Taking Sides: Genesis 1970-1977 Vs. Genesis 1978-91

Obviously, he still has his physical problems, but he's looking a hell of a lot better in that video than some of the footage that was doing the 'rounds last year, where he looked medicated up to the eyeballs. It's good to see him doing something, though - this guy has had some unnecessary shit flung his way over the years. I've come to appreciate him as one of the greats in recent years - not a stance I always had, particularly regarding his solo work!

Follow is such a pretty song.

Amazing live footage from 1976 (shot in 2:35:1! Bill Bruford on second drum kit!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrK2WwHwmHY

that's fantastic

not sure i ever grasped how delicate and just pretty PC's voice was back then (when to be fair to me i had zero interest in genesis, who always just baffled me given how much my schoolchums loved em)

Sleeping audience shots in that rule.

Phil is such an underrated singer. It's amazing to me that lore has him the guy who drew he short straw. But, like, Bernard Sumner, sure, I believe he was not a first choice. But Phil is so close to Peter in a lot of ways, with the, yeah, delicacy of Wyatt or something.

Can't find the thread where I noted the similarities between Phil Collins and Roger Chapman (of Family... but strictly in restrained non-vibrato mode!) but I've since noticed that Peter Gabriel used to get compared to Roger Chapman a lot, and vice versa.

Also: a little Gary Brooker from Procal Harum!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOj3kJKy-_U

thinking a bit more about why early 70s genesis didn't click for teen me, i reach for something that hadn't at time crystallised: i'm just not drawn to gabriel's voice, at all. i spent a long time trying and not getting it: pals enjoyed it, critics i respected wrote him up, he worked with ppl i loved loved loved (youssou n'dpur!), he seems like basically a person who's good not bad -- but no.

and eventually i realised (not all that long ago, in ilx time in fact): ok the thing is i just don't like his voice. it's not a value judgment really, more like one of those food things (to some ppl basil just tastes like soap)

what i find a bit disorientating abt this concert youtube is that it dangles this massive impossible counterfactual: if collins had *always* been the singer of gabriel-era genesis, maybe i'd have been drawn in much more? i think likely not -- i'm not sure i had a clear idea of voices-i-like as a virtue back then (i hadn't heard a wide enough range, certainly nothing like youssou) -- but maybe?

i'm also just taken by how much less, well, square they sound! maybe bcz i'm from a not-entirely-different background (which is why my schoolchums liked them so) , i always found them a bit too careful musically (and cared nothing for gabriel's theatrics or collins's stagecraft, and still don't really: the first is expensively realised village-hall panto stuff, which i got enough of at home lol, and the second is where's-me-washboard musical hall, which i wd have been a bit suspicious of as a teen and now find more interesting in social-history terms than content-wise)

but here: with bruford also present, and collins's voice, and a little more weird-noise round the edges of hackett's playing than i generally hear from him… not quite so square?

Collins, in the mid to late 70s at least, seems to be imitating Gabriel's voice, so not sure that would have helped much.

it's an interesting set because there's not very much Trick of the Tail in it - which was a shade disappointing, but never mind - so you can see them cutting and pasting and reinventing old chunks of the Gabriel-era catalogue in ways that are more musically interesting and exciting than the recorded versions

the appeal of Gabriel-era was and still is that of a spooky Victorian picture book in a dusty attic to me - totally different vibe from the band in that film, both good (to me) in different ways. not that this was necessarily Gabriel's fault/problem. it's quite funny how Collins and Bruford, maybe Rutherford, look like the only ones enjoying being on stage.

with bruford also present, and collins's voice, and a little more weird-noise round the edges of hackett's playing than i generally hear from him… not quite so square?

This is the reaction I had. I like Foxtrot and some bits of The Lamb... but generally don't need much Gabriel-era Genesis in my life. And I like the big singles from the peak Collins era (Duke, Abacab, s/t) but don't need anything after that. The middle period, immediately post-Gabriel but pre-big hits, has never done anything for me. And yet this live footage makes that material much more interesting and makes me want to go back and listen to And Then There Were Three and Seconds Out, to see if I missed something.

my Banks-hating theory is that this set represents a moment where he's not in control of the band much

also tbf has banks ever enjoyed anything anywhere ever (even when he was in control)?

obviously in a fairly direct and upfront way collins sounds like gabriel and sings like gabriel: and this was partly a craftman's decisio , which PC was a strong enough musician to pull off and go on to make a (vast) success of

what makes it interesting for me is that voice-wise the divide between "am actively drawn to" and "don't really care for" falls exactly between them (as collins sings here). so yes they're alike: but in some key subtle way, also not. fro memory i don't think the 80s material is designed to bring out this element in PC's singing so much, certainly not on record. and maybe the busy regular activity as a frontman just changed his voice anyway, from : which happens to many singers of course

I find Collins singing Gabriel material less compelling precisely because his voice is so pretty. I understand my opinions are formed by my discovering the mid eighties version of the band instead of being there to listen to the evolution. I just never bought Collins singing about Rael and moonlight knights -- he's too practical or something.

fro memory i don't think the 80s material is designed to bring out this element in PC's singing so much, certainly not on record. and maybe the busy regular activity as a frontman just changed his voice anyway, from : which happens to many singers of course

This is true, explaining in part why listening to Collins singing Rutherford lyrics about "my generation WILL PUT IT RIGHT" inspires deep guffawing in my part of Florida.

as well as gabriel's village panto stuff that material moonlight-knight was also uninteresting to me, i had certainly read all the same very-english fantasy kidlit as gabriel and (believed that i) knew where it was done better (= in the books). for a while in the 80s i had a very good friend, very funny working-class glasgow chancer who briefly dated my sister then stayed friends, and i vividly remember a long overnight drive with him down from glasgow back to london where he enthused abt yes and genesis and moonlight-knight as just this amazing portal of possibility for someone like him

(it was a good lesson for me in how thin and lazy the usual class reading of prog vs punk is: as he was also someone who had been "inspired by the pistols" to become a musician) (lol he was for a while in a band with pat kane, who he cordially loathed)

s/b moonlight-knight material, my current symptom is apparently being unable to edit my own posts competently

Would be interesting to play the band's LPs from start to finish to someone who hasn't heard them before - pretty likely they would assume there was one singer whose voice mutated completely over a couple of decades.

