ATTW3 is hardly the first Collins fronted album. That was back in 1976 with A Trick of the Tail and then Wind and Wuthering.

Ah yes, Anthony Phillips, the “forgotten man” in the Genesis story. With them from the beginning, he played on both their debut album, From Genesis to Revelation, which was quite a long way from the prog-rock masterpieces they would later turn out, but a nice little album, and also on their first “real” album, 1970's Trespass, but then he developed a severe bout of stage fright. This is not a good thing to have in a band, and his doctor advised him he should quit the band for the sake of his health, which he did. We all know what happened to Genesis of course after that: under the guidance of Peter Gabriel they became one of the most important and influential and loved progressive rock bands of the 70s and early 80s, but after Gabriel left and Phil Collins took over they drifted more towards a commercial/pop sound, eventually losing it in 1981 when they released Abacab. They recovered slightly with the next few albums but eventually Collins himself left and the band more or less imploded under the pressure of trying to keep pace with the demands of the charts.

As for Anthony? Well, whether he recovered from his stage fright or not I don't know - though I haven't seen any evidence of him touring ever - but he certainly did not give up music. Far from it. After leaving Genesis - and worldwide fame, had he known it - behind, he released his first solo album in 1977, and has pretty much put out one a year since then. He's also guested on other albums, most notably ex-bandmate Mike Rutherford on the guitarist's first solo album, and again with ex-Genesis guitarist (but not bandmate, as he was not there at the same time) Steve Hackett's Out of the Tunnel's Mouth. In addition, he has collaborated with figures in the world of classical and soundtrack music, like Joji Hirota and Harry Williamson. In total, he's recorded, played on or assisted with over fifty albums. Not bad for a man who was too scared to get up onstage with Genesis!

After a somewhat disastrous attempt at breaking into the world of commercial, chart music in 1983, Anthony swore to concentrate on film, classical and instrumental works, and in that sphere he has been rather wildly successful. This is his latest collaboration, a partnership with composer Andrew Skeet, and it's a double album.

Seventh Heaven - Anthony Phillips and Andrew Skeet (2012)
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There are thirty-five tracks to get through here, but most stay within the 2/3 minutes mark, with one or two under 2 minutes, and just the one clocking in at almost seven, so it shouldn't be too hard to get them all reviewed. It opens, rather annoying and unsettlingly for me, with an operatic vocal. I personally have no time for opera (other than rock opera): I just can't stand the high-pitched voices, and the fact that it's a story you're supposed to follow while being written - and sung - in a language foreign to me has always made it totally inaccessible to these ears. So opera is not what I want to hear as my first impression of this album. Still, like most of the tracks on this album, “Credo in Cantus” is short, just over two minutes, and the music is certainly nice. Mostly driven on violin and guitar, with some nice plinky piano played by Andrew Skeet, it's not as harsh a vocal from Lucy Crowe as I often hear in the few operatic pieces I've been subjected to, and it's a slow piece, which gives way to “A Richer Earth”, a sumptuous strings arrangement carrying the melody, which gets a little heavier and more dramatic and builds to a crescendo, very film-like, and very moving.

Some nice rolling drums, as there often are in pieces of this nature, quite little in the way of guitar I have to say, but then although he made his name as mostly a guitarist, Anthony Phillips is a multi-instrumentalist, and plays at least eight different instruments on this album, many of them guitars but also piano, bazouki, oud and fylde. It's in the next track though, “Under the Infinite Sky”, that we hear his expertise on his instrument of choice, and though there is a lot of strings backup on the piece, it's mainly taken on the guitar melody, reminiscent of Steve Hackett's “Horizons” from the just-reviewed Foxtrot. It gets a little frenetic, of sorts, halfway through, but then drops away into a heavenly, celestial strings melody that itself falls away to leave Anthony solo on the acoustic guitar to take the song to its end.

Nice harpsichordal opening to “Grand Central”, and though we're really reviewing this as an Anthony Phillips record, praise must also be given to his partner, who not only composes almost all of the album with him, but also plays the lovely piano melody on this track. Great violin attack too, taking the whole thing up a notch, then softer violin and classical guitar takes us into the lovely “Kissing Gate”, very pastoral and relaxing, evoking memories of summer days and lazy warm nights under the sky. The strings swell here too, but the main melody is carried by the guitar and the violin, while “Pasquinade” has a very Mozart feel to it, with pizzicato strings and oboe, a slow stately piece with some lovely sighing violin coming in.

There's much more lively violin on “Rain on Sag Harbour”, a very short piece, just over a minute and a half, but it bounces along nicely, then another short track and a chance for Phillips to shine on the piano in “Ice Maiden”, a beautiful little almost intermezzo on the keys, a solo piece for the composer, while lush strings carry “River of Life” alongside his gentle acoustic guitar lines, but he really breaks out the classical guitar for one of the longer tracks, almost four minutes of “Desert Passage”. Almost a solo spotlight for more than half of the song's length, it's eventually joined by percussion and flute and strings, with a definite ELO-style feel near the end, and taking on a very Arabic texture. It's followed by the second vocal piece, this time voiced by Belinda Sykes, with an ominous strings melody as “Seven Ancient Wonders” continues the eastern-styled music with more of a chant really than singing from Ms. Sykes, very effective.

This takes us into the second-shortest track on the whole album, just three seconds over a minute, with “Desert Passage Reprise” carrying on the Arabic/eastern influence and then some lovely acoustic guitar leads in “Circle of Light”, again recalling some of Phillips's best work with Genesis, particularly “Stagnation” and “Dusk”: very introspective, and again a solo performance from the composer. It takes us into “Forgotten Angels”, which seems to start on a glockenspiel melody, joined by strings and very nursery-rhyme or music-box themed, with choral vocals sounding like a flock of angels (what is the correct collective term for angels, anyway?), some lovely oboe and something that may be a harp. Very celestial, very ethereal, very relaxing.

“Courtesan” on the other hand borrows just a touch from the melody of “Speak Softly Love”, the theme to the movie The Godfather, by Nino Rota, and travels on soft acoustic guitar aided by lush strings and perhaps some mandolin: always hard to know when a full orchestra is involved. Great sense of space to this piece, evokes images of staring out to sea over a high cliff in some mediterranean locale. Strings drive “Ghosts of New York”, accompanied by some soft piano and some tenor saxophone, or possibly clarinet. There's a sense of drama, urgency, even panic about “Shipwreck of St Paul”, rising strings building the tension along with some low brass, then there's a suitably grave tempo and mood to “Cortege”, which closes the first disc. Very funereal, very stately, low bassy strings are joined halfway through by high, soaring ones, and the two meld to create perhaps hope out of despair. I must say, this reminds me of nothing more than the theme to Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire movie.

And so we come to the end of the first disc, and I feel like I've already reviewed a full album, but there are seventeen more tracks to go. And with quality like this, I'm glad it's not over yet. Disc two opens with the full instrumental version of the piece that began disc one, “Credo in Cantus”, and without the distracting vocal it's possible now to appreciate fully the nuances of the piece. It's very grand, very expansive and has a lovely violin and cello melody complemented by piano, with Andrew Skeet again behind the keyboard, reprising the role he played in the vocal version. An upbeat tune then for “Sojourn”, with happy violins and cellos, guitar adding its own special flavour courtesy of Anthony, giving the piece at times a very Genesis flavour.

Anthony is back at the keyboard though for a piano solo piece in “Speak of Remarkable Things”, another short track, just over a minute, then “Nocturne” is one of the longer pieces, just under four minutes, again recalling Hackett at his best as Anthony puts in a beautiful performance on the classical guitar, backed by some swelling strings that only complement his playing, never seeking to take from it. “Long Road Home” is another piano piece, again backed by powerful strings with some intense percussion that really helps up the drama, then gentle flute or clarinet reduces it all back down to basics again, this theme maintained for “The Golden Leaves of the Fall”, driven on quiet piano backed up by soft strings, then some cinematic style rolling percussion ups the drama level in a melody that's, to be fair, not a million miles removed from John Williams' theme from Jurassic Park. Sorry, but it's not.

There's a short guitar piano and cello piece then for “Credo”, then rolling thunder effects start off “Under the Infinite Sky (Guitar Ensemble Version)” - the parentheses being there to separate it from the version on disc one - which is, not surprisingly, a showcase for Phillips's guitar talents on the acoustic, while there's far more of a full classical, even chamber feel to “The Stuff of Dreams”, mostly led by clarinet and flute; reminds me a lot of “Neptune, the Mystic,” from Holst's The Planets Suite opus. It gets a little heavier though with that rolling drumbeat and some bassoon (?), then slips back into the lighter groove it began on, almost ethereal with some lovely full strings coming in.

That takes us to easily the longest piece on either disc, “Old Sarum Suite”, which is almost eight minutes long, and is broken up into five separate movements. As a suite, it changes and evolves as it goes, and is perhaps the most versatile of the tracks on the album, showing a breadth of experience, expertise and talent in the different moods, themes and tempos used. It seems to be concerned around some sort of battle (see track listing) but I'm not familiar with it. I'd go into it in more depth, but there are still seven tracks to go before we close, so moving on, next up is “For Eloise”, which I have to admit I thought would be an adaptation of the Beethoven classic, but seems to be an original guitar piece.

The next track puts me in mind, uneasily, of the old kids' scary TV show Children of the Stones, but it's actually called “Winter Song”, and is a solo for cello, gorgeous and breathtaking thanks to Chris Worsey, with Michela Srumova providing the soprano voice at the beginning that gave me the willies. She comes back in near the end again, after the piece has jumped into something of a Russian folk song melody, but it slows back down and ends on sad cello, taking us into “Ghosts of New York”. I know we had this already, but this is a piano solo version, with Skeet again showing his prowess on the Steinway, then “Daniel's Theme” is another classical guitar piece, with horn and low violin backing, another slow, melancholy tune, with some powerful strings coming in, while “Study in Scarlet” is led by horns and violins, evoking images of Sherlock Holmes, which I would assume it's intended to.

It is in fact the shortest track on the album, exactly one minute. It ends on sudden powerful dramatic strings, and then everything eases back for “The Lives of Others”, a soft violin-and-piano driven piece, and we finally close on the shimmery piano of “Forever Always”, a lovely, slow, soothing piece which closes an album that really evokes that kind of mood. Some absolutely wonderful musicianship, some amazing compositions, a fine melding of two fine talents, even if neither are that well known in the world of commercial music.

An interesting aside, before I finish: the artwork on the album cover (at least, the layout and design) is by one Mark Wilkinson, best known for his work with Marillion and later Fish, and most recently on Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman's The Living Tree (and for Ki, the Reasoning's live album from last year, Live in the USA: The Bottle of Gettysburg) - nice to see there's some some prog rock linkage to be had, even if Anthony is no longer really working in that side of things, mostly.

This is a long album, there's no denying that. But with the tracks all so short, it really doesn't seem like it runs for the over an hour and a half that it does. It's great for background music, or to listen to as you fall to sleep (hardly any, if any, surprises in sudden fast/loud tracks) but it's also an album that deserves to be listened to in depth, paying attention to all the little tunes and melodies and idiosyncrasies of the full composition. As a collaboration this is a real triumph. As an album it's great value for money: where else are you going to get one with over thirty tracks? And as a reminder to those who knew him in the early years, it's proof that Anthony Phillips, though he missed out on the “big time” with Genesis, has quietly and determinedly forged his own path through the music world, playing the music he likes, and following his own dream.

Over forty years after he left them, Genesis are now gone as a band, and Anthony Phillips is releasing yet another new album. Doesn't that say something about the man?

TRACK LISTING

Disc One

1. Credo in Cantus
2. A Richer Earth
3. Under the Infinite Sky
4. Grand Central
5. Kissing Gate
6. Pasquinade
7. Rain On Sag Harbour
8. Ice Maiden
9. River of Life
10. Desert Passage
11. Seven Ancient Wonders
12. Desert Passage (Reprise)
13. Forgotten Angels
14. Circle of Light
15. Courtesan
16. Ghosts of New York
17. Shipwreck of St. Paul
18. Cortege

Disc Two

1. Credo in Cantus (Instrumental)
2. Sojourn
3. Speak of Remarkable Things
4. Nocturne
5. Long Road Home
6. The Golden Leaves of Fall
7. Credo
8. Under the Infinite Sky (Guitar Ensemble Version)
9. The Stuff of Dreams
10. Old Sarum Suite
(i)Sarabande: Song of the Shires
(ii)Feast of the Ice Saints
(iii)Stormchaser : the Path to War
(iv)The Fleet Assembles: Raising the Standard
(v)Sarabande: Song of the Shires II
11. For Eloise
12. Winter Song
13. Ghosts of New York (Piano Version)
14. Daniel's Theme
15. Study in Scarlet
16. The Lives of Others
17. Forever Always

Rating: 9.8/10

How come I have never heard of this Anthony Phillips album? Maybe because it's billed as a "Collaboration"?

