genesis: duke

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.

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

― fade into bolivian (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, January 11, 2021 5:43 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

not having Foxtrot up in the top 3/4 is wild imo

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

Anyone who ranks an album with "Just a Job to Do" over an album with "Firth of Fifth" has very different aesthetic sense than me.

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

seconded.

What is impressive is not just that the passages are great, but so many of them could seem random or disjunctive, but end up contributing to the whole. Take, for example, the long series of solos in the latter part of Dancing With the Moonlit Knight, or the ambient coda on that same song, or the Vicar sequence in Epping Forest, or the whole construction of After the Ordeal.

I still think SEBTP is their best full album, there are just so many great passages in it

Thirded. It actually more or less permanently lives in my car's CD player for those times I can't find anything on the radio.

noticed they just did a colored repress of this. great record but what shop doesn't have a half-dozen used copies of this already? why not make it a 2xLP rather than cram 55 minutes on a single? certainly the sound quality ain't as good as the CD - Collins sounds like he's behind the instruments

I think the people buying the $25 white vinyl 180g version at Urban Outfitters and the people flipping through the dollar bins are 2 distinct market segments.
(also I hate the 2xLP's where there are 13 minutes of music on each side, so i'm happy to sacrifice a little sound quality to not have to flip the record every 3 songs)

Loved the long-form review in Pitchfork today (was worried it was just going to be the history of the band without actually discussing the album, but he gets there, eventually).
But then at the end, it says:

They had made better albums (nearly everything from the ’70s)

sure why not

That review was like the equivalent of an epic side-long suite. Very on point.

That was a nice piece. Also, I think, the first time Pitchfork has had anything substantial on Genesis.

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound. (Not surprisingly, the similarity was consciously by design. I'm surprised a songwriting dispute has yet to come up since the bar for litigable plagiarism has inched lower and lower over the years.)

*Toto song

yeah i mentioned that in the songs that sound like other songs thread. it’s a clear sly stone lift, but with a shuffle beat that is kinda similar to that toto song

as if Wind and Wuthering and ATTWT never happened

nah the writer has it right, W&W and ATTWT are both way better than Duke

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound.

I don't disagree but Phil explicitly says in the DVD documentary that accompanied the reissue a few years back that the song is based around him playing that Toto shuffle.

Didn't agree that was the album that caused a number of fans to get off the bus, always thought Abacab and s/t would have been more obvious points

Well yeah Duke was the last one I ever bought, and liked it with reservations. Heard enough of Abacab on the radio to know that I wanted nothing to do with Genesis from then on.

xps I think "Misunderstanding" also has some of Led Zeppelin's "Fool In the Rain" in its DNA, in that they're both shuffles with similar chord progressions and virtually identical lyrical themes

I'm not really a fan of Duke or Abacab, but when I was going through the catalog this past week, I was pretty sure I could cobble together my favorite parts from both and come up with an LP I'd kind of like.

funny, duke is the only genesis album i've really had time for

"Misunderstanding" sounds a lot more like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" than that Toto sound.

jeez, this hadn't occurred to me. OTM. I'd say, "'Hot Fun...' as played by Toto."

A line in that review makes me wonder... were there any established bands who became "more prog" in the late 70s? Rush, I suppose, maybe The Enid? Any others?

Or even bands who stayed "just as prog" as they were before?

not quite "late 70s" but Todd Rundgren's prog phase was from 1973-1977 which is pretty late to jump off the deep end

True, but as soon as late 1977, Oops Wrong Planet made a big shift to AOR.

yes made "awaken" in 1977, that's pretty prime prog. tho sure, the rest of the going for the one album was not quite as "progressive"

Phil has cited Beach Boys' Sail On Sailor as an influence on Misunderstanding, Hold The Line way more bombastic and generally unchill than either