genesis: duke

Gabriel's So, Genesis Invisible Touch, and Collin's No Jacket Required combined would get you north of 25 million worldwide

and that's just 1985-1986!

It's quite something when you think about it - a bunch of proggers that have been around the block a while, all in their mid-to-late thirties, having these mega, million-selling blockbuster smashes in the era of Duran Duran etc.

And they played four nights at Wembley Stadium. I don't know if it still is, but at the time that was a record.

def keepers: "Turn It On Again", "Misunderstanding", "Abacab," "No Reply at All," "Home by the Sea," "Domino."

pretty okay: "Throwing It All Away," "Man on the Corner," "That's All."

For those I will forgive "Anything She Does," though I am not quite ready to forgive "Illegal Alien."

I like Anything She Does. And Throwing It All Away is an unexpected exemplar of Phil Collins's Bonham groove.

There's a special kind of irony to "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight," a song about addiction being used in a beer commercial more or less contemporaneously with Eric Clapton's take on "After Midnight," Clapton being one of the era's most famous addicts, and Collins collaborators.

Also, in 'Domino', there's the lyric "look at the beautiful river of blood", and in the '70s Clapton came out in support of Enoch Powell... while drunk! #wow #mindblown

I've actually found myself wanting to listen to Duke quite a lot now - I'd easily rank it now as one of my three favourite Genesis records.

Clapton / Collins / Phillinganes / East was a pretty good band.

Collins' hair style circa No Jacket Required/Invisible Touch was, uh, certainly something...

impossible to divorce his image at that time from the Spitting Image puppet

Phil's mull' in full effect here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTVtphUTwQw&index=5&list=PLWsPdBjhn3_sgvpnf1WKaVxHkHDHIlZiv

impossible to divorce his image at that time from the Spitting Image puppet

― akm, Tuesday, July 4, 2017 9:56 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, yeah! When he had short hair circa Duke/Face Value he didn't look too bad, but his 1985-1986 look is just fucking horrific. I can hardly watch Phil Collins/Genesis music videos from this period without thinking "fuck man, what was he thinking?"

competing with bono

From Invisible Touch onwards the golden rule was long hair for Genesis, short for solo. Never mind the fax, fucking with this system circa 'Both Sides' ended his midas touch

it doesn't make any sense to add the solo stuff in there as there is so little crossover stylistically between most of them that's it's not fair to compare them.

I have been patiently waiting for several years now to vote for Over My Shoulder in the scheduled ilm Genesis + solo ballot poll, please do not take this away from me

Never Mind the Fax should totally be the title of a Phil Collins bootleg.

been listening to this a ton and honestly I actually have always liked "Misunderstanding" as a song I remembered hearing on the radio but it's just such a sore thumb on this album, really messes up the flow...

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

According to Collins, the song was modeled after The Beach Boys' "Sail On, Sailor", Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" and Toto's "Hold the Line".

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 5, 2017 4:43 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed also that's a way better song...if, as suggested upthread, he brought them "In the Air Tonight" and they passed I think that, while it's not totally in line with the rest of Duke, would have injected some menace instead of seeming like a little breezy out of place pop song.

'Man on the Corner' does fit in better on Abacab than 'Misunderstanding' does on Duke, but I think 'Misunderstanding' is the superior song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

A tangent from upthread re: 80s Clapton/Collins collabs, I was listening to bits of August yesterday ("Hung Up On Your Love," "Bad Influence"). Underneath the schlocky/glossy overproduction, the rhythm section work is fuckin stellar.