The description, and the clips posted above, make me interested to check this out in more detail. Anthony seems to be following the same route as Tony Banks, whose last three albums have all been in the "classical" style, with orchestras.

Thank you for this very detailed review.

Survival of the band may have been in his thoughts but survival of a different kind was on Phil Collins's mind as they toured the ... And Then There Were Three...” album, with his wife threatening to leave him and moving to Vancouver with his children. Worried that he was sacrificing his marriage for his career, Collins requested that the band take a hiatus, which they did, Banks and Rutherford both recording their first solo albums, and in Autumn of 1979 they reconvened. Collins had failed to save his marriage, leading to his also releasing his first solo album, a very mostly downbeat affair that nevertheless blasted him personally into the charts without Genesis, and the band began to work on their tenth album.
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Duke (1980)

I have always considered this to be a concept album, but I see now that certain songs were in fact part of a thirty-minute suite, but were broken up and distributed around the playing order of the album. Nevertheless, it still kind of works, as the story of one man's attempt to balance his relationship with his career (obviously reflecting the recent travails of the frontman) and it gave rise to some of Genesis's biggest hit singles. It also gave them their first ever number one album on this side of the water, while in the US it also hit their highest position, number eleven.

We open on “Behind the Lines”, with powerful drums and piano, and a skittering synth run that continues for about two minutes before Collins comes in with the vocal. It's an interesting point that he also did a version of this on Face Value, his debut solo album, but it was much more jazzed up. It also had a much shorter introduction. To me, the lyrical idea has similarities with a-ha's blockbuster "Take On Me", with someone finding themselves inside a book (behind the lines) and then having to escape or be ejected from it. It's pretty weird, but it's a nice uptempo song to start off and it segues beautifully into “Duchess”, as "The Duke Suite" begins, Collins employing a drum machine for the first time ever. It's the tale of an old singer who has been unable to move with the times and finds that her audience has grown bored with her. The two contrasting lines show this: ”All she had to do was step into the light/ For everyone to start to roar” later becomes ”Soon every time she stepped into the light/ They really let her know the score.”

The drum machine really makes the song though, with a ticking, pulsing little beat that just drips through the melody, for once taking the spotlight off really any of the musicians, although Banks lays down some gorgeous piano throughout. It's another one with a long instrumental introduction, running for again two minutes plus, drum machine and piano building up to a big explosive drumroll as the vocal comes in, and it fades out on a beautiful little piano into “Guide Vocal”, a short piano and strings synth piece which then powers into the first kind of generic rock song, “Man of Our Times”. As it's the first solo effort by Rutherford, it's not surprising that it runs on a jangly guitar riff, though Banks sprinkles some really nice keyboards through it also. Again, I have no real idea what he's trying to say in the lyric though. It's certainly catchy. Not as much as the next one though, which went on to be one of their singles.

“Misunderstanding” is carried on a heavy, bombastic drumbeat and is one of Collins's solo efforts (they each write two tracks solo, while the other five are group compositions) and a bouncy rhythm, easy to see why it did so well. A love song that's not a love song, with a scent of betrayal and two-timing in it, it has a certain humour about it. You can see how Genesis's songwriting, or I should say commercial songwriting or maybe even pop songwriting abilities are developing here, as just about every track has a real hook and is very memorable. I don't think there's one track on this album that I don't like, and many that I love. “Heathaze” is a sublime little eco-ballad, warning of the dangers of pollution and driven, not surprisingly as it's his second solo contribution to the album, on Bank's forlorn piano. Collins sings ”We shall lose our wonder/ And find nothing in return.” Bleak sentiments in such a lush and beautiful song.

Nothing bleak about “Turn it On Again”, which everyone probably knows, it having been a big hit single for the band. With its chunky, choppy guitar intro and pulsing, thrumming and slightly syncopated drums, it stands out as having the most potential for a single, as it did, although it began life apparently as a short bridging song within “The Duke Suite”. ”I can show you” sings Phil, ”Some of the people in my life”, which must have been a godsend line for onstage. Another ballad then in “Alone Tonight”, which is the second Rutherford solo contribution, and is a really nice and heartfelt song, with some very soulful singing from Collins, for whom its sentiments probably touch a raw nerve at this point, but I prefer the final Banks number, the superb “Cul-de-sac”. Again, what the hell it is about I have no clue, but it seems to talk about an army of beings underground who come up to attack we on the surface. It's probably allegorical, but even if not, it's a great building melody, and the sense of panic and threat in it is almost palpable, from the moment Collins sings against innocent piano ”Wake up now/ This is the time you've waited for” to the big almost orchestral buildup to the vocal, you can get a sense of something approaching, something bad, and something that is likely to be victorious.

Great piano work and fine guitar riffs drive the song along nicely, with a really laidback little piano solo about halfway before it ramps up again, Collins's voice growing ever more manic as he sings ”Even as the end approaches/ Still they're not aware/ How can you fight a foe so deadly/ When you don't even know it's there?” Big powerful guitar and keys finish with a fine flourish from Rutherford, and we're into the last of the ballads, and indeed the last solo-penned number, this being Phil Collins's “Please Don't Ask”, the touching story of a husband and wife who meet after being separated, and trying to be civil while avoiding the temptation to say ”Maybe we could try/ Maybe it would work this time”. Banks does a simple but sublime job on the piano here, and the song is an exercise in basic songwriting. Great vocal harmonies, and a depressing but inevitable surrender at the end as both realise they can never be together and the husband remarks ”I miss my boy/ I hope he's good as gold.” Again, surely hitting almost too close to home for the man who wrote the song. Brave and honest.

"The Duke Suite" then comes back into play as it takes the album to its close, with “Duke's Travels” opening on swirling, susurrating synth, bringing in a galloping drumbeat and more upbeat, squeaky synth and fast riffing guitar. Essentially this and the closer are both instrumentals, though there is a reprise of a faster version of “Guide vocal” towards the end. If anything is like the “old” Genesis of the days of A Trick of the Tail, this song retains much of the progressive rock that the band had become known for and helped create, and for that reason it prevents this being a totally pop album, finishing on a strong and familiar note. As “Duke's travels” reaches its midpoint it speeds up, losing the somewhat whimsical turn of melody and becomes harder, more dramatic and powerful in the runup to the reprise of “Guide Vocal”. “Duke's End” is a short coda then to this, providing a fast rerun of “Behind the Lines”, to bring the album full circle and end very strongly indeed.

TRACK LISTING

Behind the Lines
Duchess
Guide Vocal
Man of Our Times
Misunderstanding
Heathaze
Turn it On Again
Alone Tonight
Cul de Sac
Please Don't Ask
Duke's Travels
Duke's End

In many ways, this is the final gasp, if you like, of the progressive rock band we had come to know and love. Sure, there are pop songs on it and they became hits, but the “Duke Suite” alone allows it its prog credentials. You can see though, that from this point (in fact, from the previous album) the guys were leaning in a more commercial direction, cutting shorter songs about more down to earth and relatable subjects. I suppose you couldn't blame them: they'd had their first really big hit with “Follow You Follow Me” and surely they liked the extra attention to them it engendered, to say nothing of the financial advantages of having a top ten single and a top three album. They probably figured progressive rock was by now something of a dinosaur, with some of the bigger bands breaking up, punk feeding on their entrails, and others diversifying and updating their sound. Peter Gabriel had said, before his departure, of the recording of The Lamb that “I didn't want to go down with that Titanic.” He could sense a change in the wind, before anyone else really, which shows how much of an innovator and musical entrepreneur he was, as he proved with his own remarkable solo career. Maybe his former bandmates were recalling that cryptic prophecy, and deciding it was time to launch their own lifeboats?

Sadly, it would lead to pretty much a watering down of what had made Genesis great, as, coupled with Collins's own burgeoning solo career, they would become something of a byword in later years for boredom, selling out and, most cruelly of all perhaps, a lack of adventure. For a band who had pushed the boundaries not only of music but of multimedia presentation in the early years, it was a sad comedown and a sour legacy to end up leaving behind: as Gabriel sang in “The Lamia”, Genesis were about to reap the bitter harvest of a dying bloom.

Their next album would be full-on pop, as they embraced the charts and pandered to a less select and less demanding crowd. I will always hate Abacab, because for me it marks the point at which Genesis really just bent over and took it, and left behind pretty much all of the influences that had made them what they were. With this next album, they were knocking on the door of the Cool Kids Club, which they had always avoided, and asking to be let in. Two years later they came back with what should have been, and sounded like it might be, the album that would save them.

It wasn't.

Rating: 9.7/10

There are some nice pieces on this album, as well as a couple that I ifind a bit ho-hum. Of all the Genesis albums that I DON'T have, this is probably the first one I would acquire. Somehow though it never resonated for me in the same way as the earlier albums, including the much maligned ATTWT.

"Behind the Lines" gets a lot of praise, but I find it a bit too repetitive and pompous. Things get much better with "Duchess", which is probably my favourite track here. "Heathaze" is another highlight, and then of course the concluding suite. The two singles are both OK songs seem a little at odds with the rest. "Misunderstanding" in particular would have been more at home on a Phil Collins solo album.

From a detached viewpoint I can understand why so many call this their favourite Genesis album. It's neither fish nor fowl; it has leanings towards rock/pop, and quite good rock/pop at that, but has enough characteristics of progressive to satisfy that itch, especially for those who were just discovering this band. I wonder how many people discovered Genesis via Duke and then worked backwards.

As has been extensively documented, 1976 marked the end of an era for Genesis. Whereas they had begun as a five-piece, then a four, then back to a five, the lineup was by 1972 at least fairly stable with Collins, Gabriel, Hackett, Rutherford and Banks. But after the double concept album he had basically written himself was released, Peter Gabriel began to feel the pressure of touring and in addition to this he had a new family to think about, his wife expecting their first baby. Tensions had simmered during the recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, mostly due to Gabriel's Roger Waters-like dictatorial grip on the concept, and the fact that the rest of the band were not really as enthusiastic about the project as he was, and now they came to a head as Gabriel was offered the chance to work with one of his idols, film director William Friedkin, and left halfway through the writing of the album, to work on a film that, in the end, never materialised. On his return, Gabriel was restless and during the tour stated his intention to leave the band.

For a very long time, Genesis had been seen essentially as Peter Gabriel's backing band, which did not sit well with the other members, so when their co-founder and frontman decided to leave, it was more or less accepted in the music press, and among fans, that the band was splitting up, that it could not survive the loss of Gabriel. Although sad to see him go, the remaining four were incensed that people thought they could not continue on their own, and set out to make not one, but two albums in the same year. The first of those would open a new chapter in the story of Genesis, and as one door closed another would open as a new vocalist, frontman and face for the band would emerge.
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A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Genesis were determined to show that not only could they survive and create an album without Gabriel, but that they could record an album just as good as, if not better than, any he had been involved in. But first things first: a decision had to be made as to who would be the new vocalist, or even if there would be one. For a short while, the guys considered continuing as an instrumental band, but it was quickly understood this would never work. Their fanbase had grown not just on the strength of their music but on the clever and deep lyrics, and anyway, Genesis up to that point had few instrumental numbers, so the idea was abandoned. Auditions began for a new singer, but none suited, and in the end it was Phil Collins who rather reluctantly agreed to step into Gabriel's shoes.

This presented its own set of problems though, as Collins was the drummer, and it's hard to keep your mind on the rhythms while also trying to sing, to say nothing of not being, literally, a frontman: drummers always set up their kits to the rear of the stage, and it's hard to interact with your audience while stuck behind tom-toms, cymbals and bass drums. So another drummer was recruited for live gigs, this being Bill Bruford, late of King Crimson. With Collins in place then as the new vocalist, Genesis set out to record what would be their seventh album, and their first without Peter Gabriel.

There's a marked difference right away. Although The Lamb was its own beast, up to that Genesis albums had had more than a few epics: nine, ten, eleven minute monsters. The songs here are shorter (though not that much) and there's a sense more of slight commercialism about some of them, so much so that you could see a few as singles, whereas on previous albums there really wasn't this option. The longest track on this is eight minutes, way below the eleven minutes of “The Battle of Epping Forest” and tiny of course compared to the twenty-three minute “Supper's Ready”. It's also the first album to show individual credits for songs, rather than crediting them as a band, perhaps a backlash against Gabriel's somewhat tyrannical control of the previous album.

