What's the best Genesis album?

Alfred I think you are wrong, Geddy was super into the Taurus pedals...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8uWrP1uD9U

But it's not a binary. Musicians have complex motives. Synthesizers and short songs were popular, and The Police were making music they like. Of course Rush would say, "Hmm, let's give it a go."

But I give up.

Admittedly, I listen to Lamb the most but you have to acknowledge that a lead singer and lead guitarist are pretty important in defining a rock band's sound.xps
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, July 13, 2017 6:41 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gabriel has an immediately identifiable voice, but Collins is as close as you can get to Gabriel vocally without actually being Gabriel that it's not much of an issue, really. Gabriel blossomed creatively in his solo career, but in Genesis he wasn't the driving force at all - 'Watcher of the Skies' would have turned out near enough the same if Phil had sung it.

In Genesis's case, the departure of key members at least provides a symbolic basis for drawing battle lines. It gives an easy shorthand for naming the different eras and stating one's preferences. That might account for the appearance of a rift, though it's hard to estimate actual numbers here, i.e. how much of the early fanbase dropped off. I know my mom and uncle kept buying the albums.

The hilarious thing about Soto's comments, re: Rush and synths is that... well, he does realise Rush were using 'em as far back as 2112, right? And they feature heavily on A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, too. Bizarre for a band that "don't like synths" and are only using 'em to sell records...

I actually think the first glimmers of new wave/post punk in Rush musically begins really prior to their embrace of synths with Hemispheres, like the chiming guitar figure around the minute mark in La Villa Strangiato, the chorus of Circumstances, quite a bit of the early section of Cygnus X-1: Book II: Hemispheres...

Lifeson is switching to a more chorus, Roland-y type guitar tone and there's an angularity (don't shoot me for using that word) to some of the riffs that seems influenced by new music coming out. Though they are still working primarily in "70s Rush" mode, it feels transitional.

Which is to say this is prior to the first Police album, not to say the Police didn't end up being a big influence but they were moving out of the 70s mode already

The hilarious thing about Soto's comments, re: Rush and synths is that... well, he does realise Rush were using 'em as far back as 2112, right? And they feature heavily on A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, too. Bizarre for a band that "don't like synths" and are only using 'em to sell records...

Oh I'm aware. Rush were like Queen that way circa The Game. And I hear things on Hemipsheres that presage what was to come.

Well, to be clear, if you watch the documentary from 2010 or 2011 the band still looks as if they have to mind that they eschewed the prog starting in 1981 (I don't think they did, as any casual listen to "Middletown Dreams" shows). Call it a signal to the older fans (whom I know) who went along with the synths because it was Rush and the eighties but sure weren't happy about it.

xpost:

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that, and it goes a long way towards explaining why it's my go-to Rush album!

Rush gave up on 20 minute sides after Hemispheres but the prog elements in their sound didn't end there, or after 1981 for that matter...

Tbf, I think I'm fairly unusual in only listening to Gabriel-era Genesis (although I like a couple of Collins-led singles) and I do know people who only listen to certain eras of Rush.

I find it very difficult to believe you don't listen to A Trick of the Tail or Wind & Wuthering, both of which prove that Genesis was the Banks'n'Rutherford Show as much as Duke proves that Hackett wasn't really that essential either.

Well, they certainly become less of a guitar band. Literally zero notable guitar leads after Hackett leaves, for better or for worse (often for better!)

Lifeson had been moving toward that Andy Summers style pretty early on the '80s, and certainly with "Permanent Waves" a simplicity (for lack of a better word) and general Police-iness has entered the scene. Lifeson's more atmospheric chords sat well with the infusion of synths. With "Grace Under Pressure," though, Geddy and Neil pushed the electronics much farther, with synths, Simmons pads, etc., and Lifeson's playing got a little simpler as well, by necessity. By "Power Windows," my understanding is that a lot of that album was sequenced (in the synth sense) before Alex really got involved, and he had to struggle to find places for his guitar (which I find funny, since I love the guitar on that record). "Hold Your Fire" is more of that, and while "Presto" pares down the electronics, it pares down everything else, too; it's a pretty spare record. By "Roll the Bones" I think Alex was bristling at being locked in to all the synths and programming, and I remember "Counterparts" being hyped as a return to guitars, and reading Alex interviews where he expressed his excitement at being album to play riffs again. Of course, as always that isn't totally the case, but it's not a coincidence that the last couple of albums are probably the band's hardest, and most guitar-centric, since the '70s.

