Taking Sides: Genesis 1970-1977 Vs. Genesis 1978-91

"The Man Who Sold The World" was about as prog as just about any pop album was in 1970-71, I guess. I mean, even stuff like Paul McCartney's "Uncle Albert" and "Back Seat Of My Car" was kinda proggy too.

I can listen to "Keep It Dark" over and over and over again.

We are ignoring 'Calling All Stations', right?

Um, of course. I should read gooder.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I love the *Three Sides Live* version of "Abacab" to an almost embarrassing degree. I wish the solos went on for twice as long.

I guess I never noticed this poll before, so I didn't vote, but I'm so damn happy with the results. ILM *high five*

Also agree with J0hn D. that the title track of Abacab was pretty cool. Don't remember it all that well, now, though. I certainly can't claim to have heard their whole career, and I believe Phil Collins can only be hated by about 90% but I do know for certain that there is a year somewhere in the 80's that if I have to hear them, I'm going to drive a nail into my finger to turn that shit off.

Also I recently heard Nursery Cryme for the first time thanks to Noodle Vague, thanking U. I thought it was fantastic and I couldn't believe there were synthesizers on it. I try not to worship Peter Gabriel the way I worship Kate Bush - it's only an illusion.

There were no synthesizers on "Nursery Cryme", but maybe that is what you were trying to write?

Yeah, but there's some kind of electronic piano, isn't there? What is that noise on the first track? Surely that's not a guitar, but I could be naive.

organ, mellotron, piano, electric piano

Right! that's what I meant to say was electric piano, not "electronic". Thanks.

's cool. The mellotron is a kind of proto-synth anyway.

Did anyone here see them live when Gabriel was singer? Tell about it.

Looking at some of the song titles mentioned on this thread, though, has convinced me I need to dig up some early 80's Genesis pronto. Might even be post-punk enough for me to really enjoy.

"Turn It On Again" actually reminds me of the Who (with Daltrey singing of course). This is a nice trip down memory lane. Thanking ILXors. "Abacab" is making me hella happy right now too.

God, where would I be without ILM? Where?

"Misunderstanding"! Wow! I forgot all about these songs. Jesus christ.

misunderstanding is terrible. about half of duke is pretty good. abacab is a great album, s/t is a really watered down verson of same, invisible touch an even more watered down version of s/t. but I think abacab was really pretty progressive of them, more so than duke and certainly more interesting than the awful 'and then there were three'.

I've heard about half of the Abacab album now and I must say I'm mighty impressed. Not just with the songs, but the production absolutely knocks me out. I would like there to be more records in the world that SOUND like that, please. I'm becoming a lot more intrigued with this part of their history. Haven't really started digging in to Duke or And Then There Were Three, yet, but I will. Also gonna give the self-titled one a try. I can't really deal with "That's All" anymore, but I'd like to hear the rest of it, especially "Taking It All Too Hard" which I think I bought the single of but can't remember much about.

pretentious Gabriel Genesis beats almost all of the Collins era except maybe the title track of Abacab, which is ace.

<3 u for this J0hn

Never see how that track is so particularly great either. The fact that the same beat goes on all the time kind of damanges what might otherwise have been some nice mood changes.

Plus the bass theme is ripping off Sparks' "Beat The Clock" - the intros are almost identical!

you don't do drugs ever, do you

80s Genesis is the bomb, it hasn't aged!

some awesome singles here: turn it on again, misunderstanding, abacab, no reply at all, that's all, follow you follow me, taking it all too hard, etc... hell, a couple off Invisible Touch

^^i was otm up in here

Just the fact that there were singles means it is obviously inferior to the 70s stuff.
Prog bands, shouldn't make singles, they should make complex 20 minute suites!