And so we open on “Dance On a Volcano”, which perhaps appropriately starts, after a few piano notes, with punching drums, before the vocal comes in from Collins, and to be fair, he doesn't sound too far away from his predecessor, so it's not that much of an adjustment, which would certainly help when they played the older stuff in a live setting. Concerning, it seems, the ascent of a volcano, the song is exciting, uptempo, fun with a sense of danger when Collins warns ”If you don't want to boil as well/ Better start to dance!” The dark humour of his departed bandmate has obviously rubbed off on him, or them all really, as this is a joint effort. It would become a live favourite too, and Collins's opening lines ”Holy Mother of God!” probably reflected at the time the effect his almost-Gabriel voice had on the listeners to the new album. Not such a stretch, after all, and they'd heard him sing on the odd tune as well as add backing vocals, so it wasn't like they had to get used to a totally new voice.

There are of course the instrumental breaks, for which Genesis, as a progressive rock band at the forefront of the movement, had become known by this time, and while Collins has something to prove as the new singer, the rest of the band are obviously anxious not to be seen to be just along for the ride, so everyone is doing their best to be heard. There's a pretty frenetic ending that then slows right down on twelve-string that almost, almost segues into the next song, the only track on the album on which Tony Banks and Steve Hackett collaborate and one of my many favourites on this album. “Entangled” is basically I guess the first ballad, and rides on a beautiful dreamy acoustic guitar line, kind of waltzing along, with swelling synth and the Pro Soloist making those choral vocals again. Strange song, no idea what it's about - some sort of medical experiments perhaps, or the state of the NHS - but it's a lovely ballad and has some nice lyric lines such as ”Mesmerised children are playing/ Meant to be seen but not heard/ Stop me from dreaming?/ Don't be absurd!” It ends on a spiralling guitar line accompanied by the Pro Soloist which takes it to the last two minutes of the song. Another concert favourite, “Squonk” opens with a big heavy drumbeat and marches along with a sense of doom and despair, telling the tale of a little creature from folklore (I thought they had just made this up but I read now that it is an actual myth from North America) who hides from view, crying a lot, and when captured can dissolve in a pool of tears. Awww! This was the first song Phil Collins “auditioned” for the band as the new singer, and the one which won him the poison chalice. It's quite heavy for Genesis, thick bass and wailing synth counterpointing Collins's trundling drumwork, and strong organ punching through as well.

It's the first time since Nursery Cryme that the band have returned to the idea of using mythology in their lyrics, and the first one to be written without Gabriel's input. It's also quite commercial; you could hear this on the radio. In fact, the little squonk could have become a trademark of or mascot for the band. It didn't, but it could have. There's a really great bassline from Mike Rutherford thumping through this, and some interesting effects on the vocals at the end. “Mad man moon” becomes the second ballad, almost. It opens on lonely flute (perhaps a belated tribute to the departed bandleader?) and is then driven on Tony Banks's solo piano with some lovely orchestral synth joining in. Halfway through there's a superb piano and flute combination, then it changes totally, ramping up on a fast rock beat that builds and builds, until it descends and rejoins the original melody. Again, clever lyric in this, the only solo Banks number: ”If this desert's all there'll ever be/ Then tell me what becomes of me?/ A fall of rain?” and ”A gaol can give you a goal/ And a goal can find you a role/ On a muddy pitch in Newcastle/ Where it rains so much/ You can't wait for a touch/ Of sun and sand.”

The first time I heard “Robbery, assault and battery” was on the live album Seconds Out and I was amazed. It's just so outside of what Genesis did that it's almost as jarring as “The Battle of Epping Forest”, though thankfully much shorter (six and a bit minutes) but again it's a role/character piece that allows this time Collins to put into effect his acting skills, and to be fair he does well. It's still not one of my favourite Genesis songs though. It hops along on a breezy, upbeat melody, but given that within the lyric is the murder of policemen by a criminal, this seems a little incongruous, not to say wrong entirely. It does seem to pull in elements of “Cinema Show” and “Firth of Fifth” in the instrumental midsection. Well, I guess you like it or you don't, and I don't.

What I do like is the longest track on the album, which runs for just over eight minutes. “Ripples” is a beautiful ballad about the advance of age and how it's impossible to stop your looks fading away, as Collins sings ”The face that launched a thousand ships/ Is sinking fast, that happens you know/ The waters get below/Seems not very long ago/ Lovelier she was than/ Any that I know.” It again runs on beautiful piano from Banks, and twelve-string and contains both a sublime hook in the chorus as well as a stunning instrumental that runs for almost half the song, so much so that when I heard it the first time, I expected it would last to the end, but then the final chorus comes in. It's very effective. The track that most impressed me when I first heard the album.

Laugh all you want, but the jaunty opening of the title track reminds me of Gilbert O'Sullivan's “Claire”! It's a cute little story of a fantasy being who leaves his “city of gold” one day because he is bored and gets captured by humans. The piano from Banks has great fun with the tune, a very honky-tonk air about it, and when the “beast who can talk” gets fed-up in captivity he breaks out and offers to lead the ones who ”Got no horns/ And they got no tails" to his city. The narrator travels with others in the beast's company, but as he cries out, seeing his city and they ”Thought that maybe we saw/ A spire of gold?/No, a trick of the eye/ That's all” he has disappeared. Great little song. The closer then is titled, appropriately “Los Endos” (translate that, Google!) and is an instrumental reprise basically of “Dance On a Volcano” and “Squonk” with quite a Latin beat and it's the perfect way to bookend the album. This, too, has become a favourite live, and for obvious reasons.

TRACK LISTING

Dance On a Volcano
Entangled
Squonk
Mad Man Moon
Robbery, Assault and Battery
Ripples
A Trick of the Tail
Los Endos

In releasing this album Genesis, the new Genesis, had proven beyond all doubt that they could exist without their iconic frontman. In fact, for my money, this album stands as one of the very best Genesis albums from any period. The songwriting is tighter, the melodies flow really well, and there aren't any major epics that outstay their welcome. And yet the basic Genesis format is still there, so it's not as if they were suddenly ditching six years of their previous music, but expanding and improving on it. The album also obviously would help to elevate Phil Collins to star status, from being just “the drummer in Genesis” to being the singer, and the frontman, and eventually allow him the confidence and give him the fame to launch his own solo career.

But Genesis weren't finished with 1976, and before the year was out they would release another superb album, the first I reviewed in this thread. Having done what they had never done before, released two albums in the one year, the guys decided to take a well-deserved break from recording as they headed out in support of the album, their second tour in two years, and their next album would not appear for two more years, whereafter there would be yet another change to their lineup, leading to the title of their ninth album.

Rating: 9.8/10

Despite what I said earlier, it cannot be disputed that though Foxtrot got Genesis their first proper album chart placing, the next album yielded them their first ever hit single, and also capitalised on the success of the previous album and their growing fanbase to push this album to the number three slot, and even make inroads in the hard-to-crack American market. Nevertheless, as they were being dogged in the music press by accusations of trying to sell out to the US, Genesis made sure that the album retained a very quintessentially English feel, and it is one of their first political works, attacking the hierarchy, railing at poverty and inequality, and asking that question so many people were asking, and would for some time ask: what happened to this green and pleasant land? The influence of American culture, seen as beating down traditional English values, is a recurring theme throughout the album, and helps to lend it its title.
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Selling England by the Pound (1973)

With regard to this album, I'm reminded of Tom Baker's excellent turn as Captain Redbeard Rum in the TV series Blackadder II, when Edmund Blackadder observes "I was of the view, Captain, that it was common practice to have a crew aboard a ship." Rum fixes him with Baker's almost maniacal stare and retorts “Opinion is divided on the subject”. Blackadder, who responds with an arched eyebrow and a quizzical “Is it?” receives the answer “Yes. All the other captains say it is, I say it isn't!” Which is kind of how I am with this album: almost everyone I've spoken to, read of or known who is into Genesis considers this their finest album, but for me, while I do like it, I much prefer some of the later offerings, and feel this has very much its weak points, so cannot, in my mind, stand as, as some would have it, the perfect Genesis album.

While Trespass opens almost on Peter Gabriel's solo vocal, this one really does, with him singing a whole line before the music comes in, Hackett's twelve-string frolicking along in a very middle ages style as Gabriel asks ”Can you tell me where my country lies?” and almost immediately references the album title when he remarks ”It seems he's drowned/ Selling England by the pound.” In the second verse Banks comes in strongly with the piano, then after a little lilting guitar the percussion pounds in, and Rutherford joins the tune as the intensity powers up and “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight” gets going properly. A choral vocal, achieved through use of the ARP Pro Soloist, which Banks would rely on quite a lot, flute and oboe with trumpets and a military style drum gives way to a hard rock guitar as Gabriel unleashes one of his many puns (one already being in the title) as he sings ”Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout!” This reference will only be got by those of my age, but suffice to say that Green Shield stamps were trading stamps given away at petrol stations, and the more you collected the better prizes you could buy with them.

Banks's Pro Soloist sets up the full choral vocal as the song reaches its midpoint, everything slowing down in pace before it launches off into the second chorus. The song ends then on a soft fading twelve-string guitar, almost like a clock ticking, and into what would become their first hit single. With the sound of buzzing bees, birds and the hum of a lawnmower, Gabriel mutters "It's one o'clock/ And time for lunch/ When the sun beats down/ And I lie on the bench/ I can always hear them talk” and we're into “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”. Hmm, Sounds like confessions of a crossdresser purloining his sister's clothes to me! :laughing:

It's not hard to see why it became a hit, with its shades of the Beatles, easy melody and the superb hook in the chorus, and the lyric, while a little obscure, is at least earthier than previous attempts. Basically it seems to concern a lazy gardener who is happy mowing lawns and doesn't want to get a job, something that would probably resonate with a lot of the hippies and dropouts who would have been grooving to this.

It did however show the world for the first time that, as well as tricky, intricate compositions that could take up whole sides of albums, this band could write an accessible, catchy hit song. People who had no idea who they were suddenly found themselves dancing to this song. It also became a massive favourite onstage later. Some fine flute from Gabriel adds to the whimsical nature of the song, but then it's back to the serious business with “Firth of Fifth” (those puns just keep coming, don't they?) introduced on a glorious piano solo from Banks, who wrote most of the song himself. It's one of the longer songs on the album, at just over nine and a half minutes, with the first minute taken up by Banks's solo performance. It gets heavier then as the vocal begins, slowing down with a stately and even ominous feel and the lyric ... well, I have no idea what it's about. Something to do with a town flooding? Neptune is mentioned, so it might again be a mythological thing, or an allegory. Or god knows what.

In the third minute Banks comes back with the piano and takes over again for an instrumental piece that runs for five minutes and is attended by some haunting flute from Gabriel, a lovely pastoral piece that soon ramps up as it heads into the fifth minute with trumpeting keys and Collins breaking out the drumkit to carry it along to its sixth minute, where some really nice guitar from Hackett changes the melody slightly, and fools you into thinking that it's ending. But there are yet three minutes to go, and the guitar solos and riffs alongside the keys, taking the piece almost to its triumphant conclusion. Gabriel returns for one last verse in the final minute, and it ends on shimmering piano. Essentially, “Firth of Fifth” is an instrumental with some vocals not quite tacked on, but you can see how it would have worked as a complete instrumental.

This takes us into only the second time Phil Collins has sung on a Genesis album during the Gabriel era. “More Fool Me” is nothing more than a simple ballad, which would be revisited in “Many Too Many” six years later, when he was at the helm and Genesis were releasing their eighth album. Collins sings in a very low and yet falsetto voice, accompanied by Hackett on the guitar and a duet with Gabriel in the chorus; it's a nice little song and something of a novelty, and has a good enough hook in the chorus, but it ends rather too abruptly for me. Mind you, I'd hear it a thousand times rather than endure the next two tracks. This is, for me, where the album takes a serious dip in quality. I've always hated “The Battle of Epping Forest.” I hated it when I first heard it, and I hate it now as I review this album. I always will hate it. It's the most un-Genesis song I've ever heard, with its tale of rival criminal gangs in the East End, and while it's entertaining enough thanks to the humour running through it - ”Liquid Len with his smashed bottle men/ Is lobbing Bob the Nob across the gob” - and starts well with a marching flute melody, it quickly degenerates into something that should not be on any Genesis album, in my opinion.

It's fast and uptempo, it's rock and roll and it has some decent solos and passages, but it's way too long at almost twelve fucking minutes! I know Gabriel was intrigued with the gang wars in London, but being intrigued with something does not necessarily mean that you include it on your album. This song has polarised Genesis fans, and is I believe one of the arguments against this being the classic Genesis album. It's strained, laboured and just completely self-indulgent. I find it hard to really pick out anything good about it. It's another of those character songs, with colourful characters like Liquid Len, Jones the Jug and The Bethnal Green Butcher, but it's nowhere as clever for my money as “Harold the Barrel” or “Get 'em Out By Friday”. It eventually lurches to a close, and the rather appropriately titled “After the Ordeal” is then an instrumental which runs for a mere four minutes, and while I don't like it because of its links to the previous song, it's a whole lot better, driven as it is on piano and guitar and without any annoying lyrics.

