TS: Yes Vs. Genesis

That thin sound on Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot is part of their charm tho. It's got a lot to do with the Mellotron, which always sounds to me like an old 78rpm recording of a violin section playing on a hand-cranked gramophone that's constantly winding down. Coupled with the Victoriana of songs like "Musical Box" and "Hogweed" it helps to create the sensation of a sunlit and dusty attic full of decaying toys - twee but somehow creepy or melancholy or scary.

Collins was a better drummer, at his best than wakeman has ever been as a keyboard player. Twattishness or toryism (collins i know about, wakeman's i have seen no evidence of) is kind of irrelevant to me TBH. I want to listen to the records, not socialise w/the fux0rz.

(x-post, yeah, that's a big part of why I like them.)

Genesis didn't do much wizardwise after the second album; from there on out it was mostly abstract sub-Modernist poetry. The best non-Gabriel thing any of them ever did (besides Phil drumming for Eno, Mike + The Mechanics, Project X, and the first two Phil pop albums (there, I said it)) is the extremely wizardhappy first solo album by Steve Hackett--Voyage of the Acolyte. That's one worth hearing.

"A Trick Of The Tail", even without Peter Gabriel, is up there with the best of what they did with Gabriel singing. And "Wind And Wuthering" is not far behind.

It wasn't until Phil Collins was allowed to become the main songwriter that they lost it.

noodle vague, I love your description of Nursery Cryme and its atmosphere/sound.

As for the question, I'd go with Yes, which surprises me, since in my mind Yes are the slightly colder/more rarefied band emotionally, and given a choice, I generally go for the warmer/more melancholy/twee.

But it's a tough call, given many of the songs already cited, and I really don't like either band much after approx. 1980.