Y'know, as much as I dislike large portions of his solo work - and concentrating solely on the music here - I still think that Collins has taken a lot of unwarranted shit over the years. The guy deserves a knighthood for his drumming on 'The Musical Box' alone, and his drumming throughout Genesis' catalogue, even as late on as ...And Then There Were Three and Duke has been great. I think 'In The Air Tonight' is the very definition of classic, and the relative poppiness of the '80s era was as much down to Banks and Rutherford as it was down to Collins. They never really stopped being a prog band until the very end of Collins' stint with the band, I think - even as late as Invisible Touch, you can tell the difference between a Genesis record and a Phil Collins solo record and the proggy tendencies are still there. The guy has also been a session drummer on a number of very good to great records and he has a great, expressive, immediately identifiable voice. With all this in mind, I really wish I could get more out of Collins' solo work - but I don't, and that's perfectly fine because it's only a very, very small part of what the guy has done and not representative of his entire career. I dislike 'Sussudio' (it's always been a weak version of '1999' musically) and I loathe 'Another Day in Paradise' ... but it's a very small fraction of what he does.

one of the things i love about abacab is that the obvious collins solo track ("man on the corner") really fits into the overall texture of the record where "misunderstanding" doesn't

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 5, 2017 4:43 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed also that's a way better song...if, as suggested upthread, he brought them "In the Air Tonight" and they passed I think that, while it's not totally in line with the rest of Duke, would have injected some menace instead of seeming like a little breezy out of place pop song.

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

See my post above; and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8h0Wz6Z5nU

Yeah that would be a lot better Misunderstanding

Disagree about Turn It on Again though, that totally fits and is one of their best songs

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

Another hooky contemporaneous deep cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsV-1FDLTW0

Something like 'Anything She Does' strikes me as being the sort of thing which would be misattributed to Collins, though as far as I'm aware it is primarily the work of Tony Banks

I imagine it's a much-loathed song by a certain type of Genesis fan, but to me it absolutely blows away the breezy pop in a similar mould on 'No Jacket Required', i.e. 'Don't Lose My Number'

Also in the rarefied company of Van Halen's I'll Wait and J. Geils Band Centerfold of songs about a guy in love with a magazine centerfold model.

I imagine it's a much-loathed song by a certain type of Genesis fan, but to me it absolutely blows away the breezy pop in a similar mould on 'No Jacket Required', i.e. 'Don't Lose My Number'

he shouts a lot

"Man on the Corner" is a Collins solos song for all intents and purposes. Even the synthesizer style is closer to what Collins would play..

'Anything She Does' rules and I agree, it's much better than songs that are in the same mould on No Jacket Required.

It's not better than Who Said I Would or I Don't Wanna Know.

wish he could have recorded this own version of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XVu5Xp9w5k

'I Don't Want To Know' has that neat trick of going into 6/4 for the chorus, which isn't quite as strong as the one on 'Anything She Does' ... 'Who Said I Would' is a bit nothingy.

"I Don't Wanna Know" has that oddly syncopated solo after the second chorus. It's a monster of a percussion track.

speaking of Collins the drummer, I'm not a huge fan of Brand X (I like the first album ok) they are a little fuzak for my taste but damn the stuff he plays in that band makes his Genesis drumming seem like the Ramones

I think my favourite drumming on a Genesis track is on 'Dance on a Volcano', simultaneously ferocious and technical... it's a great bit of drumming. I always preferred it when '70s Genesis went for it rather than do these extended folky things.

Good song!

Huh, I always thought of Brand X as full on Weather Report-esque fusion, not fuzak. Him and Percy Jones make for a great rhythm section (which is why they sound so good backing Eno on those handful of tracks).

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

wau stompage

I'm now on a full-on Genesis kick for the first time in a very long time - both Gabriel and Collins era...

His drumming on the live Lamb discs from that weird overdubbed box set is smoking. Gives credence to his claim of being high behind the kit for much of that tour.

Pot and booze, maybe, but Rutherford was the coke dude. Collins was just obsessed with playing and practicing all the time.

I did wonder, when watching their Wembley 86/87 (?) show for work a few years ago, just how coked up phil seemed for the R'n'B medley at the end (which I bet Tony moaned the fuck about all through the tour)

Wait.

Coke.

These three? Collins said recently that Banks would fall over if he just smelled wine.

Finding it kinda hard to picture Mike Rutherford on coke