onward. A significant portion of people that filled the arenas and small stadiums were there for the 3-man era hits. You could see/hear/feel the waning attention of many during In the Cage, Ripples, etc.


    What could have worked might have been a 5-man or 4-man selection of shows in particular markets, which might draw many from other locales. If they did say London, Paris, Rome, New York, they might have been able to fill larger venues with fans of the older material. I still don't know how profitable it would have been - a lot of tours are losing money until the final shows.


    Anyway, I totally understand why the band chose to have a 3-man reunion once the 5-man option didn't materialize. To do a 4-man reunion would have awkwardness in a variety of scenarios. If they focused on the catalogue up to 1977, Phil would have had to sing a lot of songs that he hasn't sung in a long time and may not be that into anymore (never mind how into them Tony and Mike would be). And skipping any 3-man songs would definitely reduce their overall ticket sales. I also can't see getting Steve to play guitar (or alternatively bass) for Duke's Intro, Domino, Invisible Touch, etc. I suppose they could have done something like what The Eagles did for their History of The Eagles tour: first set with earlier songs and earlier personnel and second set with later songs with a different set of personnel. But that would have had Steve sit out for the second set and would have made him feel like second fiddle for the tour.