The album could have fallen apart here, but luckily it's saved by one more epic, which would again become a favourite live. “Cinema Show” is another of the tracks here that really serves as a long instrumental with some verses thrown in, and it too runs for eleven minutes. Unlike “The Battle of Epping Forest” though, it has a lot to recommend it, though what it's about, well again your guess is as good as mine. It opens on a harpsichordical piano, twelve-string and then flows along slowly as Gabriel sings about Romeo and Juliet, the percussion only coming in after the second verse as the chorus (such as it is) hits. More mythology as he sings about Tiresias, who apparently lived as a man and a woman, and the music runs on rippling piano and a rising guitar line. However, as mentioned, the vocal only really runs for the first four minutes, then it develops into a pretty special instrumental, recalling some of the guitar work from “Supper's Ready” before the whole thing kicks into life and takes on a life of its own. Mostly, it must be said, on Banks's trumpeting keyboards, with some fine drumming from Collins and then in the seventh minute what becomes the signature of the piece comes through, a lovely wandering keyboard run that is quickly joined by the vocal chorus from the ARP Pro Soloist and really adds gravitas to the tune. A great strumming guitar from Hackett and some thick, almost funky bass from Rutherford and the keyboard bubbles all the way to the end, fading right down as it segues into the closer.

Bookending the album perfectly, “Aisle of Plenty” looks into the rise of consumerism and what it means for the English shopkeeper and shopper, and uses many puns on supermarket names in the lyric, such as “Fine Fare discount”, “Tess co-operates” and “the safe way home”. It also uses a reprise of the opening lines and melody from “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight”. The Pro Soloist then runs the show for the closing part, slowly and grandly marching along as Gabriel rattles off various “special offers” to fade.

TRACK LISTING

Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Firth of Fifth
More Fool Me
The Battle of Epping Forest
After the Ordeal
Cinema Show
Aisle of Plenty

If this were truly the quintessential Genesis album, I would expect it to be near perfect, and it's not, far from it. As I said, the overly bloated and so-comical-it's-tragic “Battle of Epping Forest” puts a large blot on what is overall a very decent album, which opens and closes well, but even at that, the better songs on this album survive on their instrumental merit rather than their lyrical, which is at this point unusual for Genesis, who are known for writing deep, thoughtful and meaningful lyrics. The sparsity of the lyric in “Cinema Show” and “Firth of Fifth” really makes the opener the only one that has really good lyrics, and while the closer is clever it's too short to really qualify as any sort of saviour, if one were needed, of the album.

When playing this, which I rarely do, there are then certain points at which I skip over. “More Fool Me” doesn't particularly interest me, and I've made my feelings about the other track clear. “Aisle of Plenty” is great but really only works within the context of the album and so is not a track you take for, say, a compilation or playlist. I've heard “I Know What I Like” so much now that it doesn't really do anything for me any more, but even allowing that in, that leaves half the album I don't care for. I don't call that classic, not by any means.

But they're just my observations. As already mentioned, this got Genesis to number three in the album charts and number twenty-one with the single, so it was certainly a giant leap for them commercially. Unfortunately, rather than capitalise on that popularity, the next year they released a baffling double concept album, the aftermath of which, as we have seen, would lead to the biggest seismic shift in the band as one of the founder members decided to sever the ties and part company with the rest of Genesis.

Rating: 8.2/10 (yeah go on and sue me. The average settlement is ten thousand dollars...)

Always nice to find another Genesis fan who appreciates both eras so I'll forgive your rating for SEBTP.

Yeah that's me. I have no real problem with Collins-era apart from Abacab, nor do I go it's either Fish or Hogarth, though I do of course hold that pre-Hodgson Supertramp was far superior to post. Generally I try to look at the band as a whole unit. The singer is important of course, often vitally so, but he or she is not the only one in the band. Unless the music changes drastically for the worse with the departure of the singer (or any member) I'm happy to keep listening to them.

Been a while since I updated, so let's have a double barman when you're ready there please! First, I did mention at the beginning that I would be featuring albums from those members of Genesis who had solo careers (like, all of them) whether they ran concurrent to or took them away from the band. So far, we've only explored works by Tony Banks and Anthony Phillips, so let's try one from Mike.

Now, Mike began with fairly standard guitar-led prog fare when he released his two solo albums under his own name, but somewhat in the vein of his fellow bandmate he later began to move away from prog, as he formed a band of his own, which became quite popular in its own right (I bet there are people who don't even know he's the founder, or even a member) but mostly on the back of what can only be described as inoffensive pop, lord save us.

Thankfully, though, the first two albums released by Mike + The Mechanics can still lay some sort of claim to being at least semi-prog, at least the first one can.

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Mike + the Mechanics - Mike + The Mechanics (1985)

The funny thing about this album is that I bought it, not because it featured Mike Rutherford; in fact when I purchased the album I was unaware it had any Genesis connections at all, although had I known it would have only strengthened my resolve to buy it. I decided to get the album on the strength of the first song I heard from it (on the radio, I think), which was in fact the opener, “Silent Running”.

I really loved this album. Yes, there are weak tracks on it, though they number very few, and there are no terrible tracks at all. But more than that, there are some absolute gems there. Conceived, as mentioned above, as a side project for Rutherford (whose solo album Acting Very Strange I had already heard and liked), The Mechanics consisted of vocalists Paul Young (no, not that one!) and Paul Carrack, Drummer Peter Van Hooke and keyboards man Adrian Lee, with Rutherford of course taking all guitar and bass duties. In addition to this, they operated something of an “Alan Parsons” setup vocally, with two other singers taking the mike (sorry!) for two of the songs, while Young and Carrack alternated.

As I said, the album opens strongly, on the powerful and dramatic “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)”, which was in fact from the soundtrack to the film On Dangerous Ground. It has a very Genesis-like intro, with humming synth and swirling keys, and then picks up on a really nice beat, until Carrack takes up the vocal, singing a song that warns of nuclear holocaust about to occur. It's mid-paced, very keyboard-driven, which is perhaps unusual for a project created by a guitarist, but it works very well. Carrack's vocals are clear and distinct, and he has a powerful voice which really suits the song. Of course, there is the obligatory and expected guitar solo from Rutherford in the song: no point being the focus of the project if you can't make your presence felt!

I could in fact see it sitting comfortably on their last (to date), Calling All Stations. Interestingly co-authored by pop supremo B.A. Robertson, it’s six minutes long - no prog epic, certainly, but still quite a long track on any other album, and especially to start it. I will admit, there’s a major downturn then for the next track, but then, after “Silent Running” our Mike would have had to have come up with something pretty special, and he, well, did not.

Even at that, the rising squealing keys and ticking percussion that introduce “All I Need is a Miracle” do have proggy overtones, though once the song gets going it’s clearly a pop/rock love type song, and relatively throwaway. Probably why it was released as a single (though the opener was too) and did so well in the USA. Much poppier, more commercially accessible than its predecessor, it was made for the charts, and although both songs did very well when released, initially it would be “Miracle” for which Mike + the Mechanics would be remembered. Until of course, they had bigger hits.



But if you consider “All I Need is a Miracle” a blip, it’s soon overlooked as the quiet, almost cushioned drums of “Par Avion” whisper in, and we have the first ballad on the album. Of course every genre - mostly - has its ballads, and that fact alone doesn’t mark it out as being prog, and in fairness it probably isn’t, but then I could again hear this on a later Genesis album, maybe We Can’t Dance or even earlier, maybe Duke? A new voice to take the mike (sorry) here, one John Kirby, one of two tracks he guests on. Who is he? No idea.

Everything about this is understated: the melody, the percussion, the singing, all gives the impression of a very rare and delicate jewel being carried on a velvet cushion, from the chirping birds and crickets on the intro to the almost Phil Collins-like percussion, the keyboard sweeps, the flutelike passage right at the end. Fragile and lovely.

The quiet restraint of this song is upended entirely by the bombast and thumping attack of the obviously very angry “Hanging by a Thread”, with almost metal-style guitars and drums that just seem to want to punch your head in, Paul Young spitting out the lyric like an accusation. I like the fact that Mike and the Mechanics shuffle the vocalists around here, Young singing some tracks, Carrack others. Keeps it interesting. And Kirby too.

It’s also interesting that this is not altogether a guitar-heavy album; Rutherford made his name of course in Genesis as guitarist/bassist, though he does play keys too. Though not here. Then again, this isn’t strictly speaking a Mike Rutherford solo album, more a band he got together to play music with, but it’s nice to see he can put the axe down from time to time. Not so of course on the current track, which is very rifftastic, with orchestral hits from the synth and has quite the Genesis melody to it, very circa Duke. Almost calypso-style then for “I Get the Feeling”, which makes me shudder a little, bringing back memories of Phil Collins on No Jacket Required as the brass takes over, handclap beats and well, it’s just a pretty weak song, probably one of the weakest on the album, with Carrack back on vocals. Meh.

It’s pretty much top notch from there on in though, as we hit the manic “Take the Reins”, which ramps everything back up on a rock footing, the beat skittering along, the vocal reminding me of a steam locomotive puffing along, a certain air of Huey Lewis about it, then another standout is the gorgeous ballad “You Are the One”, where Kirby makes his second and indeed last contribution to the album. Beautiful piano from Adrian Lee, soft lush synth, just beautiful. And into yet another standout, the very prog-influenced “A Call to Arms”. This was in fact part of a song Rutherford wrote for inclusion on the Genesis album, but nobody except him liked it, so he rewrote it for his own album.

I consider it a companion piece to “Silent Running”, linked musically as well as thematically; if any two tracks on this album can be considered prog-worthy, it’s those two, and the lyrics mesh too. If “Silent Running” is the warning about an impending (nuclear?) disaster - “Take the children and yourself and hide out in the cellar/ By now the fighting will be close at hand” - then “A Call to Arms” seems to me to be either the end of that conflict, or the fight back. Or maybe not. Anyway I link them in my mind and they definitely bookend the album and for my money give it its prog credentials. The sweeping percussion and synth that usher in the song, the pained, aching vocals of both Carrack and Young, the insistent thump of the drums all through it, the dark, ominous atmosphere that permeates the music, all make this a real treat to listen to.

It's a great song. Powerful, dramatic, effective and emotional. Opening with a gush of powerful piano and keyboards, it rides along on a punchy melody, with drums very reminiscent indeed of those used on "Mama", the opener to Genesis' 1983 album. Would have been a great closer, but there's one more track to go. Sadly, after the majesty of “A Call to Arms”, closer “Taken in” comes across very much as tacked-on, a filler track that should really not have been included, or at least should not have been the last track on the album. As I have said before, it's the last track on an album you're always left humming, and I'd much rather be humming “A Call to Arms” than “Taken in”, which is I feel very lightweight and inconsequential.


TRACK LISTING

1. Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)
2. All I Need is a Miracle
3. Par Avion
4. Hanging By a Thread
5. I Get the Feeling
6. Take the reins
7. You Are the One
8. A Call to Arms
9. Taken in

Rating: 8.6/10

And speaking of that 1983 album...

I have, as those who have read my writings before are aware, a bugbear about bands who title any album other than their first with their name. I understand the idea behind self-titling your debut: you want to get your name out there, you want the album to reflect who you are, or maybe you just can't think up a cool title. That's okay. You can even call your other albums [Insert band name here] II, III, IV etc. No problem with that. But when you've released eleven albums, with creative titles like Wind and Wuthering, Nursery Cryme and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, you're surely not stuck for ideas. So maybe the album title was conceived in a last-ditch attempt to show people that the Genesis on Abacab was not the real Genesis, that here they were getting back to basics?

Well, that's a fine idea, but the trouble is that the twelfth album did nothing of the sort. While I was glad to hear the mellotron back in service after so long away, and the album does have one epic, fairly progressive-ish song, generally it's a continuation of the previous outing, with pop songs and a lot of humour too, some of it perhaps very misplaced, as I shall explain later. This, after all, was the album that Kerrang! Called “A Genesis album for people who hate Genesis.” Not good. Not good at all.