I found this, though:

Geddy Lee: My love of keyboards – I guess you could call it an obsession – reached its peak on Power Windows.

Alex Lifeson: Keyboards were the new thing, so there was this attitude: ‘Let’s just push them up, they sound big and they sound cool.’

Geddy Lee: We would get caught up in the making of an album, and then maybe after it was done Alex would hear it with fresh ears, he’d be like, ‘Hmm, maybe that was too much keyboards.’ Every so often it would come up in conversation between us.

Alex Lifeson: I did see the bigger picture: I knew we were going in a new direction and this was part of it. I don’t have anything against keyboards.

Geddy Lee: Power Windows was very much an album that was out of that whole Trevor Horn school. We brought in this synthesiser guy, Andy Richards, who really brought it up a notch in terms of quality and technology. This was very attractive to me, because it was new and fresh and exciting.

Alex Lifeson: For me, that record was a challenge. But I thought: go with it and it will all work out in the end. So I did that. I just saw that there was a shift in my role.

Geddy Lee: When you’re using that many keyboards, you’re taking up so much space on the record. Then the guitar has to fit around that. With a lot of the songs on Power Windows – songs like Grand Designs and Marathon – we had so many parts already done on keyboards that on previous records the guitar would have filled. So Alex had to figure out a way in. That’s really what it required of him.

Alex Lifeson: The guitar suffered in a lot of the mixes. That’s what bothered me more than anything. The bottom line was, I just thought that we needed to preserve the core of what the band is. It’s a three-piece.

Geddy Lee: Alex did play some great stuff on that record. Like on Mystic Rhythms. Without the guitar riff, that song doesn’t work. And I really like the sound of that album. I thought it was a really strong production. There are some great songs on that record. I like Middletown Dreams a lot – you know, every once in a while we write a good melody! Overall, I thought Power Windows was a great accomplishment for us. But maybe not so much on the couple of albums after that – Hold Your Fire and Presto. On those records the keyboards were still present, but not in so positive a way. That was making the case, once again, for realigning the sound…

I find it very difficult to believe you don't listen to A Trick of the Tail or Wind & Wuthering, both of which prove that Genesis was the Banks'n'Rutherford Show as much as Duke proves that Hackett wasn't really that essential either.

Lol that this is a difficult thing to believe.:)

I'll give them another try some time, though.

I've tried so hard to love let alone like Simple Minds beyond "New Gold Dream" and "Glittering Prize." Jim Kerr is the wrong kind of pompous, with colleagues to match.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 13 July 2017 18:31 (two hours ago) Permalink

I'm not sure I'd describe the early albums as remotely pompous!

Ha yeah, I'd say the pomposity happens after New Gold Dream, not before.

Once Upon a Time is one if the grosser arena sellouts.

(I'm aware that it's the consensus pick for the rot-setting-in album.

It's also stylistically about as far away from Reel to Real Cacophony as you can get!

Yeah the transformation of Simple Minds across its first seven albums is almost as extreme as from A Trick of the Tail to Invisible Touch.

I want to host a listening party where I take Alfred and Brad through the first six in chronological order. As with Genesis and Talk Talk the overall progression is fascinating.

It's probably even more extreme when you consider the first two albums - only released six months apart but it feels like there should have been three or four albums in between the two, such is the leap between the two!

this section of the wikipedia article on Once Upon a Time is kind of bathetic

Legacy[edit]

In 2008, Once Upon a Time was listed as the 864th greatest album of all time by the French retail chain Fnac.[8]

In 2013, "All the Things She Said" was featured on a radio station in Grand Theft Auto V, the fourth best-selling video game of all time (as of February 2017).

I'm listening to A Trick of the Tail again now, and fucking hell 'Squonk' is just so good.

There's a good anecdote on the Life in a Day Wikipedia about Kerr hearing Unknown Pleasures shortly after the first album came out and immediately realising they'd fucked up.

It's probably the one that generally gets rated the lowest of the first five records, but I really like Life in a Day! Sparkle in the Rain is the last one I'll go anywhere near, but it's far more tolerable than what came after.

