genesis: duke

Once you get into the odd signature groove, it's pretty straightforward, though I can imagine just one person deviating a bit too much throwing it off.

I don't mind "Misunderstanding" at all, and I like "Follow You," too, mawkish though it may be. Typically passive aggressive-y quote from Banks on wiki:

It was our only truly group-written number. Mike played the riff, then I started playing a chord sequence and melody line on it, which Phil then centralized around. It worked so well as a very simple thing; it was enough as it stood. I'd just written a simple love lyric for "Many Too Many", and I think Mike was keen to try the same thing. Maybe "Follow You Follow Me" was almost too banal, but I got used to it. I think we find it much easier to write long stories than simple love songs.

yea once you figure it out it doesn't deviate much but its just such an odd meter, idk my brain just isn't used to playing something like that

anyway I do like Follow You Follow Me, I'm a sucker for overtly pretty pop songs like that, but I'd make the same argument, it doesn't really fit into the album at all for me. even stuck on the end like that it just feels like a bonus track

I just love every Genesis single until Illegal Alien.

(And I don't even mind that one much. It's obvious what's awful about it but the instrumental is GREAT.)

yea for a while I had all the CDs from Nursery Cryme to Trick of the Tail and then a separate best of which was all later tracks (plus a new version of Carpet Crawlers), was kind of surprised how much I liked it

in fact I remember playing it once as the summer help for a utility company, my boss came in and went "ah yes Genesis, they were good but I actually only like the stuff they did before this, they had a different singer actually, you probably don't even know..." and I wanted to say how much I was really into those records but had to go on my route in 5 minutes so just didn't have time to get into a prog discussion, lol

Throwing It All Away is Follow You Follow Me done better (and balder)

I think PaulTMA is right. Throwing It All Away is Peak Rutherford.

He went back to its sound again for Living Years, which is another good piece of music hampered by mawkish lyrics.

something I've noticed is how damn long every single one of Genesis's LPs were from Foxtrot -> Duke. even the doubles like The Lamb and Seconds Out. every LP is over 50 minutes long. this one is 55! you gotta crank up the bass hard!

Controversial Genesis opinion: nearly all the 70s-era albums would be improved by lopping 15 minutes off the running time.

Throwing It All Away is Follow You Follow Me done better (and balder)

― PaulTMA,

otm -- one of Rutherford's better lyrics. Blame him for the sheer terror of "Land of Confusion."

xp well I definitely don't agree with that but I do find the amount of long atmospheric passages a bit curious, particularly say the end of "Moonlit Knight" which just tweedles on for several minutes. wonder who decided that was essential

Having a 1978-81 Genesis afternoon in the late summer sun.

I've always said that "Throwing It All Away" is one of Phil's deceptively simple peak drum performances, a total Bonham groove, which is unexpected for a ballad.

It's my favorite Patrick Bateman-era ballad.

In Too Deep's lovely as well, if I'm honest.

Also, Abacab onwards, Genesis albums (until the awful We Can't Dance) are a lean 47 minutes or so

We Can't Dance, Be Here Now, Disintegration, Daydream Nation - the four tenants of the 12 track, 71 minute album.

The latter-half sections of both Knight and Volcano are both Steve-driven and seemingly dropped from later live performances

well that's just 3 - Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. and I think all those are still longer than any album by say King Crimson, at least until the CD era

the outlier in their catalogue is Nusery Cryme...not even 40 minutes!! wow!

Eh, We Can't Dance is not all bad. "Driving the Last Spike," "Dreaming While You Sleep," "Fading Lights," those three long ones are pretty good, and together they run almost 30 minutes, lol. For the short ones, I don't really like the singles much, tbh, and a lot of the tracks do veer closer to Phil Collins solo dreck than most Genesis material does, but I do like "Tell Me Why" and "Living Forever," which kind of sounds like it could be slotted between self-titled and "Invisible Touch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHx9MqCfCjw

Controversial Genesis opinion: nearly all the 70s-era albums would be improved by lopping 15 minutes off the running time.

No argument here. They all have at least that much that is a bit dull or underwhelming, especially Lamb which otherwise is my favorite album but really would've been better as a single LP (albeit one on the long side).

It's funny how they celebrated the dawn of the CD era by making shorter albums

(Until WCD obviously)

Think a lot of my emnity towards WCD comes from the fact that I'd been a Genesis obsessive in my pre-teens, but WCD had the misfortune to arrive at the same time as Nirvana's Nevermind and my finally getting into music for kids of my age, and I felt I had to reject it. But also, I remember buying the CD out of curdled loyalty when it came out, and besides the chorus to No Son Of Mine, which I loved, it all felt like middle-aged-man ballads and old people shit. And then there was I Can't Dance, which was and is execrable. Perhaps I should revisit it.

That live thing, 'The Way We Walk: The Longs' has Fading Lights and Driving... and is a good context in which to listen to the record, but not.

I saw em at Knebworth on that tour, a mate got free tickets through his sister. And it was so removed from this band that I'd had such an intense, solitary relationship with when I was 11 or so, I remember feeling really weirdly about the whole thing (also we saw Steve Punt reviewing in the VIP section for a broadsheet w/his notepad out). But I'd be up for checking it out now.

I bloody love Domino so I'm definitely open to it being good.

Halfway thru the "old medley" and loving it of course

Argh and then Phil drops some lines from Illegal Alien in I Know What I Like, like a turd slipping into the gravy

eeets noh fahn