A few other comments regarding The Musical Box- The opening guitar chords I think in part are from a twelve string tuned as follows low to high......EADF#BF#. The tension on the upper strings from tuning up give the intro a sound similar to the timbre on musical boxes. As someone already mentioned, the insistent arpeggios in the verse also mimic the sound of a musical box. The interlude at 3:38 is Wagner influenced IMO. The coda at 8:33 is the first time in the song that the key is purely F sharp and the emotional effect is evident along with the lyrics and it heightens the sense of desperation of the song's characters. Pretty amazing from a group of guys so young.
I think I started with Abacab as many probably had. But it got me in the door it got me getting into Peter Gabriel as well. I think my favorite album and it’s tough to pick is Trick of the tail I think it’s the perfect mix of older genesis sound and new sensibility the whole album is fantastic
Here's some more information in this short thread regarding the writing credits. There's also some good info on the actual performances, such as Tony Banks doing the guitar solo in the Musical Box because it was completed prior to Hackett joining the band. Genesis Nursery Cryme - what are the true writing credits?
I don't think it took very long before Genesis came to be regarded as one of the Big 3, or 4, or 5, whichever you prefer, of progressive rock. From memory, Yes were always considered the definitive prog rock group, then you had Genesis, Pink Floyd, ELP, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and, depending who you talked to, possibly the Moody Blues. There were many others of course, but they are the ones that seemed to get the most attention at the time. The thing that made them all worthy of being considered "classic" is that they each had a distinctive sound, different from any of the others mentioned. The thing that I thought distinguished Genesis was that while their compositions could be very complex, with a lot going on, for the most part they still sounded very disciplined. Whether or not they were classically trained, they SOUND classically trained. There is very little of the jazz-style meandering that you get in Yes and King Crimson; chord and rhythm structures may be unusual but they are recognisable. Jazz fusion fans might very well sneer at Genesis and refer to them as "accessible" - not a crime in my opinion. At the other end of the prog spectrum you get Pink Floyd, whose tunes are generally very simple, and whose appeal comes from the excellence of the execution thereof and the clever use of technology. In albums such as Atom Heart Mother you can hear the faint echoes of the blues and trad jazz tradition seeping through. There is none of that with Genesis; their music has very little in common with blues, jazz and "roots" music, and not all that much in common with early rock and pop, despite the fact that Tony Banks has always said the Beatles were a big influence on him. What I do hear when I listen to early Genesis is the influence of the likes of J.S. Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Debussy.
For Absent Friends This track was written by Steve Hackett and apparently he was nervous about taking it to Peter Gabriel, so he took it to the other new guy, Phil Collins. Hackett and C0llins wrote the words and took it to the band and one can only assume they liked it as it finds itself on the album. We have a hybrid feel here. It is part folk song, and part classical arrangement. Obviously this is Collins lead vocal debut with the band and most folks I know have never realised that it is even Collins singing. This is a beautiful little song. It is very short but doesn't leave the listener wanting. It has a very good presence on the album and works well to divide the two epics on side one.
Whenever I listen to The Band (as in ‘The Band’!), I always imagine it’s some sort of strange version of what rock music might have sounded like if it was made in the civil war era of the 1860s/70s, when I listen to Nursery Cryme I get the same vibe but this time of Victorian England. ‘The Musical Box’ conjures up this era as does ‘Hogweed’ with it’s mention of the Victorian Explorer, but even ‘Harold the Barrel’, ‘Harlequin’ and ‘For absent friends’ summon up this time for me. Another thing it conjures up is Thomas Hardy’s Wessex with it’s pastoral gentleness hiding a weird darkness underneath of sex and violence. After the fantastical, mystical and quasi-religious stuff on Trespass, ‘weirdness’ starts to bubble up in the Genesis world with this album, and the undercurrent of sex, violence and fantasy could only have been written by a bunch of repressed public schoolboys. There are no duffers on this album, even something like ‘Seven Stones’ which I never go out of my way to listen to is always enjoyable when I give it a chance. Obviously ‘Musical Box’ is the standout, but ‘Hogweed’ and ‘Salmacis’ are suitably epic and enjoyable and I love the short ‘vignette’ tracks as well. ‘Happy the Man’ I assume was recorded at this time as well – that’s an odd one for me, I don’t feel there’s much going on, strange choice for a single! ‘Twilight Alehouse’ would really fit on this album as well.
