Yeah, it's a fan creation...but honestly it sounds really good, and adds some missing warmth to the song.
Duchess ... love the slow buildup of the intro, and the sing-along chorus. Big deep bass pedals would be totes awsum live. --Geoff
There is more than that. Drum machines provided a brand new sound which was very modern and very cool and very up-to-date. They're not supposed to be replacing a drummer but to be their own thing. They could also be used as a placeholder to develop the song and record parts and still leave space for the drums to be added later on. Genesis themselves used it also like this. Plus it was not that the drummer's were temperamental, it was more that they were expensive. In this case drum machines could actually help cut the cost in low budget productions. Like Anthony Phillips did for Slow Dance. For electronic musicians like Jean Michel Jarre, then, they were an awesome tool to get rid of the need of having extra musicians in studio and being completely autarchic. but they were also more organic for the synth sound they were building up. That said, drum machines were certainly abused of in the 80s and when they use is conventional and non creative possibly contributed to the bad reputation drum machines acquired to "no synth required" kind of listeners. Curiously, a friend of mine who grew up with electronic music, once asked why Daft Punk used the real drums on an electronic record. He obviously found it absurd. "Because, exactly like with drum machines, they have a specific sound and feel and the musicians want that", I said. He looked surprised and didn't seem to get it. Also all music sounds like its times. If someone feels that some decades of music are more eternal, more universal, it is more likely because they fit his/her tastes better, or even more simply because he grew up with that style when he was a young folk. Research clearly shows that whatever music we were listening to, whatever taste we developed during teenage years, that's more likely to stay with us forever. The curious expand it, somewhat in directions that seem to have nothing in common with the original source. But it seems to be the most common behavior to just stick to whatever you liked in those years and not move much.
Guide Vocal This track is ok, but in reality without its linking mechanism it isn't really much of a song. A quite synth and piano track, with a decent Phil vocal.
Guide Vocal is one of the highlights of the album for me. Phil's vocal is really great and it gives a nice little ending to the story being presented so far. However, I probably wouldn't like it quite as much if they didn't reprise it at the end of the album, when it is really powerful. Genesis was really good at giving their albums cohesion by doing these things.
When drum machines are used as their own thing, or programmed with some imagination, I don't mind them. It's not that I dislike the drum machines on Duchess, but think it would be so much cooler if Phil had done those little bits live and then looped them. I mean, Phil is one of the best drummers/percussionists of all time! My issue with drum machines is when they replace the drummer like so many 80's bands did. The drummer is the beating heart of any rock group, and when you replace it with a machine, you lose a lot of soul, grit and humanity. The ironically named "The Human League" is one of the best examples off the top of my head. For cheaper recordings (your example of Anthony Phillips is a good one) the drum machine can be an asset when programmed well. And yes, live drumming can be expensive, so using a well-programmed machine on a solo project like Phillips isn't necessarily a bad thing. Same for synth artists like Jarre. He really puts some thought into the machine's programming and makes the sounds interesting. My real issue with drum machines is when they just program a basic beat into it and let it fly and it becomes nothing more than a fancy metronome. Interesting that you bring up the theory that people stick with the music they heard in their teenage years. In a way, I agree with that, and it takes a real understanding and appreciation of music to get over that roadblock. I've always been able to progress with the times and even if I don't care for most of the music I hear that's current today, I can always find a handful of groups that are fresh that I enjoy. I'm also going backwards in time and discovering jazz from the 40's and 50's to be very enjoyable.
Guide Vocal. Best Banks Ever. Or so. Too short to be a proper standalone, but it works as a coda to Duchess. It's narrative function is to connect the Duchess and Albert (up until now, "the bloke reading the book") and show their story. Murky and vague, at that. But because of the same vagueness, delightful as a standalone lyric. I like how the speach is somewhat fragmentary, like a stream of consciousness, an inner mumbling. The Banksian trademarked relentless progression is a perfect musical complement to that. The song flows like an interior monologue, from start to end, no repetition (meaning, copycat verse-chorus), no riffs, just a beautiful flow, deceptively simple. I call this great. - The reprise is awesome. First time I heard it it was a blast. But we'll get to that.
Guide Vocal - on the face of it, nothing much going on here, a little linking piece, a coda to Duchess. But if we hadn’t had it here, the reprise of it at the end of the album wouldn’t be a fraction as powerful, and thus it’s absolutely essential.
Guide Vocal seems so slight but is haunting memories and surprisingly ambiguous. Starts out sounding like the voice of God then transforms into a pretty jilted ex.