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Genesis (1983)

Nevertheless, despite or perhaps even because of that, they scored another number one with the album and their highest ever single chart placing, when “Mama”, the opening track, went to number four in the UK. Even in the hard-to-crack US market, it hit number nine. So maybe they made the right decision. Well, commercially they had of course, but I'm sure they began shedding fans by the cartload with the onslaught begun by Abacab, continued here and with the next album almost banging in the final nails in what was Genesis's progressive rock coffin. Naturally, millions stayed true to them, but for diehard Genesis fans who had grown up on the seventies material, well, if they wanted slick pop songs there was hundreds of bands they could listen to, and they must have wondered, as did I at the time, where their band had gone?

It is however an encouraging start, as “Mama” opens with breathy, determined drumming from Collins and then that familiar wailing keyboard from Tony Banks opens the song, although I see from the lineup that the drumming was done by a machine, operated by Rutherford! Says it all, really. The most signature sound to this album, almost, and it's not even the drummer making, or even operating the machine that's making it. The vocal contains a harsh, almost mocking laugh from Collins, followed by a sort of groan, which became the hook in the song, because to be honest it's not that super a track otherwise. It's interesting, and it sold, as I say, taking it to the fourth position in the charts in the UK, the highest Genesis had ever been in their career, but at its heart it's a song about a man wanting to visit a hooker, and let's be honest here, that's not the sort of subject matter we've been used to hearing Genesis sing about. They had left the airy-fairy castles, as I think Gabriel referred to their earlier lyrics, behind with the earthy honesty of The Lamb, but sort of returned to them for the first two albums without him, whereas with ... And Then There Were Three..., Duke and Abacab they had returned slightly there, with songs like “The Lady Lies”, “Cul de sac” and “Dodo”, among others, but here they were taking a stab at being a sort of “urban” band, without the real street cred to do so.

The song is also too long at nearly seven minutes, though it does work well. Generally speaking however, it is pretty much the same melody running through it, and very much the verse/verse/chorus/verse structure they had so actively tried to keep away from in the early days. If that wasn't bad enough, the next track, another single, bops along like some latter-day Beatles pop song (written in fact by Collins in tribute to the Fab Four; that's fine, but why didn't he keep it for his solo albums?) and “That's All” demonstrates the ordinary, chart-pleasing direction in which most if not all of Genesis's music was heading at this point. It's okay; I like the song, but there's no way anyone would recognise it as a Genesis song. Driven on a bouncy bass and jangly guitar with Banks relegated to some honky-tonk piano, it's not quite “The Fountain of Salmacis”, now is it? It didn't do as well as “Mama” here (though it reached number six in Ireland, shame on us!) but oddly performed much better across the great shining sea, where the Americans lapped up its easy pop sensibilities and pushed it to number six. Sigh.

The only real relief then comes in the form of the only song on the album that could really be called progressive rock, a two-part semi-suite (sorry Tom!) in which the first, shorter part is called “Home By the Sea” and is vocal, the second, far longer one being an instrumental, almost, up until the point Collins comes in with a reprise of the lyric from the first part, and it's called, ingeniously, “Second Home By the Sea”. It's still my favourite on the album by miles, with its hard-edged guitar riff opening it, Banks then coming in with the familiar lush keyboards we've missed so much, a bouncy vocal from Collins reminding me in ways of “Robbery, Assault and Battery”. I think it's about a haunted place, but I really don't know. As Collins sings ”Help us someone! Let us out of here!/ We're living here so long undisturbed/ Dreaming of a time we were free” you get the idea of people being trapped here, unable to leave and relating their story to new arrivals, who perhaps then get trapped too.

The second part of the song, as I say, “Second Home By the Sea”, runs for over six minutes --- actually there's not the huge difference between the two that I thought: one is 4:46 and the other 6:22 --- and slips easily in from the first part, driven on powerful drumming and a trumpeting keyboard, with some fine and even funky guitar licks from Mike Rutherford, and it's a small echo of the Genesis I used to know until it fades almost away, to be replaced by this new “pop” band who call themselves Genesis. It's interesting when the vocal comes back in at the end; you've more or less expected this will be an instrumental all the way, then, like “Duke's Travels” the vocal just slides in, and it's quite effective.

The rest of the album is garbage. That's not fair, but in all fairness, it struggles to recover from the execrable “Illegal Alien”, where Genesis go out of their way to mock Mexicans, and come very close to racism, all in the name of humour. That's all very well, but when you say things in the lyric like ”Over the border there/ Lies the promised land/ Where everything comes easy/ You just hold out your hand” and ”I've got a sister who'll/ Be willing to oblige/ She will do anything now/ To help me get to the outside” you can't help but think they're denigrating a whole country and their attempts to carve out a new life for themselves in the USA. And they're not even American! The video for the single (yes, it was released as a single, and flopped badly, especially in America) doesn't help, with the guys dressed as Mexicans and affecting the accent, demonstrating every Mexican stereotype you can think of. It's a poppy, boppy song which introduces for I think the first time trumpet on a Genesis album, played by Phil Collins (Oh no I'm wrong aren't I? They had a whole damn horn section on Abacab) just to give it that “authentic” Mexican flavour. Madre de dos dios!* I really have a problem with this song. If they had even engaged some Mexican musicians to help on it, it might have given it a bit more credibility, but as it stands it just seems like one of the nastiest, most racist songs written in the eighties, all under the guise of “comedy” or “satire”. Yeah, I know: it's all in good fun. But is it?

It's a poor crop after that. Almost as if there is a dark spirit hovering over the album, nothing can really lift the feeling of anger and disgust that lingers after “Illegal Alien”, and while “Taking it All Too Hard” might be the band's unconscious attempts to say “Look man, it was just a joke!” it doesn't work. Collins ditches the false moustache and sombrero, and the terrible accent, and knuckles down to what is essentially a ballad, the first on the album, but the sentiments don't ring true and it just sounds to me like a half-hearted attempt at a not-really-sincere apology. Nice bright keys from Banks, a soft sort of laidback feel to the song, but the opening verse, when Collins sings ”I know you'll never admit/ You were ever really to blame/ Everything's a game to you” sound like the response of the fans (or ex-fans) south of the border. The lines ”I cannot help you/ It's much too late” seem to say it all.

Then again, it could be deeper and perhaps darker than that. I realise I'm making my own interpretation of the lyric here, and could be totally wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but when I think about it now, this almost seems more like Genesis castigating the fans who won't get on board with the new sound. When Collins sings "Oh no, not the same mistakes again/ You're taking it all too hard" he could be venting exasperation at the "old" fans, while this almost seems to be backed up by "The old days are gone/ And they're better left alone/ I cannot help you/ It's much too late" which really seems to be a smack in the teeth for the older fans. Mind you, there is a line which looks to be a sort of possible regret, when Collins mutters, almost ashamedly, "But I still miss you/ I keep it to myself."

If I may digress slightly here (who am I talking to? Nobody's reading this!) one of the things that really annoys me about prog rock bands is their eventual need to distance themselves from the label. Marillion are the same, and though I love them, it's hard to hear that your idols are now essentially denigrating their past work. I mean, when Genesis were churning out top prog albums like Trespass and Foxtrot they didn't have a problem being called progressive rock. They even gloried in it to an extent. But now, suddenly, in the space of five years, they're turning their back on their roots and their old fans. Talk about ungrateful. They're not the only ones, but it hurts, coming from a band I've followed pretty much all my life.

“Just a Job to Do” merges the world of “new” Genesis and Collins's own solo career in a sort of fast, funky number which seems to refer to (allegorically or otherwise) a hitman of some sort, but again aspects of the possible apology for “Illegal Alien” persist as he sings the opening lines ”It's no use saying that it's all right”. Indeed. The shouts of ”Bang! Bang! Bang!/ And down you go!” are a world away from ”Crawlers covered the floor/ In the red and ochre corridor”. The tune itself is okay and there's a great melody to it, but it's so un-Genesis (or what I thought of as Genesis anyway) it just hurts. “Silver Rainbow” is probably one of the weakest tracks on the album, and does nothing for me with its marching beat and semi-sexual innuendo in the lyric; the vocal harmonies are terrible (something Genesis used to be able to do so well) and the obvious theft of some of Gabriel's own solo rhythms for the opening is almost sad. The lyric is terrible: ”If you're sitting there beside her/ And a bear comes in the room” --- uh, what? The chorus is just awful and thrown together.

There's some respite at the end, as the album makes a valiant effort to rally and almost allows the band to pull it out of the fire in the eleventh hour, with a song that perhaps makes a promise, a promise the band failed to keep on the next album. “It's Gonna Get Better” swells up on Banks's swirling Hammond organ and has a really old-style Genesis melody about it, another ballad yes but a good one. It's not good enough though for me to ignore the last four tracks, and I ended the album more on a hopeful note than an expectant one with this ringing in my ears. Had I known what was coming, perhaps I would just have left it at that.

TRACK LISTING

Mama
That's All
Home By the Sea
Second Home By the Sea
Illegal Alien
Taking it All Too Hard
Just a Job to Do
Silver Rainbow
It's Gonna Get Better

It's hard to see why Genesis changed so much over the course of three albums - well, no it isn't. It's all about popularity, money and chart singles of course. Probably on the back of the success both of “Follow You Follow Me” and Collins's solo career taking off, Genesis must have realised this was the way to go, and certainly with a chart-topping single of his own under his belt, Collins was likely to bring more chart-friendly ideas to his songwriting, and the other two would have been possibly influenced by this. Or maybe they were just fed-up being a band who could sell out huge arenas but had had no chart success. Whatever the reason, it seems they actively went after hit singles here, and the closing line on this album, "It's time for a change” left little doubt that they were preparing to, and working towards, leaving behind their roots and becoming just another pop band.

As the next album would unreservedly show.

Rating: 7.2/10

* And yes, I'm acutely aware of the irony of castigating Genesis over stereotyping Mexicans and then using a stereotypical phrase. ! Ay caramba!

Honestly I think the first side of Genesis s/t is fantastic and it's the best pop music the trio ever did. Mama deserves it's reputation as the best single to come out of the Phil era, just everything from the atmosphere and production to the way it builds and builds leading into the most intense vocal performance Phil has ever done. That's All may be an easy listening pop song but it's a great easy listening pop song, it's even the song that got me into Genesis in the first place so I have a sentimental attachment to it I admit. And finally Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea is one excellent last jab at that prog rock/new wave sweet spot they found with Duke.

I agree that side B is a huge letdown, I wouldn't say any of the tracks are bad except Illegal Alien which is the most embarrassing "WTF" moment of their entire career and why anyone thought opening up the second side with THAT was a good idea I will never know, there had to be cocaine involved, the rest is decent but nothing special, if the rest of the album was as strong as those first 4 tracks it could have been in the same league as Duke, perhaps even better.

Anyway you have my condolences when the time comes for you to do Calling All Stations.

I agree with you on pretty much all counts there, but when I bought that album - particularly as I was still seeing my shrink about the after-effects of Abacab! - I had hoped for and expected more. Yes, the "first side" is a good pop record, but I didn't buy a pop record, or at least I hadn't intended to. I wanted a Genesis album, an album that was, at least somewhat, prog rock. With a more or less steady decline from ATTW3 through Duke (though these are both excellent albums, don't get me wrong, and each holds its own prog credentials, but you could see where they were going) to Abacab they had slowly but surely begun to shed the prog influences. Songs were shorter, more commercial, more radio-friendly. Lyrical matter changed from fantasy and classical literature to love songs and the odd political one, comic songs and just have a good time songs. You could say their music became even more outside-of-Genesis-fandom friendly, or even more out-of-proghead-territory-friendly. I guess I heard "Mama" and thought now that sounds more like Genesis, but it really doesn't; it just sounds so much better than "Abacab", but that wouldn't be hard.

I guess it all started with "Follow You Follow Me" becoming a hit, and the band realising that after a career spanning, at that point, nearly twenty years, and not really having any other hits (other than "I Know What I Like") that they could have them, they could write them, and so they did. "Turn it On Again" was a huge hit from Duke, as was "Misunderstanding", and then we got the A-album. This self-titled (again, why?) helped them continue that trend of hits, culminating in, as already discussed, Invisible Touch, where there were four hits singles and only one track you could call prog-worthy. It might seem hyperbole, but it was for me kind of watching a loved one die.

No of course it wasn't: that is hyperbole, but it was like watching my own youth slip away maybe. These guys had been with me from the start: in my old original journal the first album I review is Seconds Out, and I note it was both the first time I heard Genesis and the first time I became aware of prog rock. I was 17 at the time, so now that I'm 58 that means they were with me all my life and part of my growing up, and it was hard to see them go, to see them change, and to see them really no longer be a band I was that bothered about.

Well I got into Genesis in the mid-00s when I started getting into prog rock as a whole, Prog Archives was like this magical gateway to a whole world of music I previously knew nothing about because it wasn't what was getting played on classic rock radio.