It was strange seeing the singles on @Hollow Horse 's polls. I had no idea what their singles were, as I have never really followed singles that much. Looking at the songs in those polls, it struck me they may not have had much idea about singles, or they didn't really care, because there were some rather odd choices it seemed to me. Having said that though, they were most certainly an album band and perhaps weren't that interested in singles earlier in their career
I'm a bit foggy on when I first heard Nursery Cryme. I don't think I had the album initially. I started with Foxtrot, Trespass, Shapes, and Live. I think there was a gap before I picked up a used cassette tape of N.C. I definitely was more familiar with the live versions of Hogweed and Musical Box before hearing the studio versions. I don't recall listening to the album very much in those earlier times. I may have been a bit put off by the production and preferred the live renditions. But at some point it all clicked with me and I love the album from start to finish like the others. "Fountain of Salmacis" is probably my favorite track, one of my very favorite Genesis songs. "Harold The Barrel", of course, is great fun. Naturally I love "The Musical Box", one of their signature songs. "Hogweed" rules. Hackett with the tap. I don't understand why the "GIANT HOGWEED LIVES" scream at the end is non-existent (on original mix) or very difficult to hear (remix). I think "Seven Stones" is a very underrated cut. Very powerful stuff. I got bored the other day and bought the remixed vinyl edition of Nursery Cryme for $16 off Amazon. I was not too keen on the Foxtrot and Selling England remixed LPs (the only two I've dared to indulge in since the CDs rubbed me wrong as they did for many), but this one actually didn't sound too bad to me. I had a pleasant time listening to it. Perhaps I'll buy a few more and see what happens. One thing I don't like about the remixes is there is more separation in the double-tracked leads and it exposes more inconsistencies. I think the worst example of this is "Counting Out Time", but also can be heard at a few points on "Nursery Cryme". I do like hearing that extra vocal part in the first verse of "Fountain...", though, which is the way Peter sang the song in concert. So I'm okay with that revision. I wish we knew more about who decided to make these particular changes and why.
I hadn't notice the connection between "Rondo" and "The Knife" until it was mentioned here. Once pointed out, the similarities are quite clear.
I’m going to stick my neck out and say it was Tony Banks- he supervised the remixes whilst Nick Davis did the actual mixing. Whether any of the others listened to all of it and signed it off, not sure - although I do recall that Gabriel ended up delaying the release of the earlier albums by wanting changes.
I find "Nursery Cryme" to be uneven. My favorites are "The Musical Box" and "The Fountain of Salmacis". These two songs are when Genesis really gets moving. "The Musical Box" reflects has this medieval sound which gives a color to much of the music in Genesis' early albums. "Fountain..." in turn, reflects their more progressive sound. I also have a soft spot for "For Absent Friends". The album doesn't have a nice sound IMO. They only got a good sound starting as of "Selling England..." IMO. I'm not sure what the reason for this is, but I imagine it was a combination of budget restrictions and the fact that they were producing complex music that takes some expertise to properly record and mix. My older sister loved Gabriel-era Genesis and owned NC as a double album paired with Foxtrot. Later, I got myself a tape cassette of this, which I later lost.
As far as things like an extra vocal track go, I would say, they had to remix well over a hundred detailed and complicated songs, and occasionally they slipped up as far as what tracks might have been muted or not during the original mixdowns. I doubt those kinds of changes had any intention behind them.
First time I heard “Fountain” was back in the days when Three Sides Live had an “import” version. It just floored me, and still does.
Any idea where/when these pictures were taken and what band's equipment is set up in front of them? It's funny to see the big Hiwatt amp stacks in the back line - I don't think of Genesis as being a "loud amp" band.
TONY battled himself? He did THAT solo! Oh my god. This is really mean but that's probably fact that Mike Rutherford was the worst guitar player in Genesis now
While I do love the album I probably visit it least often of the Gabriel era. I mentioned I heard FGTR first of full albums and from there I actually really got into genesis with their live albums. I knew the boxsets were on their way so rather than buy copies I would replace as I am a boxset kinda guy I went with live albums (stupidly thinking those weren't to be boxsetized...). so I had the three big tracks in great live versions and when I finally got to the album I found the lesser tracks kinda forgettable and the big tracks while strong not as strong as their live counterparts.
He did play a lot of what sounds like guitar solos in the early days but they were actually the Hammond or Leslie organs put through various pedals. I think he said once in a book I read that he used to enjoy it when people were fooled into thinking something he’d done was actually guitar.
I think the first solo is guitar, but yes, the sort of duelling solos after the "Old King Cole" section sound like it's Tony playing a distorted keyboard on the left and Steve playing guitar on the right.