"the fact that they were singles"

Okay, listening to And Then There Were Three now, and totally flipping my goddamn lid. "Ballad of Big". I don't care anymore if people make fun of me. I bought a bunch of late 70's/early 80's records by this band today. I mean LP's! I'm going to rip them all in .wav format and put them on my iPod. I got that Three Sides Live thing too! :) :)

All this week, I kept getting this feeling I was going to flip my lid over this stuff. When I heard the first song on Duke "Behind The Lines" the other day, I knew I was about the flip my lid. And also playing "Paperlate" at the gym. I kept getting the feeling I was going to flip. And now I have. And let me tell you here is the reason why: I adore Peter Gabriel, he is a god among musicians in this world and I want him in a Top 5 musicians with me on a desert island, even as fallible as he is. And Collins filled the shoes so well on And Then There Were Three... I mean I really think he pulled it off pretty well.

But the first moment tonight when I realized I had finally well and truly flipped was when I heard "Taking It All Too Hard" for the first time again in a billion years. That's the moment when I knew.

I have Abacab on vinyl now!!!! Good quality vinyl! :) :)

I really love Duke... i think the two albums before it are kind of halfway houses between the Gabriel era and the Collins era, it seems with Duke they sort of got a grip of what the group would be for the albums that followed.

"Wind And Wuthering" is awesome and nothing like "And Then There Were Three" at all. Although I kind of like the latter too, as a pop album with prog elements. "Duke" also has lots of atmosphere, but like "And Then...." lacks the lengthy complex tracks that "Wind And Wuthering" did still have in "Eleventh Earl Of Mar" and the glorious "One For The Vine". Also "Wind And Wuthering" still had Steve Hackett's wonderful guitar playing in there. I see 1976-78 as just as important a musical watershed in their music as 1974-76 is.

geir, how do you rate "ripple" on trick of a tail in light of "eleventh earl of mar" and "one for the vine"?

i don't doubt its importance, i just don't really like those albums much.

I'm not Geir but: "Ripples" has its moments but it's not one of my fave tracks on TofT and I certainly don't consider it a match for either of the Wind and Wuthering biggies. "Ripples" doesn't change it up enough and it feels more of a long, drawn out ballad than an epic. It's plenty good in its own way tho, some of Phil's best singing maybe.

"Robbery, Assault and Battery" is the "oh god no" clunker on that album btw. Why are Genesis crime songs invariably horrible?

That reminds me, I've never seen Buster.

"Robbery, Assault and ?Battery" has awesome instrumental breaks, but is a shitty, shitty tune.

what about "uncertain weather" and ray wilson? adam lambert and queen?

steve hogarth and marillion?

I don't have Wind & Wuthering! I don't have Trick of The Tail! May god strike me down I can only take so many Genesis albums at once, man. Give me some time. Really. Give me a break.

As long as Peter Gabriel makes it to the desert island with me, I'll listen to anything you want. That guy is going with me on my own personal lifeboat. Sorry.

phil collins abandoning kit for mic cleared the way for the drum machine 80s

Never wanted to hear the Wilson Genesis album. Never really wanted to hear post-Fish Marillion.

I have the Wilson Genesis album. I got it for free. I've listened to it maybe twice? There are a few numbers that would be OK if they played them w/some sense of urgency, but it's all very half-assed.

Have pity on me, what are you guys talking about? Wilson Genesis? Who is Wilson?

He was in Stiltskin. He did an album with Genesis when Phil lollins left.

The singer from stiltskin. he appeared on the very last Genesis studio album "calling all stations" Do not pay money for it.

I doubt it lived up to his glory days in Stiltskin.

That hit single they had actually sounded better when it was an advert tune, without vocals!

^^^ See also: Babylon Zoo

But where has Duke been all my life? Where?

Wilson absolutely didn't fit into Genesis at all as a singer, but some of the songs on that album are actually quite good. It is the sound of Tony Banks partly taking back the artistic control after Phil left.

What he's waiting for, I don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_nwwUpsGFk

Definitely the right time of the year to revisit that album

wind & wuthering my autumnal genesis go-to though I still can't really tolerate the aggressive whimsy of All In A Mouse's Night and the shrillness of 11th Earl Of Mar

Agree about Mouse's Night but Earl of Mar is pretty moving imo

whole record might be a bit trebly tho, I listenedto it most on my teenage lo-fi gear

The essayist is kinda down on a lot of ATTW3 and I can maybe see his point (too much Banks, too ponderous/romantic), up until 1980 I think I would be more inclined to listen to live recordings and as Genesis Live was my proper first exposure to them as a nipper I've always looked through that prism.