I got into prog Genesis first and I knew how much the prog community hated Genesis's later stuff but I gave it a chance anyway, I never understood the hate for 80s Genesis and now that I'm an unapologetic fan of overproduced 80s pop music as a whole I still don't, but I hadn't grown up with the band when they were current, I'm sure it hit different for people who grew up with them and saw them transform into a completely different band in real time.

As a newcomer I already knew there were two drastically different eras and that one was much more beloved by fans than another, I knew the 80s stuff was polarizing going in so I set my expectations accordingly, which I think allowed me to appreciate it for what it was.

Okay, well it seems in terms of Genesis the band - leaving aside any solo efforts I might look into later - we have three albums left. By a staggering coincidence, two of them are the debut and their final album, so this discography can be bookended by those two, which will finish it up nicely with a sort of before and after (though not really showcasing, with either album, the best of this fascinating band).

That leaves us with this, which kind of becomes a bridge between "old", Hackett-esque Genesis and the slowly emerging pop sound to be championed by Collins, though in fairness he can't be made to shoulder all the blame.

Just most of it.

During the recording sessions for Wind and Wuthering, Steve Hackett had been more than annoyed to find that most of the suggestions he put forward for songs to be included on the album were rejected, in favour of compositions written by mostly Tony Banks, whose work is all over that album. Added to this, the fact that he was getting burned out by touring (1976/77 had seen Genesis undergo not one but two extensive tours, supporting both albums) and had already made inroads into a solo career, he decided to quit the band in 1977, leaving Genesis as a trio composed of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. They would remain this way until their very last album.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Were_Three.jpg
...And Then There Were Three... (1978)

Although this would become something of a seachange for Genesis, as they ditched entirely the longer songs, moved away from the more progressive rock direction of previous albums (especially Wind and Wuthering) and towards a more standard rock/pop format, it starts off as you would expect a Genesis album to, with lonely, almost keening keyboards rising into the tune, but as the guitar snarls in (yeah, it does, sort of) the percussion takes a weird kind of syncopated rhythm and we discover that “Down and Out” is one of the many songs on this album to move away from fantasy or historical themes, in somewhat the same way as its predecessor did, and more into the real world. As we listen, it's the tale of a man being fired by his boss, who seems to take pleasure in delivering the news personally. It's got a real punch to it, with Rutherford really stepping up as now the main and only guitarist, and Collins well settled in his role as the band's vocalist and revelling in it.

”Don't hedge your bets” suggests he, ”We can make a deal.” Perhaps appealing to the departing/departed Hackett? It's an interesting parallel to their own careers as he sings ”You can't go on like this forever/ So it's with regret I tell you now/ That from this moment on/ You're on your own!” Some great guitar work from Mike, with Tony's keyboards somewhat in the background but still fighting for their place, and Phil's drumming running the whole thing. “Undertow” is a more relaxed song, mostly a ballad, exhorting us to live every day as if it were our last. It's a Banks solo, one of four on the album, on which the songwriting duties are pretty evenly shared between the guitarist and the keysman, with Rutherford writing three solo, and Collins only involved on four, and none solo. A lovely soft piano opens “Undertow” with a gentle vocal from Collins, the lyric almost reflecting the album cover as he sings ”Some there are; cold/ They prepare for a sleepless night/ Maybe this will be their last fight.”

It ramps up then on the drums and into the chorus, which has a fantastic hook, one of the best Genesis have written to date. There's amazing emotion in it, as Collins's voice rises in passion as he sings, the vocal falling then at the end of the chorus and back into the softer, lower tone of the verse. It's no surprise that piano and synth rule this song, being composed by Banks, but the next one is a joint effort and, I have to say, one of the single worst Genesis songs I have ever had the misfortune to have to listen to. A real candidate for skipping over, in my case, if ever there was one. “Ballad of Big” sees the guys trying to cash in on the Country and Western folk tale, as they sing of Big Jim Cooley who tried to drive his cattle through Indian infested country, and ”Died like all good cowboys/ With his boots on/ Next to his men.” Yeah, who the fuck cares? After the two opening tracks, this is a serious comedown and unfortunately a pointer to how the second half of the album will go. Not all of it, but much of it.

It starts off well, with a humming piano and synth line, and Tony's Pro Soloist setting up the choral vocal, then guitar takes over and the whole thing just descends into farce. It's not that it's not played well or has no melody, as it certainly does, but come on: a song about a fucking rancher driving his herd across a pass? On a Genesis album? What's next? A song about Mexicans trying to get into .... oh. Wait.

No, I just hate this damn song. Luckily it's followed by two standouts, the first being a gorgeous little ballad, the first written by Rutherford on his own, and “Snowbound” returns a little to the fantasy imagery on which Genesis built their early reputation, with the story of a traveller who lies down in the snow one night to awake and find he is a living snowman. The snow has covered him up, and now ”Smiling children tear your body to the ground/ Covered red that only we can see”. It's quite gory in its way, certainly for a Genesis song, and driven on some sublime twelve-string with the Pro Soloist backing it up, a gentle vocal from Collins until he reaches the chorus, where the full horror of what is happening is underlined by his powerful voice as he sings ”Pray! Pray for the snowman!”

Again, a perfect hook in the chorus and some lovely shimmering keyswork from Banks, powerful drumming from Collins punctuating the tune. But Banks has another trick up his sleeve, and “Burning Rope” closes out the second side with a triumphant flourish, its rising keyboard line climbing like the very person in the lyric who ”Climbed upon a burning rope/ To escape the mob below” with a real sense of panic and urgency in the music. The piano and synth solo that opens the song is brilliant, one of Banks's best and most jaunty, and ushers it in perfectly. Genesis have certainly acquired here the magic touch, with hooky melodies that should have yielded them several hit singles. Collins is in fine form vocally too, and to mark how much this album changes Genesis, this is the longest song at just over seven minutes.

I have no idea what it's about of course (so they haven't changed that much!) but it seems to nod back to “Undertow” with the idea that we need to live our lives and not let time pass us by and run out on us. When Collins sings ”Don't leave today to tomorrow/ Like you were immortal” the message is clear. Perhaps the burning rope is a representation of our lives, smouldering away, shortening with every passing year, leaving us less and less options? Great guitar solo from Rutherford and a powerful declension into the final verse and chorus and a big bombastic ending.

This is, however, where the album begins to dip, and seriously. The stark ringing guitar that opens “Deep in the motherlode” is effective, but when we find out it's another song of the Old West, with its chorus ”Go West, young man/ On a dollar a day/ Just like your family said” it's to me something of a disappointment. Nevertheless, it's driven by a grinding, bouncing guitar and a thumping bass from Rutherford, and the melody is very engaging. There's a nice sort of low-key midsection, then a great growling chugging guitar from Rutherford before it heads into the final verse. “Many Too Many”, as I have already intimated in the review of Selling England by the Pound is to me just a rewritten “More Fool Me”; it's a simple ballad, open and honest and almost painful it the vulnerability shown through the lyric - ”Thing I find strange is the way you built me up/ To knock me down again” - and runs on a beautiful piano from Banks, but to me it's more an ELO style song than a Genesis one.

Again, it's a Banks solo number, a nice ballad but it just feels a little simple and almost poppy, perhaps indicating the direction the band would soon head, leaving mostly their progressive rock roots far behind them, and shedding fans in the process. Although I like “Scenes from a Night's Dream”, and it gets everything jumping nicely after the ballad, I did think originally it was just about some kid's dreams. Now I find it's actually based on a comic book character, called Little Nemo. Hmm. Well it's boppy enough, with a hard rock guitar and the guys certainly have fun with it; it allows them to look back to their previous lyrical subjects ”Dragons breathing fire, but friendly/ Mushrooms tall as houses” --- while cocking an amused eye at them, as if saying “used we to write that kind of stuff?” Rutherford certainly enjoys himself on the guitar, driving the song along joyfully.

Things don't improve when we drop right back down again for the moody, almost film noir “Say it's Alright Joe”, a dark, jazzy look at a barfly crying into his drink and telling his problems to his bartender. It's the last solo Rutherford piece, and as he says himself it was to be something of a play on the Dean Martin “Set 'em Up Joe” idea, turning that on its head. It's very morose though, the antithesis of the previous song. Lovely strummed guitar from Mike runs it nicely, backed up by sombre piano from Banks. Fun fact: in the lyric Collins says ”Gonna build myself a tower/ No way in, no way out” and years later he would rob these lines for his second solo album, when on the song “Thru these walls” he would sing ”Ooh I'm feeling like I'm locked in a cage/ No way in, no way out”. It also I guess nods back a little to The Lamb, where the lyric in "The Carpet Crawl" mentions "Gotta get in to get out".

The sudden change to uptempo with almost orchestral keyboard comes as a shock, and I feel doesn't gell well with the dark, bitter tone of the rest of the song. It also doesn't last, and slides quickly back down into the maudlin pit of despair the song has languished in from the start. I suppose I should be fair here: these are not terrible songs, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that, given how well and how strongly the album opened, pretty much right up to the end of side one, the last four tracks are quite weak in comparison. Luckily the album rallies at the end, with the bouncy but dark “The Lady Lies”, which warns against rushing in before you check what you're rushing into, as a man is lured into rescuing a lady, who is in fact a demon in disguise, and his fate is sealed. Using her feminine wiles she seduces him, and as Collins declares ”Who can escape what he desires?” Great piano, howling synth and some strong guitar make this another standout, with some of that almost “Enossification” in the voices at the end when the demon reveals itself, grinning ”So glad you could make it/ We've had everything arranged/ So glad you saw fit to pay a call”. Powerful piano ending to fade, and then we're into the closer.

There surely can't be anyone, even those many who hate Genesis, who don't know their most famous and commercially successful single, and “Follow You Follow Me”, while weak and insipid as a closer, hit a chord with general music fans and took them to the number seven slot in the UK charts, and allowed them their first ever break into the US top 40. The album itself got to number three in the UK, their highest ever placing. The song rides on a soft, gentle guitar melody with crooning synth from Banks, and it's the simplest of simple love songs, which may explain why it did so well when other singles down the years bombed. If anything, though it was a clear indication of a change in direction by Genesis to a more commercial, pop-oriented format, this was the first nail, as it were, in the coffin of their progressive rock past. Would the fans then, follow them?

TRACK LISTING

Down and Out
Undertow
Ballad of Big
Snowbound
Burning Rope
Deep in the Motherlode
Many Too Many
Scenes from a Night's Dream
Say it's Alright Joe
The Lady Lies
Follow You Follow Me

Whatever you think of them though, Genesis had proved with this album that not only were they survivors, having lost a longtime member (again), but that they could capitalise on their talents, band together and release an album that would be their most successful ever, and even give them a top ten hit, introducing the band, if only through that song, to those outside of their fanbase and outside of progressive rock, something that had really never happened before. “I Know What I Like” had broken them into the charts but was quickly forgotten after the initial success, and for those outside of the Genesis camp, the band faded away into obscurity. With “Follow You Follow Me”, they had written a lovesong anthem that would never be forgotten, and produced an album that, while pushing them in ever a more standard rock/pop direction, was certainly consolidating their success and making sure that they would survive the death of prog rock as the seventies drew to a close.

Rating: 7.9/10

Phil gets way too much of the blame for the band going into a more mainstream direction, they were already on that path before Phil even started contributing his own songs (which started with Duke) and if anything it was was Mike who pushed them in that direction, he was the one who penned Your Own Special Way and Follow You Follow Me and those were the real turning points for the band.

Anyway ATTWT is an underrated one, even the band seems to be ashamed of it and I don't understand why, it's not one of their top tier works by any means but it's hardly a disaster, I really like The Lady Lies in particular.

Yeah I agree: a flawed maybe not masterpiece but certainly an opus. I'm quite fond of it (not as fond as I am of Duke though). I guess Phil gets the blame mostly because he was the one who had the successful pop solo career first (you couldn't call Peter's initial albums pop really; more art rock if anything) and then he had to include that bloody jazzy version of "Behind the Lines" on Face Value, which just tied him forever to the change in Genesis.

To be fair, his first two albums were reasonably proggy. Leave out "You Can't Hurry Bloody Love" from Hello I Must Be Going, it's a decently dark album ("Through These Walls", "Do You Know, Do You Care", "It Don't Matter to Me" and so on). It's really only when No Jacket Required hits that Phil goes totally pop, with not a prog vein in that album or really after. It really came home to me when a DJ played I think it was "No Son of Mine" and introduced it as a Phil Collins song!

But yeah, Mike and his Mechanics have a lot to answer for, there's no doubt. Two good semi-prog albums and then, cry Money! and let slip the dogs of pop!

I love pop music and 80s pop music in particular so it really isn't a big deal to me, and if making pop music was that easy every prog band that "sold out" would have pulled it off, Genesis and Yes did, ELP however did not.