Guide Vocal I love that first chord as Phil starts singing. It's so warm. This song works best as an ending to this part of the suite, rather than as a song on its own. It definitely needs something more because it feels like a link. There's the warmth in the song, but also a ton of sadness. I don't know the story well enough to say who is leaving...is it the singer to the audience? Her muse to the singer? Something more spiritual? I'm not sure. The thing that I appreciate the most is the sadness, and there's nothing but sadness. It's rare to have a song that's just this short burst of that particular emotion. There's nothing else to the song, no superfluous guitar solo or anything. Which is good; it does what it needs to. Good track.
It makes me think about the kind of pygmalion like story. young girl who becomes woman and professional and successful thanks to the lead of an experienced man, then takes off and leaves when she's ready to stand on her feet by herself. This doesn't really fit with the general idea we have of Albert being a couch potato though. But whatever.
Another idea is that Albert is at the moment a disillusioned couch potato but had a completely different life before when he was in love with the duchess. Which ironically reminds me of Collins own path much later on, when yet another marriage failed, he had retired from music, and spent most of his days drinking and watching sports.
Totally - the moment in Duke's Travels where the vocals come in "I am the one..." is so incredible, perhaps the finest on the album, and it's power is magnified significantly by the fact that it appears first here.
I also thought about that when we discussed "Say It's Alright Joe". I watched the Lyceum video in which Collins plays Joe and it felt a little bit ironic, considering his problems with alcohol. It's sad to think that Phil seemed so different from the typical rock star when he was in his prime but had to struggle with all the consequences of the show business life after retiring.
Guide Vocal - Nice tune, what there is of it. I had the sense of it building up to something great, and when it finished at 1:21 I thought "Is that it?" It's on an album, so I have no problem with having such a short track that is little more than a "palate cleanser". Yet I still feel cheated, and wish there was more of it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm still waiting for someone to tell me about the cartoon figure on the cover, since everyone here seems to know that it's a character called Albert. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Guide Vocal----great little song, I like it better than Behind the Lines or Duchess. Really powerful when it's reprised in Duke's Travels. One of the 3 or 4 best songs on the album, IMO. Would have been overshadowed greatly on most Genesis albums, but on this one it stands out (can you tell that I'm not really a fan of this album?)
The cover art was drawn by French illustrator Lionel Koechlin [fr], featuring the character Albert. Koechlin's artwork came from the book L'Alphabet d'Albert, published in 1979
Guide Vocal reminds me quite a bit of Afterglow musically, but I always felt Afterglow was a bit overblown and repetitive, while I like this more modest presentation better. Never understood why Afterglow became the pre 3 man tune that most consistently and for the longest time remained in their live 3 man (+2) repertoire.
It is a song that somehow fits both with the prog and more pop oriented eras of the band, providing an opportunity for a climatic moment at the concerts that could be easily grasped and appreciated by fans of both eras. Also, I think Collins re-worked the vocals with a kind of crooner approach that made it easy for him to sing. It was written by Banks so he was probably happy to have it on the set, while most of his other solo compositions are much more less friendly to the new sound that Genesis was going for in the 1980s. I think that quite a few of the "Lamb" tunes could have made it into the Duke/3SL era setlists, in terms of the band's then current style and sound -- Lilywhite Lilyth, the combo of Fly on a Winshield/Broadway Melody; Anyway; Chamber of 32 Doors immediately come to mind. However, none of these was as well known as "Afterglow".
I can see that, but it seemed more like a nostalgic sop to the old fans than something that would sate the desire for something musically adventurous.
I think the "In the Cage" medley would be the "adventurous" part and "Afterglow" provided the nostalgic bit.
coming back to this thread after ages away, wanted to mention a bit on the much-loathed remixes and sound quality. IMO the three albums that benefited from this treatment (though I agree they are still too hot) are W&W, ATTWT, and Duke, none of which ever sounded excellent to me on vinyl (W&W in particular sounded terrible, and I'm glad I didn't appear to the be only person to see this). Yes, maybe those remixes could be a lot more dynamic, but I think the albums benefitted from the lift and the added lower frequencies. FWIW, I agree with those who found ATTWT a slog and a bore though I do really like about half the album, but after all these years I still have to remind myself what some of those songs actually sound like. It's very samey. I think Duke was a big step beyond that and much more successful. An excellent album and yes, Dutchess is one of my favorite Genesis tracks.
The Davis Duke remix is one that I'm a bit conflicted on. It's loud and "in-your-face," fatiguing, and totally not what the original was like in that regard, but the remix work itself I think I might actually prefer. I hate to use the cliché but I really do hear things going on that I otherwise didn't notice, and which enhance my enjoyment/appreciation of the album. So although the Duke remix in particular seems to get blasted hard for the sound, I get the criticism but do find some value in it anyway.
