genesis: duke

Yeah, Collins couldn't have been any more visible during the '80s - he was pretty much inescapable and a huge celebrity, and if you remain too visible and too successful for too long, people start to look for ways of tearing that down.

and he mugged as awfully as McCartney. No wonder they detested each other.

As for Banks... well Banks, Rutherford and Gabriel are all old Carthusians, able to be put through private education by comfortably well-off families... in the UK, this is an exception rather than the rule. Gabriel and Rutherford come across as being self-aware and seem to understand how lucky and fortunate they are, Rutherford even coming across as someone who wanted to rebel against his background. Banks, on the other hand, comes across as a spoilt and entitled brat who doesn't actually seem to have left school. The way he acts at times, it's like "of course I had a great education and I ended up in a huge-selling band, it was my right."

Pretty otm. He also seems like the one to boast that music played better is better.

BTW, there was an intriguing letter in the New Yorker re: the prog essay.

Sanneh’s excellent survey of prog rock overlooked one explanation for why it came to dominate the United States mainstream in the seventies: its first fans were the last children of America’s peak middlebrow culture, whether or not they’d call it that. This was a generation reared on Liberace and regularly exposed to opera and classical performances alongside their pop idols on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It’s perfectly logical that they would embrace a strain of rock that aspired to cultural and technical sophistication. With the disappearance of classical music from television, so went the ability to understand how anyone could like prog rock. For prog artists with lofty pretensions to high art, “middlebrow” may be the most stinging insult of all.

Banks had Gabriel's voice mixed down during the end section of 'The Musical Box' because he felt that Gabriel was "singing over his bit" ...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAzSglBXYAAygNK.jpg

“This was pre-social, though, pre-social,” he insists.

haha

Ppl on this thread seem to be ignoring a more obvious explanation as to why UK music press critics didn't like Phil Collins records at the time...

why not?

what is that?

Because they were garbage?

Nope.

*scales fall from eyes*

The last couple days, both here and in the Trump thread, have been educational.

I've said this before but Nathan East is the muthaflippin MAN.

Oh and I highly recommend NOT watching the Dan Rather Phil Collins "Big Interview." Not because of Phil Being Phil - that was going to happen nevertheless - but because Rather's questions are vacuous in the extreme.

I am a print-era journalist-type creature; I have never really followed TV news d00dz. But I'd vaguely assumed that because Rather had a career that was tangentially related to journalism, he might have at least picked up some pointers on the way. Like, do some research into your subject beforehand. But no.

Rather, Rather* appears to have been handed a half-dozen index cards by a 23-year-old intern who had glanced through Wikipedia half an hour before. Not only was it evident that he had no exposure to Collins's music apart from "famous guy who sang some Disney themes." Further, Rather appeared to be only vaguely familiar with rock music, let alone the life of a rock musician of global stature.

He lurches from goofy inanities like "Really? Drummers get injuries? I never thought of that." to vague abstract shit like "I think we have enough rapport that I can ask, 'who ARE you,' I mean, as a man and as a person?"

* = see what I did there?

http://cdn1-www.musicfeeds.com.au/assets/uploads/4b931b052d3460ee7b0aa085c99eb44b.gif

I think a lot of the hate Collins gets/got in the media was in part because he was infinitely more visible than Tony, infinitely more successful, but also a class thing - Phil's the oik trying too hard to impress, Tony's the snidey cunt at boarding school cutting everyone else down to size. Kind of feel a lot of journos, etc, in the 70s/80s would have identified more with Tony than Phil, though this is just conjecture.

There's that great quote from Tony, where supposedly at a Genesis reunion table featuring obscure and famous members, raised his glass and said something like "well, we managed to fire you all!" I think it was Steve Hackett who shared that one.

Banks in that BBC doc speaking of Phil:

"“He was our friend – we wanted him to do well. But you didn’t want him to do that well!"

I hate it when someone who can play/write the kind of beautiful passages that Banks has is also a raging twat.

I like to think that he's just deeply socially awkward when it comes to presenting himself publicly.

