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

I enjoy the way Banks used Mellotron on Trick and WaW by the way.

Well, post WaW marked the introduction of the digital synth, and Genesis being so popular meant they could afford some of the earliest versions. There are at least a couple of Banks solos that basically sound like him going through the banks of preset sounds.

xpost It's amazing how many proggy bands have Gabriel-esque singers. Not just Phil, but Talk Talk, Elbow, even Blue Nile a bit.

One of the things I love about Genesis, especially for a prog band, is that there are so few examples of showoff flash for flash sake. Collins is busy, but as clips attest, he has a relatively modest drum set (at least for a while) and really knows how to groove, whether it's "Squonk" or "Throwing It All Away." Hackett, as we've discussed, is pretty chill even when he's flash; "Moonlit Night" has those cool tapping bits, but they're here then gone, while "Frith" is neat but not technically too show-offy. Rutherford is pretty all meat and potatoes on both bass and guitar, and there's lots of space in all the band's music. Unike the flurry of notes that is Yes or ELP.

"Moonlit Knight," rather.

(xpost) Thanks, Josh. Didn't know that re: the digital synths.

I wonder if ABBA was an influence when making Duke's poppier tracks over at Polar Studios. Just a thought that passed as I was listening.

and marillion and big big train where the bite is self-conscious and deliberate. but that doesn't explain talk talk/elbow/family/procol harum/phil collins, except maybe there's a hyper-specific vocal type prone to singing proggy lyrics or vice versa

xpost

Actually, here's a big nerd list of Tony Banks equipment over the years: http://genesislive.ning.com/group/equipment/forum/topics/1982628:Topic:36382

So yeah, Mellotron is out and programmable polysynths come in. Not analog yet, but certainly a few steps up from the tapes in Mellotrons.

Some good Mellotron stuff I found in this (http://www.furious.com/perfect/fripp2.html) Fripp interview:

Q: Why did Crimson use the mellotron so much in in its work? The band kind of popularized it, didn't it?

FRIPP: I own six of them, five of which belong to King Crimson. I have two of the original double-manual mellotrons and two mellotrons from the '72/'74 Crimson. The Moody Blues also used mellotrons. I think Crimson used it in more abberant forms than previous users. By the time that Crimson ceased using them in September '74, you didn't have viable synthesizers. There was an impressionistic possibility from strings and flutes and brass that you couldn't get from a guitar, though you now can. The supposed mellotron use on Thrak is Adrian on my guitar synthesizer with some mellotron use as a homeopathic link from the past.

There is a version of "I Talk to the Wind" from the Chesterfield Jazz Club (not on Epitath) which was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron. If it was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron, which doesn't care anyway, it was AWFUL for the musician who had to play it. We had to make a decision- do we include this or not? Finally, we said no. Just to show how out of tune a mellotron can go while a musician is using it is not a reason to make it available throughout the world. At this point in the song, you can hear Greg Lake thinking 'do I pitch with the mellotron or the bass?' About a minute later, Greg has made up his mind- 'I'll go with the bass because it's closer to me.' However for the next two minutes, you can continue to hear Ian thinking 'shall I sing with the mellotron or with Greg while continuing to fine tune the pitch of the mellotron as the song begins?' This is 35-minutes into the gig, doing things we hadn't done at other gigs, just burning. Then our confidence is completely undermined. Their movement forward is brought to a halt by this AWFUL out of tune mellotron and the show never actually recovers from it, especially when the mellotron is used in any piece.

DAVID: There was another show where the mellotron was a semi-tone out of tune and this chord comes out that was delayed into the P.A.- the reason it went out of tune was because of the voltage so that if they played a loud chord, the mellotron went flat. Ian had to try to retune it as everyone else got quiet.

FRIPP: This we discovered particularly in Amercia, particularly working at the Boston Tea Party. In England, you work on 240 (volts) which is more reliable than the United States with 110 and much more than Sicily which is at 85. We were playing "In The Court of the Crimson King" and you heard D from the band and the tuned instruments, D flat from the mellotron strings and the voices horribly in between. We finally bought a voltage stabilizer after all of this.

Hahaha! Wonderful. Thanks Josh.

It's funny Banks used the CS-80 so much in "Duke" as it seems to be played/mixed in a way where it's not very obvious. It's such a PROMINENT synth. Though Kate Bush used it tons as well, supposedly, and I've never noticed it in her stuff around, say, "Never for Ever" or "The Dreaming".

I personally would have loved to have seen what happened if Genesis made an album like Yes' Relayer, because I've always loved the intensity of that record.

I just heard "Dance on the Volcano" for the first time -- boy, they're all playing at their peak, aren't they?

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 10:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was pretty much my thought when I first heard it! I think Collins himself considers that era as being the very peak of his drumming capabilities, although I may be wrong.

The Banks-led W&W is for me the dullest of their prog epics. I have more love even for Duke than for that soggy turd.

Seconded. Though actually I love Duke.

y'all are crazy, W&W is my favourite Genesis album bar none.

its so dreary and grey! the best song, blood on the rooftops, is gloom incarnate!

I think "Wind & Wuthering" is really solid, with some great playing and in particular some great Banks stuff. I think " ... And Then There Were Three ..." is the one that's dull as dirt. "Afterglow" is like the perfect capper to the first era of Genesis, and "Duke"'s "Behind the Lines" the perfect intro to '80s Genesis. I think of "Follow You, Follow Me" as a pretty single that came in between. But that album, bleh.

To be fair it took me a looong time to come around to W&W. The first few listens I was wondering where all the melodies were. Then I listen again and discover they're all over the place. To me it's like a better version of what they were going for on most of the second disc of The Lamb - having Gabriel out of the band did wind up opening a few doors!

