genesis: duke

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!"

vg :)

In its original form, "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End" were one 30-minute track that told a story of a fictional character named Albert which had a working title of "Duke". The group chose this name because the fanfare melodies on "Behind the Lines" and "Duke's End" conjured an image of royalty.[16] The band decided against sequencing the tracks this way on the album, partly to avoid comparisons to their 23-minute track "Supper's Ready" from Foxtrot, but also to have certain segments of the suite, such as "Duchess" and "Turn It On Again", released as singles.

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

― fish quits shock (Matt #2), M

omigod

yeah that nails Misundestanding tbh

xxxxpost thanks maresnest!

They did roll the Duke songs together on the 1980 tour, with some introductory context - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5tt-TboWaQ

how the fuck did man of our times get zero votes

― ant banks and wasp (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 11:08 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

as a pre-tween Genesis obsessive I used to wonder if they cribbed Tonight Tonight Tonight off that refrain within the verses of Man Of Our Times

one thing that's cool about streaming is that it just took me like 5 minutes and now i'm listening to duke's suite as a playlist interesting to hear how it flows

as a big fan of the full abacab suite they edited down into "dodo/lurker," i'm sympathetic to ppl who think the duke suite should've all run together. however... "turn it on again" being isolated so they could release it as a single was totally the correct choice

This album was a great disappointment to me after ATTWT, which is still one of my favourite Genesis albums.

I might have to have another listen then, I think Duke is great and never remember a single thing about ATTWT besides the final track

ATTWT usually seems to be one of their least popular albums among fans and the band themseleves, definitely of their 70s output, reckoning they hadn't yet found their feet without Hackett. It was the one album I missed out on 30-ish years ago, so approached it with fresh ears and other than the weak Ballad Of Big, I don't really get the criticism - it sounds at once like the 'debut album' of the hit-making group and the swansong for their more traditional prog sound.

I haven't heard Duke yet, but the 78-83 era of Genesis is an unusual mix of often-beautiful melodies and striking chord progressions with some lame arrangements, wildly variable lyrics and Phil's over-singing.

Turn It On Again is probably the best of that era that I've heard, with Undertow.

i knew "Turn it On Again" had some complex meter stuff going on - especially for a single! - but this is wild

http://www.rebelmusicteacher.com/blog/2016/8/9/changing-meter-in-genesiss-turn-it-on-again

Analysis: The opening to the song is heard in inconsistent time signatures, including bars of 4/4 and 5/4, and when the initial riff is heard, the time signature alternates between 6/4 and 7/4 (which could be considered 13/4, although there is a sense of division as though there are two measures heard within the main riff). The chorus delves into cross-rhythm, moving into compound meter where the rest of the song is heard in simple (duple) meter.

xps I also prefer ATTWT to Duke, though "Duchess" is my favorite song on either album. I just love ATTWT's lush, glowing polysynth-saturated production and strong melodies throughout. "Deep In the Motherlode" in particular knocks me out every time. Abacab is the absolute peak of the Collins era though

i can show you
iii can show you
some of the meters in my life

The coolest thing about "Turn It On Again" is that they make the tricky meter pretty inconspicuous. That's harder to do than it seems. The fact that the 13/8 signature can be broke down into more manageable (to the ear) pieces probably helps. The National is actually really good at this, like this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIB3ojwqdg

I think it could be broken down as either alternating measures of 9/8 and 4/4 or one long count of 17.

I've never grokked Trick Of The Tail and I find a lot of Wind & Wuthering quite bleak and dreary - though I've grown to love the most bleak and dreary track, Blood On The Rooftops, since my Genesis-obsessed pre-tween years, and I've always loved Unquiet...In That Quiet Earth, and Afterglow is their best pre-stadium success ballad, IMO. I've always felt ATTWT to be a bit... wet. Like, for me Trick and Wuthering mark a kind of interregnum period - Peter's gone, and Phil's yet to become what he will become - and ATTWT is the interregnum of the interregnum: now Steve's gone, and they're sort of relieved, you sense, but they feel they still need some of that gloopy over-aware poeticism in there.

But then you get Duke, and then Abacab, and it's like, the 80s are here, and Genesis are changing for the new decade - it's bolder, simpler, more pop, more sprightly, punchier and tighter. And I'm not crazy about the album that follows - some great stuff on Genesis, but loads that seems like bum notes, too - but then Invisible Touch seems the apotheosis of everything Duke and Abacab were leading towards, and then, inevitably, this brief balance of pop and prog that makes them a commercial behemoth cannot hold, they split, Phil's own solo career begins a slow decline, and so on. And Invisible Touch is possibly my favourite of the Phil era, but Duke and Abacab are close seconds, because they seem to be very much what they want to be, and have a vision of what they want to be.

I think my alignment is Abcacab > Duke > Genesis > ...And Then... > Lamb > some other stuff > Invisible Touch > still more stuff

Does anyone have an opinion on the 2007 remix of this record? Never having heard the original, is it different enough that I should avoid the remix?

I'm actually doing a lockdown cover of TIOA with my old school band buddies at the moment and I wanted to check out how the 'I....I...I...get so lonely" section was written out.

The sheet I’m using as a guide has it down as two bars of 3/4 one 2/4 two 4/4 then three of 3/4 one 4/4 and another three of 3/4 as it comes out of it and there's syncopated quaver tied over each bar line.

Hard to comment on the actual remixes because the digital mastering is brutal, they sound pretty horrible and unlike the originals IMO.