For this period I've always really enjoyed listening to the Knebworth '78 recording, some of which is on that recent Box Set (although I think it incorrectly says 1980) the Friday Rock show rebroadcast it sometime in the mid-80s and my mate taped it for me on the shittest quality cassette, but it was a really good intro to some of those songs from the era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0swxbAIgX2s

...and this is a nice radio recording of a full gig from Chicago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLnrlOPbzsk

I feel like when you see musicians in their 60s and especially in their 70s and up it can be a gamble on how well they’re able to play in relation to their younger peak ability…I saw Steve Hackett last night, though, and would say he’s still operating fully at 100% (maybe 110%) even at 74 years of age. He’s playing Foxtrot all the way through (he has been for a while now, it just hadn’t made it here) and it sounds immaculate. The guy that’s singing, Nad Sylvan, does a way better Peter Gabriel than I expected, and the musicianship is outstanding…the climax/last few minutes of Supper’s Ready actually brought a tear to my eye. This is all my roundabout way of saying that if you’re a fan of Foxtrot or Hackett-era Genesis he’s still well worth seeing, as I had my doubts on whether to go.

I have the same story, didn't really want to go either but a friend had a spare ticket so I figured what the hell. It was really great. I should've figured it would be since a guy like Hackett probably has his pick of whatever musicians he wants to work with so it's no surprise all of them were excellent. I had no idea that the bass player was going to be Jonas Reingold, or that the drummer was the guy from Frost*. But yeah Sylvan doing a near perfect Gabriel impression was what really drove it home. It was so good I was wondering if this was better than the actual Genesis shows of that era. I've heard Supper's Ready a thousand times, probably could go never hearing it again, but yeah seeing it live was really something. I mean I never thought I'd get a chance to see something like that. Sound was excellent too - one of the few shows I've been to where you could clearly hear everyone, though hilariously the one guy who did sometimes get drowned out was Steve himself, just like he was in Genesis :)

Friends of mine went and gave it rave reviews. Sorry I missed it, but budget outweighed my middling Genesis fandom.

Happy birthday to passive-aggressive fucker Tony Banks!

He really is the most amusing asshole if you're not actually in Genesis

Everything pinched and sour about UK upper-upper-middle-classes in one fairly talented pianist

seems like Mike R is underrated af as a bass player btw

He really is!

No Reply At All is such a sick bass part that for years people theorized it wasn't him, it was the iirc Earth Wind and Fire guy.

which is funny cuz verdine didn't always play in ew&f studio tracks.

mike/tony/phil never used studio dudes. they are a totally in-house operation. there's tons of footage of them working on albums and it's pretty amazing stuff to watch. mike is really a min blowing player.

Well, Stuermer has played live with Gen; he's definitely all over Phi's records. Do we know fo sho that he hasn't appeared recorded Genesis?

p sure yah!

they always had cams documenting the recordings and theres tons of vids like this on yt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgN325HVzQU

i've seen Hackett a few times and that is a great show, band is phenomenal and if you like his guitar you will get a whole shitload of it, and it will sound great.

A Trick of the Tail is 50 years old today! I think it might actually be my favorite Genesis album, "Mad Man Moon" in particular is an incredible deep cut, Phil totally rules on it too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tuzx1jswmU

Dance on a Volcano rules.

Less whimsy in the vocals, but the songs are all tight and memorable. This was actually my first Genesis studio album (folks bought me The Way We Walk: The Shorts 5 years earlier)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1-Dz5VrG2U

Good episode. For sure, abacab could've been a great album if they'd swapped out several of the final album tracks to instead include the entire Dodo suite, Paperlate and You Might Recall. And I guess I now need to hear the entire, very lengthy version of the title track