Selling England took 16 year-old me straight to TS Eliot so cheers to the lads for that tbh

xpost That's a good question, actually. I wonder if the stylistic break at "Duke" would be the most conspicuous point of divergence to a neophyte.

I think, for better or for worse, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo. For example, I can totally see Gabriel taking inspiration from, say, Steve Winwood. I can also see, for example, someone like Mark Hollis thinking himself a soul singer of sorts as well, never mind his own vocal similarities to Gabriel et al.

Jon Anderson was working class himself iirc?xps

What fantasy lit is "Moonlit Knight" based on?

not just white soul singers, the nod to the Drifters in The Lamb is v deliberate

For sure.

xpost I also thought that one was kind of a pomo statement on contemporary England.

If we're talking lyrics, I think Gabriel was mostly bored and entertaining himself. That's definitely why he went for the costumes.

I think I heard that the song started with the "Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout" joke.

also now listening to seconds out as i edit someone's book abt the incredible string band (another group i have never much warmed to) (book is good tho, hope the fall of all the world doesn't impeded its publication too much)

xp lol i also don't much like steve winwood
xxp lots of frontline prog musicians weren't especially posh, a handful definitely were
xxxp my kidlit territoriality as a teen was not necessarily fact-based

Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo. For example, I can totally see Gabriel taking inspiration from, say, Steve Winwood.

Otis Redding, though, right? Someone less inclined to cut Gabriel vocal slack might allude to Steve Winwood as exactly the starched-white white soul better whom Gabriel might sound like.

can honestly say as someone who's listened to a lot of Genesis i've never heard a live set as good as the one in the movie unperson shared. Abacab era might be closest, sound and playing-wise

Phil singing backup on all those early songs maybe made it hard for him to handle the lead vocals on them. He wasn't yet a confident singer here; he still sings the high notes in falsetto where later he'll push his voice in that strained "soulful" Michael Bolton way he's famous for. Plus yeah, he wasn't so into hogweeds.

Peter Gabriel's appeal was partly the voice, but also this mystery and menace (assuming you bought into the persona). Some of those costumes were frightening — the fox head looks like a dead animal pelt. Seeing him onstage with a triangle shaved into his head, I'm sure some audiences figured he was nuts, which made the music & lyrics more convincing.

Hogweeds were real!

"He wasn't yet a confident singer here"

maybe this is exactly what i like! except i'm hearing unconfidence as prettiness (bcz it's so pretty!): can easily see how something so fragile wouldn't survive the professional needs of the regular all-night soulshout

I like the intensity of Pete doing the occasional Genesis song in the late '70s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd4aaoLE5co

Some good stuff in here, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOnmf5NIWY

Discovering this track in 1990 after a decade of Collins shouting in soccer stadiums around the world was a seismic shock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyagd2EvwDU

(listening to seconds out except skipping all the bogus cockney ones ffs)

yeah it's painful when Phil does that, like he's minstreling himself

He definitely plays it up, but isn't he ... cockney? I guess I never understood what that term meant, other than a working class accent.

Phil was the Artful Dodger in a big London production of Oliver! when he was a kid. So the cockney-for-laughs runs deep.

i.e. .the intro to the "Invisible Touch" video

He definitely plays it up, but isn't he ... cockney? I guess I never understood what that term meant, other than a working class accent.

Born within the sound of Bow bells, mate.

I think, for better or for worse, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo.

I don't that's unusual for musicians of their era. Can't be too many UK musicians who learned their trade in the 60s who didn't play soul, R&B, Motown covers at some point - Geezer Butler hated it, mind you.

Probably true, but these two stuck with it ("Can't Hurry Love," "Sledgehammer," etc.). Did Jon Anderson and John Wetton or whomever ever do (or try) any soul stuff?

i was regretting the one-offness of 90125 the other day

gabriel tends to kermit it up a bit in the genesis days, there's some vox-and-lead-guitar only stems from "selling england" floating about that aren't particularly flattering to him

before genesis i believe collins did sing lead in flaming youth, who were, honestly, a quite fine band. ultimately the '60s stuff descended into his lugubrious cover of "groovy kind of love" but as r&b/soul-loving white british lads go you could do far worse. gabriel as well... that time hackett showed up at a gabriel solo concert in the '80s and they played "reach out (i'll be there)", a fine moment.

gabriel-era genesis is something i relate really strongly personally to, honestly. it's often dismissed as being the typical prog-renfaire nonsense, but not all schoolboy stories of ancient time are created equal. what story do genesis retell? the story of hermaphrodite. when i look at gabriel era genesis, i see a band with a frontman who, at just about every turn, subverted and defied the expectations of heteronormative male gender presentation. and you best believe he got shit for it.

good reading

revisited in the Slippermen

lovely post, Kate

more lessons in amazing portals of possibility :)

(spotify meanwhile followed seconds out with whiter shade of pale, which makes more sense to me as a source than stevie winwood, at least if i want my interest piqued)

tbf I'm really just talking about Winwood's voice