I know a lot of prog fans hate pop music, I used to have that attitude to an extent and it closed me off from a lot of music I eventually fell in love with. I don't really care how complex or simple a piece of music is as long as it grabs me and for that I'll take Daft Punk over Dream Theater any day of the week.

I'm of your mind really. I don't hate pop music, though I find a lot of it very surface (duh) with nothing to say to me. However I do have a problem with a band who essentially helped kickstart the prog rock movement turning into just another pop band. Like you, not a fan of Dream Theater, or any other band who can be fairly accused of what I term "technical wankery", as unfortunately too many prog bands can.

Okay then, time to wrap this up, and as I mentioned before, I'm left to bookend the discography with the debut and their final album. Here's the debut. If you've not heard it before, prepare to be....

disappointed.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Revelation.jpg
From Genesis to Revelation (1969)

As I've said many times before, I do not consider the debut Genesis album anywhere near progressive rock. Whether it was the youth of the guys (all nineteen bar Anthony Phillips, who was eighteen; is there any significance to the fact that every member of the original Genesis lineup, bar Phillips, was born in 1950?) which led to a lack of confidence in themselves, or the rigid control exerted by Jonathan King, or even indeed the fact that they were yet maturing as songwriters, From Genesis to Revelation has more in common with a folk record than a prog rock one. It's not even that good: I can pick out a handful of decent tracks, but most of the rest is pretty dire, and there was at that point no real indication of the heights these guys (well, three of them anyway, with a fourth to join later) would scale and the mark they would make on music in general, and progressive rock music in particular.

Genesis believe they owe a great debt to King, who did after all discover them and, though losing interest as they refused to conform to his idea of what the band should be (ie one that would make him money with hit singles) and leaving them to hook up with Tony Stratton-Smith at Charisma Records, it has to be admitted and accepted that without King's patronage and yes, money, Genesis as we know them today would probably never have existed. Stop cheering there, Frownland! Mike Rutherford has pointed out on record that back in those days, just getting into the studio to record was a huge deal, and actually landing a recording contract, especially at their young age and with no background or body of work to look to, was little short of a miracle. However, Genesis would only begin to come into their own the next year, when they released what I, and most fans, see as their first real album.

But back to this one. It opens on a very hippy guitar and keyboard line, with Peter Gabriel's soft, cultured and very English voice exhorting people to ”Come and join us now.” Choral vocals (which I have to assume, back then when synthesisers were really only in their infancy, are made by the boys themselves singing) clash somewhat with an almost Latin kind of rhythm before Tony Banks's piano takes the tune, and though this is 1969 there's still a lot of the hippy flower power ideal in the lyric here, lots of getting back to nature, living with the animals, love and peace, man and so on. Finger-clicking now as the song heads into its conclusion, fading out on a nice bassy piano from Banks, but it's hardly the first salvo in a barrage that looked destined to take on the world!

The Wiki entry mentions that King wanted this album to be a concept one based on the Bible, but other than a title or two here, I really don't see it, and never have. To me, it's just a loose collection of songs with the odd theme running through them, such as nature, innocence, peace and love. Very simple, very dated, very formulaic, even for the time. All that said, “In the Beginning” has quite a dark little bass line and skips along on a nice organ line from Banks, Peter's voice stronger and starting to betray the Hammillisms that it would develop on the next album, the kind of harsh, angry, almost sneering quality he could turn on and off at will. This song has at least got some teeth, whereas the other was just so weak and annoying. We get to see what Rutherford can do on the guitar as he actually rocks out a little, and there's much more energy about this. Nice little bass solo, short but effective, and the song itself is clearly based on the likes of The Beatles and Herman's Hermits, that sort of thing. Maybe the Animals.

One of the standouts comes in the form of “Fireside Song”, which opens on a soft piano line that would later become inextricably linked with Tony Banks and would run such songs as “One for the Vine” and “Please Don't Ask”, but that fades out and acoustic guitar is married to rather lovely strings (arranged by King, and in fairness he knew what he was doing, as they really make the song) as Gabriel reverts to his soft, almost apologetic vocal style, with some really nice vocal harmonies coming in on the chorus. I always find it amusing how English singers are so careful to pronounce every word properly: whereas an American or other singer might sing “Once upon a time there was confusion, disappointment, fear and disillusion”, Gabriel uses proper diction, singing “Once up-on a time there was con-fus-ion, dis-ap-point-ment, fear and (never an) dis-ee-loo-see-on.”Oh yes: every “t” and “d” is perfectly pronounced, not a usage of “while” once it can be “whilst”. Those crazy English, huh? Be that as it may, it's a lovely song and it's well titled, the first time when I initially listened to the album that I felt there might actually be something here. Mind you, then the longest track is “The Serpent”, and it's kind of like listening to someone trying to copy Jim Morrison, but working in entirely the wrong medium. The song even has a faux start with a kind of guitar/bass opening that then just completely fades away and plays no part in the song that follows. And yes, I get the Biblical reference again. I didn't say there weren't Biblical songs on the album, just that I don't see it as a concept based on the Good Book.

The organ plays a very prominent part in this, but really only succeeds in making the Doors comparisons even stronger, while “Am I Very Wrong?” has another lovely soft piano intro and a gentle vocal from Gabriel, with what sounds like flute - I know he plays it, so I wonder is it him? The song then gets a little harder as Banks hits the piano keyboard more forcefully, but it returns to the softer style then. It's probably a good example of how versatile Gabriel's voice would get, not quite changing from soft whisper to unhinged cackle here, but you can tell he was going to be a rare talent in the future. However if there's a real glimpse of what he would become it's in “In the Wilderness”, which is about as close to a song from Trespass as you can get, even invoking memories of the later “Visions of Angels” from that album. Definitely one of my favourites on the album, and again it has that string accompaniment which really makes such a difference. This is actually a song I would prefer to be longer, but it's quite short, with a lovely piano outro too.

This motif is then taken up briefly by Rutherford on the guitar as we head into the hippy-inspired “The Conqueror”, which does little for me. It kind of has elements of early Floyd in it, I feel, and again Gabriel's vocal is strong and powerful, but the song itself is unimaginative and quite repetitive, while “In Hiding” has a lot more of Gabriel's presence in it, even if it does have a kind of too-jangly guitar, which the strings soften well. Naive as it may be lyrically, “One Day” is another standout, and the addition of trumpets works surprisingly well on the chorus. I hear elements of later “Stagnation” here and maybe even “Harlequin”. Lots of that affinity with nature I spoke of earlier in this song, and again very effective backing vocals, something that in fact Genesis would pare back after the next album, leaving Gabriel to drive the songs in his own inimitable way.

A nice kind of jangly piano opening “Window” (hah!) with some more of that flute, though lower register this time, so I have a feeling it's part of the orchestration, maybe clarinet or oboe or something. Another gentle vocal, very hippy/mother nature in the lyric, and yes it's another standout, one of the better tracks, and yet this simplicity in their music would disappear in the face of the much longer and more complicated song structures that the band would pursue from 1970 onwards, though it would resurface in shorter tracks like “More Fool Me” and “For Absent Friends” among others. “In Limbo” is very wishy-washy though, too much of the jazz and touches of soul in it for my tastes, but then the almost classical piano on “Silent Sun” is quite nice, though that's about as much as I can say about it. It's pretty obvious that it was intended as a single. And it was. And failed. Miserably. The album ends then on the shortest track. “A Place to Call My Own” runs for three seconds short of two minutes, and it's a really nice, low-key ending to what is generally a pretty low-key album, and on the face of it, probably exists as something of an embarrassment to a band who went on to find such fame.

TRACK LISTING

Where the Sour Turns to Sweet
In the Beginning
Fireside Song
The Serpent
Am I Very Wrong?
In the Wilderness
The Conqueror
In Hiding
One Day
Window
In Limbo
Silent Sun
A Place to Call My Own

As I said, if you had been listening to Genesis prior to this album and only went backwards later, as I did, to check out the earlier stuff, you might be hard-pressed to believe this was the same band. It's quite incredible really how much and how startlingly they changed in less than a year, and by the release of their second album they had parted company with Jonathan King, cut their first proper progressive rock album, and were on their way to spearheading the first wave of progressive rock in Britain. Of course, they would not achieve fame until much later, but before that happened they would release a slew of classic albums that would make the memory of this third-rate debut a very dim and thankfully forgotten one indeed.

Rating: 5.2/10

Captain Sensible once said it was the only good Genesis album, real joker that guy.

It's ok for what it is, but it's just run of the mill baroque pop without the strong melodies or hooks of better works in that genre, also the production sounds like mud.

All good things...

Nothing lasts forever. Footballers retire, film stars realise the party is over and it's time to go, and authors write their last book. So too with bands. No band will ever stay on the road or in the studio till they die. At some point they realise that the moment has arrived to call time and wind things up. Sometimes this is a conscious, unanimous decision, as in the examples of REM and a-ha - going out, as the former noted on their final live farewell album, on a high note, and sometimes it's circumstances making it impossible for the band to continue, whether through the passing of members, such as Queen and Lizzy (don't talk to me about Paul Rodgers!) or a general dissatisfaction among the band, a point where they just decide that's it, time to go.

Often this can lead to some pretty startling revelations, if you know where to look, both in the studio and onstage, as years or even decades of being together and perhaps putting up with one another's foibles and idiosyncrasies come to a head, tempers fray and barriers long erected and solid come crashing down. In the last moments before they metaphorically or literally leave the stage, a whole lot can be read into the final product of a band who have been together for a long time.



And so we come to the end of a mostly glittering and successful career for a band who mostly imploded under the weight of solo projects, personality clashes, and the desire for hit singles. In many ways, this is the Genesis album that should never have been made. As I noted in my review of their penultimate offering, We Can't Dance, that album was set up for their swan song, even containing as its last track a poignant farewell to the fans (if you read between the lines) with the last word being "remember".

I would much rather have remembered Genesis by that album, which for all its faults kicks the **** out of this one, but no, for some reason after Phil left, Tony and Mike decided they would go on, and would recruit a new vocalist. The last time - the only time - Genesis had changed singers was in 1975, more than twenty years ago, so this had to be seen as a bad idea.

It was.

And so, instead of the sublime (at least by comparison) album the original members could all have bowed out on, holding their heads relatively high, we're left with this bastardised monster, a kind of hodge-podge of ideas and tunes, the odd good track, a decent singer who undertook a worse challenge than Blaze Bayley trying to step into Bruce Dickinson's shoes in Iron Maiden. They were shoes he could never fill, that probably nobody could, or should. By 1990 Genesis were effectively dead, and I believe should have been left to rest in peace.

But dark shadows crept among the tombstones one dark night in 1997, whispering to each other, spades clanking as they... well, you get the idea. This was, to me, the worst way Genesis could go out. Even Floyd desperately grabbing for a last stack of cash as they exited on The Endless River could be said to have left us with a little more integrity, though not much.

This, however, was all but blasphemy, and it would be the very end.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...l_Stations.jpg
Calling All Stations (1997)


The album that spelled the end for Genesis, introducing a new frontman and vocalist. But was it too little too late? After Phil Collins' departure the previous year, the remaining two members of the band auditioned many replacements for his job as vocalist. There seemed little or no possibility that either of them would take up those duties themselves, as Collins had on the exit of Peter Gabriel in the mid-seventies. Neither Tony Banks nor Mike Rutherford had ever sang on any Genesis albums, other than backup, and even with solo careers each of them had opted to draft in vocalists to interpret their music, so whether it is just that they have terrible or unsuited singing voices, or they don't wish to be front and centre, neither of these legends wished to be the new Genesis singer. So they ended up settling on ex-Stiltskin man Ray Wilson. Perhaps an odd choice: though Stiltskin had had a number one hit single nobody outside of their genre would have really been aware of them, and certainly nobody within the progressive rock circle. But perhaps it was time for a fresh approach? Genesis had after all been accused of turning stale and safe, though their last album had been in my opinion anything but. Nevertheless it is a fact that they had strayed far from their signature sound and were, like pretenders to their throne Marillion, moving further away from the progressive rock that had made their name and into more commercial, soft-rock territory. Perhaps an angry young man could change all that?

I had my doubts, like everyone. It wasn't too much of a stretch when Collins took over - after all, he had already been part of the band. But this was a newcomer, and more, someone I didn't know. Ray who? But even at that, it was a new Genesis album, after six years of waiting and wondering and hoping, so I was prepared to give it a chance. I was one of those, after all, who accepted Steve Hogarth into Marillion after Fish left, and John Payne into Asia. Never prejudge, say I, till you've at least given the guy a chance. Maybe this would turn out to be just what Genesis needed, and Wilson could lead them if not back to the glory days then at least on to better things? Maybe it was, after all, time to shake things up in a band who had seen no major changes since 1977, when Steve Hackett left to pursue his own solo career?