It must be that alone.

voted "turn it on again" but kinda surprised "duke's travels" only got one vote

Collins's drumming has always been melodic and hooky. It's something Bill Bruford doesn't quite capture on Seconds Out.

― dinnerboat

Agreed; i'll take Chester Thompson any day.

I don't really know what the UK music press (NME/Melody Maker/Smash Hits) line was on Collins' albums during the '80s... I'm guessing the NME and Melody Maker disliked Collins, Smash Hits were a little more keen and Q Magazine keener still. Strictly talking during the '80s here, of course.

I can understand people disliking Collins' solo stuff... but he had a lot of personal shit thrown at him from not just the music press, but from the tabloids and even Genesis' own fans.

Any criticisms one has with '80s Genesis can and should be assigned collectively. But as a solo artist Phil had nowhere to hide. Heart on sleeve lyrics and a hammy stage persona didn't help him.

I love 'Invisible Touch' (the song) but can't watch the video for it.

Many references to the '80s hit factory that Collins provided for himself, Genesis and others; none of them hold a candle to Gabriel's So (which is more soulful, arty, and funkier than anything from the aforementioned). Apples and oranges, i know...

Phil's heart-on-sleeve lyrics are pretty effective, tho - Against All Odds is the utopian ideal of self-pitying "You fucked me over" ballads, with implied "I got my own back though, I killed myself" chaser

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

I've probably listened to this album > 50 times, including a few times just this month. But after glancing at the poll results, I couldn't bring to mind the song "Heathaze" (which got 3 votes, and is repped several times in this thread).
So finally I went to youtube and brought it up. And I'm still not sure I've ever heard this song before in my life.

You must feel like an alien — a stranger, in an alien land.

I love that song. As a very I*N*T*E*N*S*E 10yo Genesis obsessive it inspired me to write a very bad short story about a cowboy environmentalist on a horse who travelled from city to city sabotaging nuclear power plants.

I pray that the story is never discovered.

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

― ant banks and wasp (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 4:08 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM! It sounds like a long lost Gary Numan track (well, it would if it wasn't for that Banksian twiddly keyboard lick that pops up from time to time) ...

man of our times is epic! could fit on the lamb even.

This album is a revelation. Soulful Phil vs Prog

It's way better than And Then There Were Three

I think I posted on a different Genesis thread that this is really the best of both Genesis worlds.

yeah I really fell in love with this album this year, picked it up on vinyl for cheap on a whim

so good

such a weird record

like you couldn't be a band that made a record like this unless you'd already been one type of band and were turning into another type of band

but you couldn't start out or end up being a band like this (on duke and also abacab)

yes

omg i forgot i made this poll

Please don’t ask is so cringey, Phil exposing his feelings too much !

I just listened to it for the first time and "Please Don't Ask" was the easy standout for me. I hate "Misunderstanding" tbh

"Misunderstanding" has such great, simple drums.

Phil is amazing, so much range as a drummer. so few were with his insane chops would do that

Misunderstanding is post-Gabriel Genesis doing Supertramp yet I still love it.

Duchess is so amazing. Recommend me electronic music that sounds like the first two minutes of Duchess (esp the Three Sides Live version)

I think I had the CD long box of this on my wall back when I would save them as posters.

XP - Maybe the first couple of OMD albums or some Monoton?

This album was a great disappointment to me after ATTWT, which is still one of my favourite Genesis albums. The songs that go to make up the Duke suite are excellent, but it was a real failure of nerve not to put them together as they should have been. Misunderstanding and Please Don't Ask are just dross and should have been saved for Collins's solo albums, where they would have fit much better. The problem was that both Banks and Rutherford had just made excellent solo albums and had used up all of their best material on those. This was the beginning of the end for my many years of Genesis fandom. Sad!

"Genesis' Duke . . . anybody remember that album. Genesis' Duke. You're no ATTWT, one of the great Genesis albums. . . The Duke suite . . . songs are excellent, but they were such losers not to put them together as they should have been. Misunderstanding and Please Don't Ask were Very Bad! Banks and Rutherford used up all of their best material. Duke! More like Duchess! This was the beginning of the end for my many years of Genesis fandom. Sad!"