It took listening to the live records to appreciate the songs on W&W

Actually the Knebworth '78 show is ace and well worth checking out, the BBC recorded it.

W&W has never sounded particularly good to me; of the remixes from 2008 it's the only one I think was a slight improvement. I love the second side suite (from Blood on the Rooftops on) but the first side still has never really clicked.

Actually, now I remember it, there's two linked instrumentals on W&W that are great. And Afterglow is lovely.

some tasty chester and phil interplay on the version of firth of fifth from this ace boot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBMfIKgs0HI

Here's Phil and Bill Buford, during the latter's brief tenure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FrFytItybk

I've never really taken to Wind and Wuthering in the same way as I have other '70s Genesis record, I may need to give it another try.

Seriously, though, "And Then There Were Three" is such a stiff that no one even considers it a '70s record.

I really like And Then There Were Three, it manages to sound both epic and concise at the same time. Duke is where it all started to go off the rails for me.

Looks like there's been next to no mention of Hackett's Genesis Revisited stuff? I only recently discovered he'd done such a thing, and while rerecording old material with different players is, I guess, debatable, simply from a production standpoint they sound AMAZING.

yeah the record is good. And live it was amazing, even though the vocalist is a bit too much for me to take live.

ATTW3 rules hard, apart from Ballad Of Big, which is pish.

ATTW3 is mushy and dull and it has "the lady lies' on it which is the worst thing ever

I like the first track and the last track. The rest goes in one ear and out the other.

I recently got a used copy of the remixed early 70s box on LP. I'm no vinyl fetishist, but I like how the format enhances the sort of storybook quality of those albums. Those remixes got all kinds of hate but they can be a fun listen; the instrumental passages sound pretty great, though Gabriel's remixed voice at times sounds shrill and bratty.

those remixes sounded better on vinyl than the CDs. I quite like them, personally, but not more than the original mixes (there are some places where I'm pretty sure alternate takes of vocals were used, which was weird the first few times I heard them). the vocals are def more raw in some places.

Was speaking to a guy today that considered And Then There Were Three to be the last Genesis album worth listening to, he hates everything after that.

That's strange, I can see people disregarding them starting with Abacab (which I do like), but I don't know why someone would dig ATTWT and not Duke

Though to be fair I always thought ATTWT was kind of a mess - to me it goes with Tormato and Love Beach in an "ex-proggers trying to adjust to an unfriendly world" kinda way. Not to say any of these albums are bad really, I just never remember much from any of them (outside of Tormato, which is so over-the-top that it can't help but be memorable)

That's strange, I can see people disregarding them starting with Abacab (which I do like), but I don't know why someone would dig ATTWT and not Duke

― Abstinence Hawk (frogbs), Friday, January 30, 2015 1:56 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I pretty much thought the same thing, but he didn't seem to be into Duke at all. Strangely enough, what followed after that was an enthusiastic conversation about Yes' Drama(!)

cuz yeah, Duke's a pretty great album, even better when I realized that there is essentially an entire "Supper's Ready"-style epic on it, just split up across the album

I don't mind Duke but it very much pointed the way towards the later stuff in a way that ATTWT didn't. The split-up epic is great (although it would have been even better as a single piece), but Turn It On Again and Misunderstanding are just dross. On ATTWT (Follow You Follow Me excepted) they still sound like prime-era Genesis only with shorter songs.

Yeah, I wish they hadn't copped out and stuck to the original idea of keeping the long epic on Duke. I like 'Turn It On Again', fwiw.

I like Turn It On, also. One of the weirdest pop songs they've done. In 13/8, iirc! Phil is right that it's his drums that make it sound simpler than it is.

yeah that's a great song - "Misunderstanding" I'm not so keen on but "Turn it on Again" was, IMO, everything a radio hit from a prog band should be

I wish there was a better recording of the 1982 reunion concert. They sound good. Peter straight-up tells the audience that the purpose of the show is to get cash to cover the losses from WOMAD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPdEPC2AsB8

Man, self-titled. It's like their "Out of Time" - some of their best stuff ("Mama," "Home by the Sea," "Taking It All Too Hard"*), some of their absolute worst ("Illegal Alien," "That's All"), and some nice deep cuts ("Just a Job to Do," "Silver Rainbow").

*I can see how Genesis/Phil ballads might be controversial, but this is a lovely song, imo, that bridges '70s Genesis and '80s Genesis really well.

I love That's All. in fact the only song on that album that I don't like is Illegal Alien, and it's the worst song Genesis ever did in any formation (even worse than stuff on Calling All Stations). Remove it and that is a superb proggy pop album. I don't like it more than Abacab but I like it more than anything they did after.

I'm with akm. I'd argue that the s/t is their best album of the '80s. Abacab and Duke have a couple of great songs and a bunch I can't make it to the end of, but the s/t strikes a perfect balance of prog/AOR/pop. Except for "Illegal Alien," which is a musical war crime.

ABACAB is my favorite of their pop albums. But I think self-titled to me feels like a stab at what they did much better with invisible touch.

I think That's All is dumb, but anything is good compared to illegal alien.

lol I like "Illegal Alien"

the lyrics are dumb but it's a fun tune

It's no Buy Me a Condo.

*I can see how Genesis/Phil ballads might be controversial, but this is a lovely song, imo, that bridges '70s Genesis and '80s Genesis really well.

Invisible Touch played a strong ballads game too imo

Funny that even at their prog height, Phil's singing about some bird that broke his heart ("More Fool Me").