And you know, it starts off very promising, with a big snarling guitar from Mike Rutherford, thumping drums and then the familiar low keys of Tony Banks, and a few moments later we get to hear the voice of the "new boy". To my mind, Ray Wilson reminded me of Paul Carrack on the Mike and the Mechanics albums, which was not a bad thing. It's a slowburner, the title track, with a lot of drama and a certain ominous flavour to it, and retaining much of the expected Genesis sound. Not a pop song, that's for sure. Very expressive, very effective and Wilson seems to be up to the job without a doubt. Well, maybe this won't be so bad. Little drum-pads like we heard on the big hit "Mama" off the self-titled 1983 album. Great drumwork from Nick D'Virgilio, he of Spock's Beard, and a slick little guitar solo from Mike, just in case we forgot how good he is on the frets.

So I'm starting to think this might work, but then we get "Congo". Oh dear! It's as if Tony and Mike decided to go the Peter Gabriel route, but with nothing of the sensitivity or knowledge of African music that their erstwhile bandmate has. This is like someone just said "Let's write an African-sounding record. How do we do that? Oh, some congo drums, some chants, some marimbas, you know." Yeah, I know. And this is what resulted. Dear god, the difference between this and the opener! I wouldn't even expect to hear this on the fourth or fifth Mike and the Mechanics album, and I had long lost interest in them by then. Terrible: even Rutherford's growling guitar can't pull this back on track. And this was what they chose to release as a single from the album! Hoisted on your own petard, or what? But there's a tantalising sense of the album this could have been, as some of the tracks really up the quality, like "Shipwrecked", up next, with a lovely laidback guitar and soft rolling piano, a real ballad although again I would have to say more in the Mike and the Mechanics mould than what you would expect to hear from Genesis.

It does however get the nasty taste of "Congo" out of the mouth, with its opening effect of a radio being tuned then the acoustic guitar opening before Banks' solid keys join the melody and it drifts along on a nice mid-paced rhythm. Wilson's vocal definitely suits this song, much more than it did the previous in my opinion. This was also a single, and I can understand why, though it would have reinforced in many people's minds the view that Genesis were becoming more AOR than prog rock. Then again, that ship (hah!) had sailed a long time ago. It's miles better than anything else on the album though, which is a sad indictment of the final Genesis recording. Driven mostly on lush keyboards with a nice guitar backing it's an example of what latter-day Genesis could do when they put their minds to it, though of course it's light-years removed from the likes of "One for the Vine" or even "Burning Rope". Those days, I'm afraid, are long gone.

One of the longer tracks is up next, and "Alien Afternoon" has a lingering sense of the ghost of Phil Collins about it somehow, although he doesn't seem to have been involved in the writing. It opens with a swirling, atmospheric synth that puts me in mind of the start of a-ha's "Cry Wolf", then quickly devolves into a kind of "That's All" slowed down, with some sort of attempt at reggae in there somewhere. It's a decent song, not the worst, with some nice deep backing vocals, and Wilson sounding at times like Glen Tilbrook. Yeah, I know. Nice synth passages from Tony Banks, the guitar a lot more restrained than in the previous songs. Strange lyric, don't quite understand it, and it rambles on for nearly eight minutes. Not sure if that's a good idea; it seems a little overstretched. I could see it finishing in six minutes and the rest just seems kind of tacked on. Another ballad is next, one of only three on which Ray Wilson helps out on the songwriting, and to be fair it's not bad, but at this stage in Genesis's career I'm afraid "not bad" is just not acceptable. The fans deserve more, and sad to say on this album they do not get it.

"Not About Us" is a nice little acoustic number on which Rutherford gets to shine, and Wilson handles the vocal really well. I feel sorry for him in a way, as he was obviously coming into what must have seemed to him a huge opportunity to raise his profile and really show what he was capable of, and after one album and a lacklustre tour it was all over. The more I listen to this album though the more I hear Mike and the Mechanics, which tells its own story. There's very little to compare this to We Can't Dance or even Invisible Touch. I really like Wilson's voice and it's a pity he didn't get more of a shot at this because I think he was a decent fit for Genesis, but it seems the fans weren't prepared to accept any successor to Collins: if Genesis wanted to make a case for continuing without their longtime member and frontman they needed to produce an album that would blow the fans away and show they could make it without the bald one. This album was not it, and they would only get one chance.

It kind of starts to nosedive from here on in. "If That's What You Need" is another ballad, has a nice keyboard line leading it and a very competent vocal, with some nice little guitar touches from Rutherford, but it's standing with one foot over the precipice at this point and trying very hard not to look down; we all know how that's going to end. "The Dividing Line" gets things rocking again with some nice basswork from I guess Rutherford, and a sprightly keyboard line from Banks, with D'Virgilio bashing the skins with real purpose, but after the introductory instrumental which kinds of harks back to the 1983 album in places the song just fails to live up to its promise. It's almost as if Wilson is driving the band to be tougher, harder, more aggressive and rockier, but they're finding it hard to change. We're back mostly in ballad territory, though with a harder edge than the previous slow songs, for "Uncertain Weather", with perhaps one of Wilson's finest vocal performances, dripping with emotion, but then we get "Small Talk", which is, well, how can I say this without being unkind? I can't. So I'll be unkind. It's crap. Terrible. One of the worst Genesis tracks I've ever heard, and I've sat through the entire Abacab album! God, just get me out of here!

Another dark ballad then in "There Must Be Some Other Way", (perhaps advice too late for the band?) which does retain some of the old Genesis style, and gears up then getting a bit tougher as it goes along. Another faultless vocal from Wilson, edging into Plant territory at times, though I feel the extended keyboard solo near the end is just going over the same ground as "Fading Lights", the closing track from We Can't Dance (how funny is that? When I went to hit the "W" for the album title I hit the £ sign instead! Freudian slip?); the vocal even comes back after it to the fade, just like that song. Running out of ideas? But it's not the closer, that's reserved for the utterly forgettable "One Man's Fool", which after hearing the album several times still slips by me. Not good. The horns are just annoying. It does pick up near the end but then it just kind of fades out quite disappointingly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Calling All Stations
2. Congo
3. Shipwrecked
4. Alien Afternoon
5. Not About Us
6. If That's What You Need
7. The Dividing Line
8. Uncertain Weather
9. Small Talk
10. There Must Be Some Other Way
11. One Man's Fool

And disappointing is the only way I can describe this album. It's not the worst Genesis album ever - Abacab will always hold that dubious honour - but for the final Genesis album it falls far short. It's not that it's a bad album. There are some really good tracks on it, but it's beaten into the ground by We Can't Dance in terms of consistency and considering it was the album on which Genesis were making a very difficult transition from one frontman who had been with them twenty years to another who had just joined, it was surely of vital importance that they made sure it was a stormer. This was their chance to leave behind, in the nicest possible way, the legacy of Phil Collins forever and prove they could make it without him. In that I think they utterly failed.

And it's not down to the singer. They didn't choose the wrong vocalist in Ray Wilson. He's damn good, though to be fair nobody was ever going to replace Collins unless somehow Peter Gabriel had rejoined, and that's about as likely as me getting into free jazz! But he did a very good job. It's just that the songs on this album weren't up to the standard we had come to expect from Genesis over the years, and you can only work with what you've got. They didn't even let him write much - three of the eleven here have his input, although one of them is the abysmal "Small Talk" - so he hadn't any real chance to impact upon the process other than through his voice.

Disappointing sales, reduced demand for concert tickets and, let's be honest, probably embarrassment led to the guys telling Wilson that he was no longer required. They weren't firing him as such, but the band was breaking up. Mind you, the return of Phil Collins with the other two to the stage in 2007 for a one-off tour started the rumour mill going, and while there has been no announcement of a new album this is always a possibility. I think it would be a step backwards personally, but the Wilson idea seems to have had its day and been discarded, though he still tours with his own band performing Genesis songs.

After a career spanning forty-four years, fifteen studio albums and various lineup changes, this has so far been the terminus for the Genesis express. Maybe a new album will be forthcoming, but after now twenty-five years you would have to say hope is fading. Sadly, if this is to be the end of the Genesis story, it's not the triumph that it should have been, and after four and a half decades in the business one of the world's biggest and most successful progressive rock bands go out not with a bang, not quite with a whimper, but with a sort of annoyed little moan.

Calling all stations? Puts me more in mind of a song by Chris de Burgh: Transmission ends.
Over. And almost certainly Out.

Rating: 7.0/10

I don't think this album is quite as unlistenable as people make it out to be, but 7.0? REALLY? I also vehemently disagree with Abacab being the worst Genesis album, I think it's pretty decent aside from it's bone dry production, their nadir is most definitely this as far as I'm concerned.

I mean it doesn't make my ears bleed or anything, but every song is a painfully dull, repetitive and overlong dirge and Ray Wilson sounding like Bryan Adams with a strep throat doesn't help. It's not the worst album I've ever heard, but it just might be the most boring.

You're gonna hate me for saying it but Congo is the best song on the album simply because it has an honest to god hook with a kinda catchy chorus, I mean it also has Tony's all time worst synth solo, in fact it just might be the lamest synth solo I've ever heard but at least it gives the song a little bit of personality.

Yeah well we'll agree to disagree I guess. The problem for me with Abacab was the unexpected-ness of it. Up to then, the boys had been tooling along fine - ATTW3, Duke - I mean, as I've mentioned fumpty times, the days of their prog rock godhood were long gone, but to use a phrase from the TV series Yes Minister, they were doing all right. Then came Abacab. Like they took a giant pop turd right in front of me. Such a shock. It does have its okay points, don't get me wrong - "Me and Sarah Jane", "Like it or Not", "Dodo/Lurker", even the title track, to some extent - but compare it to Duke and you can see how suddenly and alarmingly the quality of the music dipped.

As for this one, well, yes it is bad, but at least we had been "prepared" by the previous few, including Invisible Touch and the self-titled. Let's be honest: we weren't expecting it to be great, were we? Expectations were low. Which is why I can sort of excuse it, at least more than I can Abacab, which just grates on me because it changed their sound so dramatically.

You're definitely wrong about "Congo" though. :p:

My father is huge into Genesis. While going on our eight hour drives, he played a ton of Genesis. Seeing them live together was amazing.

I grew up liking much of what he listened to, Genesis included. While it's not up to par with the rest of their work, I like Calling All Stations. The title track and Shipwrecked are decent songs.

I'd say my favourite Genesis album is the self titled one. My father had a live show on cassette. He listened to Home By the Sea/Second Home By the Sea a lot.

I could go on at length about Genesis, but I already have done and people are probably bored with it. But thanks for your comments, and I'll just say that yes, those two tracks are probably the best/only good ones on that album, but I feel it's a real disappointment. The 1983 self-titled is all right but it's not a patch on their earlier stuff, even up to Duke. Still, at least it's not Abacab!

I don't have a total knowledge of their library. I don't know any of the Peter Gabriel stuff. I've always known him as a solo guy.

Having heard the self titled album so many times, it's become the favourite by default I guess.

I have some listening to do, it would seem!

Absolutely. If you read through the reviews here you'll see they started out as a real prog band - heavy on the mythological lyrics, long piano passages, epic songs, twelve-string guitars, flutes etc - and sort of metamorphosed near the end of the 1970s into a more poppy form of prog before succumbing totally to the pop bug around 1981 or so. Gabriel's solo stuff bears no real resemblance to his work with Genesis: for his best in my opinion see 1975's classic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

You may also be interested in Marillion, the sort of heirs to Genesis's prog crown in the 1980s, who I've begun covering here too.

My uncle had to tell me who Steve Hackett was. It goes to show how little I know of their earlier work. I proceeded to get him tickets to one of Hackett's shows. I wish I could have gone!

I saw that name in the thread, Marillion. I'll put them on my "to listen to" list.

Hey Troll, do you like Split Enz by any chance? Enough to do a discography thread on them?

Their early stuff reminds me of Genesis a bit.

No, I only know two songs. They're okay, but I wouldn't know them well enough, or have enough interest in them to do a discog. Sorry.

Ok just wondering.

I may do something like what you're doing in the future when it comes to covering artist's discographies, but I'd want to avoid covering the same ground even though my opinions are quite different from yours.

No, feel free. I really only do the artists I like and know well (Gary Moore/Rory Gallagher/Marillion/Genesis/Eagles/Waits etc) but even if you wanted to do a discog on one I've done, it's always interesting to see other sides of the story. I would warn you though, it can be a lot of work. But sure, have at it.