Genesis - underrated or simply misunderstood?

I've been a big fan of Genesis ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I couldn't get into them. It was too artsy, too intellectual. But with Duke, Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch is the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums.

 

Thanks for the flashback to my high school cafeteria lunch table circa 1983. A baseless opinion has surprising legs.

 

Phil Collins has openly admitted that they sold out.

I'm not passing comment on it here as it was their artistic choice but I don't think there's any 'allegedly' about it, they made the conscious decision to make hit songs.

 

Still a shame, though, because they seemed to catch ground with "Trick" and W&W which definitely were in the spirit of the Gabriel-era. Even as a trio, they still did ATTWT and Duke, which are amazing prog-fusion records imo. With the s/t album though, they seemed to have decided 'normal' success wasn't big enough and became the stadium band many people first heard of when they heard Genesis...

 

Clearly underrated, and also misunderstood...
Gabriel truly shined like gold those first albums after he left.
Worthless after Peter left...
Not always a popular view, but that's me.
He would have been a great member of King Crimson I think.
I'm in the Kings Court all the way, if ya can't tell.

 

Prog was never cool and sadly Phil Collins has never been cool either. Personally I find the later Genesis albums more appealing as Gabriel has never done it for me and their early work was boring prog nonsense. The Invisible Touch/We Can't Dance albums are where it's at.

 

Right, 80s Genesis is like 90s Metallica: it's something they did for the masses. They stripped the balls so anybody could listen to it, anybody could love it, take away the balls, take away the guts and the honesty, sand away any edges, remove the seasoning and flavor, water it down, make it bland like something at a buffet, and those albums sound like Load or ReLoad or The Black Album.

 

The outlandish costumes got attention but not popularity during the early days. Pink Floyd, Yes and ELP were playing North American stadiums during the early 70's. Genesis still played theaters for The Lamb. "Follow You Follow Me" helped attract girls to the shows. As already mentioned, the other progressive groups were ahead in terms of chops, but the individual members of Genesis caught up.

In terms of Genesis achieving stardom, well good for them. That's what it took for them to remain active and expand their audience. Yeah, they made a few questionable moves along the way, but enduring fan-generated prog snobbery (including at least one contributor in this thread) is the bigger turn off.

 

If you listen to the pre-Tresspass stuff on the Archive box, they set out to write hit songs from day one (or at least songs that could be hits for others). Problem is, they weren't very good at it. I mean, it was definitely a conscious shift towards a commercial direction starting around 1980, but I don't think it was as much "selling out" as evolving as they grew older, as well as attempting to go with the times. People complain about Asia, YesWest, and 80's Genesis, but forget that the industry had changed and audience had dwindled for 20-minute side-length epics, and all those musicians did what they had to do to find success in a vastly different musical landscape than even just five years earlier.

 

"Selling out" implies your heart, your artistic spirit would lead you one way but you consciously choose a different, more commercial path. That's not what happened with Genesis -- at least not with Collins.

He has openly stated that he loves standard pop music, soul, etc. better than prog.

 

The world, or this forum, doesn't need another "did Genesis sell out" thread, neither does it need my input in one, but I think you're so wrong in this quote that I needed to say something. They evolved, you clearly didn't like where they went, but they were neither bland nor 'dishonest'. I can't comment on the Metallica comparison as I don't like any of their material, but Genesis, even post 1980 had plenty of quirky and interesting elements and angles to their work. Sorry you can't see them and sorry you think the poor American Psycho reference is worth repeating for the 100th time....

 

Oh boy. I once went to a metallica concert and there were,these guys a section over who would, whenever they would play a song post 'Justice', sit there with with their arms folded and scowl on their face. That's what I thought reading this post.

 

I don't think its as black and white as that poster is trying to make it. By self titled they wrote exclusively by jamming and improvisation. And they would make songs out of the bits that resonated. What you got was what came out of them at that time. It was all premeditated. What each individual writer was writing at the time would go onto their solo albums.

 

That reminds me of an article on Genesis which basically said that their music during the Gabriel era couldn't really attract a female audience because the songs bear a very raw, animalistic sexual energy which seemingly turned off quite a lot of people (he gave the "touch me, now, now, now, now, noooowwwww" ending of "The Musical Box" as an example) and that they needed Follow You Follow Me to break the market

 

For a band so revered by their devotees, I do think that they are underrated in general.

I was having a discussion with a very well-informed friend of mine about what band had the longest streak of great albums. I said Genesis, no question about it, and got this strange look in response. I don't think his reaction is that unusual. Like Trey Anastasio said when he inducted them into the R&RHOF, I not confident that a lot of people out there are very familiar with their '70s output.

 

It's the gold standard of prog. What else do you want?

 

The black album was the best thing they ever did IMO. Most of their earlier albums sound juvenile in comparison and are chocked with filler. I will always love Seek & Destroy and some of their other earlier songs but the black album is the only one I can listen to the whole way through. It makes me laugh that Metallica can release a gritty hard rock album and be called sell-outs. It was hardly pop music.

 

Maybe, but the kinds of guys who went to see Genesis in 1973 tended to lack female companionship anyway.

 

probably

 

I grew up with hit-era Genesis all around me and it was fine. No reason to hate it, no scorn for it, but I never needed to listen to it because it was always on the radio. Phil solo, on the other hand, took a self-serious turn by the end of the 80s... something about the Buster soundtrack followed by "Another Day in Paradise"... that really put a stink on him. At least that's how I recall experiencing it firsthand.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I think a few things have changed:
- hipsters 10 years ago took Phil out of the "bad" column and put him in the "so-bad-it's-good" column, primarily driven by "In the Air Tonight," (and the cover of "Against All Odds" by The Postal Service, etc.) ... people were talking about him again.
- Peter Gabriel is not any more cool than Genesis at this point.
- Genesis is less loved as a prog band than as a pop band.

Personally, I'm not really into prog, but I have several of the peak Gabriel Genesis albums and they don't even remotely hold a candle to most of the King Crimson catalog. That stuff is really progressive and immersive. Genesis just seems like pretentious pop.

Edited to Add: And oh yeah, I don't think the '80s Genesis albums are completely safe or edgeless. There is still plenty of experimentation in the form and the production is not all that slick.

 

Considering how much we bring them up on this here forum, I'd say they were moderated.

And here's one for the cynical crowd - "How can you possibly respect a prog band your girlfriend likes?"

 

baseless opinion?

possibly....but it is my own opinion...if it differs from yours, it does not make right or wrong, just different form yours.

sorry you had a bad high school experience, mine was great. but it was pre-genesis.

 

I dispute that quite strongly, and I'm not a bash all things Phil guy -I love Abacab and S/T. Invisible touch has some good singles on it, but I dont think it is a masterpiece by any stretch.

 

How do you figure? Their first prog-oriented album, Trespass, came out in the fall of 1970.

 

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