Sparkle is alright, but that's when the vocals go a little bit Bono for the first time. Can tolerate the singles from Once Upon A Time but otherwise the quality just plummets to this sub-U2 wasteland.. I forget the name of that 'I Travel' rehash but it's absolutely putrid. And then came Street Fighting Years.

Genesis lost their original lead singer/songwriter and lead guitarist. Those are pretty drastic changes.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r)

way to piss off the "trespass" thread

Ha, well, you got me there. Really, as my list above shows, I just listen to the albums with Gabriel and Hackett.

Oh, i'm pissed; but not for that --it's this talk of Rush that makes me ill.

Never the twain.

Rush were the superior band, though, in terms of energy (no longer-than-they-need-to-be meandering 12 string guitar detours), playing/instrumental proficiency (Peart > Collins, obviously), production (even the early Rush LP's sound better than Trespass and Nursery Cryme), songwriting ('Turn it on Again' is excellent, but not as excellent as 'The Spirit of Radio' ... also '2112' and 'Cygnus X-1: Book II' are superior compositions to 'Supper's Ready'), lyricism ('Subdivisions' alone crushes anything Genesis came up with), adaptability (Rush absorbed new wave elements far more successfully) etc. I could go on and on...

I think I'd disagree on the songwriting, plus both Collins and Gabriel are better vocalists than Geddy Lee. I'd struggle to choose although I'm not a huge fan of either band - though I do really like both in places.

Yeah, Gabriel and Collins are both better singers and have better voices that are easier to listen to and Genesis probably sold more records, but overall Rush crush Genesis in every way.

(and I like Genesis)

but overall Rush crush Genesis in every way.

These kind of statements...

I mean - come on.

Both bands have made their share of good to great albums. What are you basing the crushing power of Rush on lol?

Ok - just saw your post upthread. Wow.

I think Genesis absorbed the New Wave ( and US r&b) influences so well they appeared like almost natural fits when it happened. Rush sounded awkward at times when incorporating New Wave elements.

I disagree, I think that the run of albums from Permanent Waves to Power Windows sound very natural and unforced in their adoption of New Wave styles.

Duke sounds natural and unforced too, but I can't say the same for Abacab and Genesis, particularly the former.

Rush blow after Signals; only drooling fan-boys would fail to see that Genesis have at least a half-dozen classic records where Rush have maybe two.

...and i like Rush

Genesis have 6 classics, whereas Rush have 8 - so there y'go, yet another level on which Rush annihilate Genesis.

i don't think any of the rush albums that absorb new wave are as consistent as duke, abacab, or even shapes

also peart is a terrible lyricist

xpost Not Moving Pictures or Permanent Waves or Signals? I disagree.

Peart > Collins, obviously

No way. They are very different drummers, but Peart is not "clearly" superior, unless you subscribe to the Peart-is-the-greatest-drummer-of-all-time stance. Collins and Peart are equally creative and talented, and for a time equally busy/chops-heavy. Still, not to bash on Peart at all (because he's awesome and I like Rush better than Genesis, too), but I couldn't imagine him filling all the stylistic roles Collins has, from Zep to Motown to fusion to ... I mean, it just goes on. Collins is like one of those great session drummers able to impart his own personality with each performance. And he grooves and swings, which Peart, for all his awesomeness, just doesn't do much of. Or need to do!

80-82 is my favourite era of Rush so I do think they win on the new wave front. That said I've never thought of Genesis as being particularly new wavy anyway bar a handful of songs - their '80s albums are quite eclectic but to me they lean more towards just straight MOR/rock. I guess there was a lot of overlap at that time.

Duke and Invisible Touch are the only two albums that could remotely compete with anything that Rush released 1980-1985. In terms of Rush's discography from the beginning up to 1985 and Genesis' discography in the same period, the Rush albums are relatively filler and fat-free.

@josh oh i was talking mostly about signals, grace under pressure, and power windows. signals is my fav rush record but even then i don't like it as much as duke. idk, maybe it's time to spend more time with the rush catalog lol

...and here i thought we could be friends. Eight classic Rush records... you're high (and Invisible Touch sux).

Josh; you are wise -- my arguments would be better expressed if filtered through your pen.

I find the idea that Peart doesn't "groove" or "swing" really funny and pretty much demonstrates a lack of knowledge about the guy's drumming. Of course, naturally, from a purely technical perspective alone Peart > Collins, but there's more to Peart's drumming than that. He was at his peak for longer too.