Genesis - Their Place In The Prog Rock Pantheon?

Wrong.

 

Also the juxtaposition of Paul Weller with same, I mean, that's casting a very wide net over the "New Wave", innit?

In any case, even without the heaping helping of sneering disgust, the whole argument reeks of "criticizing the band for failing to do something they never attempted."

 

Well, they recorded The Lamb, didn't they? What more need be said?

 

277 posts and counting, apparently.

 

Genesis - FGTR: Didn't chart anywhere
Genesis - Tresspass: 98 in UK
Genesis - A Nursery Cryme: 39 in UK
Yes - Yes: Didn't chart anywhere
Yes - Time And A Word: 45 in UK
Focus - first album: Didn't chart anywhere. Oh yes, 104 in US
Soooo, Genesis didn't do much worse in comparison. Only ELP had big success right from the start.
And the fact that an album didn't sell or chart has NOTHING to do with any objective determination of its quality imho.

 

^And the funny thing is "in the court of the Crimson King" was probably the biggest success for a prog debut but nothing they did after came even close in terms of commercial success. To this day it's the only album of theirs to go gold. I doubt anything else by them has sold more than 200,000 copies(and that's probably being generous).

 

Peter Gabriel's collaborations with Robert Fripp and Paul Weller must have made more sense to his fans around that time, me thinks. Fripp did not need any introduction and Weller was punk and mod in equal measure, a sort of the link between the past and the present.

The question remains who might Genesis have attempted to invite to their recording session? The Police? The Clash? It could have worked in a number like "Me & the Sarah Jane"...

 

Indeed, not to mention great bands like Gentle Giant and VDGG, which had even less chart success.

 

1. Fruupp
2. Kayak
3. PFM
4. Greenslade
5. Genesis

 

Weller played guitar on one track in Gabriel III and this reviewer (or whoever it was) is making a big deal about it. Gabriel didn't have a set band. Collaborating with others after leaving a more restrictive band dynamic was how he wanted to work. Mentioning Fripp I can sort of understand, he played a huge part in Gabriel II and III, but Weller's contributions were fairly brief and certainly nothing Fripp couldn't have easily handled.

The overall point about "Can you imagine Weller on a Genesis album?" is pretty comical as well. And gee, I can sure imagine Eno doing something with them. But its irrelevant anyway. Genesis was a band. Gabriel was a solo artist unshackled by those kinds of restraints. Apples & oranges.

 

Well, internal politics aside, inviting someone from the contemporary scene in the early 80s could have cemented Genesis reputation as a truly foward-looking act. Just read what the fans say about King Crimson or YES, that they reinvented themselves at that time bringing in fresh blood and ideas...

 

Gentle Giant did have chart success though(so did Nektar, Renaissance and Focus). However, none of their albums went gold.

 

Can't compare ELP to those others. Emerson came from Nice who had a bunch of albums, and Lake came from King Crimson after two albums. KC would be a better example of a prog band that hit it big with the first album.

 

What people are really arguing about is how the label is employed. I'm inclined to reserve the term "progressive rock" to bands that are heavily influenced by classical music. Genesis, Yes, and ELP all qualify in that regard, but Pink Floyd does not. I don't think Genesis qualifies either after Hackett left.

 

Of course, being "heavily influenced by classical music" is only one yardstick one can use to define progressive music.

 

"Me And Sarah Jane" is perfect as is. I love the way it constantly shifts moods/ atmospheres. That's a great example of "prog" for me.. Definitely a highlight of Abacab.

 

It's my yardstick . But I am still willing to lend "prog" out to formulate compound genres like prog psych (e.g. Pink Floyd) and prog metal (Rush and many others) and prog jazz and prog folk (Kansas and Strawbs).

 

Oh no, we've opened that can of worms/Pandora's Box, the question "what is progressive rock?"! I can't resist... I'm going to have a go.

When the genre/movement (call it what you will) emerged in the late 1960s, it was a genuine attempt to push the boundaries of what rock music could be. It employed rock instrumentation but forsook or subverted the blues structures on which rock music was based. It often supplemented the components of the rock ensemble (guitar, bass, drums) with other instruments - flute, clarinet, Mellotron/analogue synths, vibes, violin, etc - and so altered the sonic palette. "Classical" music was certainly a big influence but modern jazz/improvisation was equally important to some prog rock bands. Other prog bands looked further afield to oriental traditions or modern electronic composition, for example. What these roots have in common and which surely typifies prog music is the composition of complex progressions and/or arrangements. Prog generally rejected the 2:30-3:00 pop/rock song in favour of extended compositions with lengthy instrumental passages. Songs often featured multiple sections or movements. The generation of 7" singles/"hits" was no longer the focus. Furthermore, prog eschewed the blues/rock notion that songs can only be about love/sex and engaged with complex narratives and subject matter. An extension of this was, of course, the concept album with its unifying themes. It also tried to break free from the constraint of the blues/rock 4/4 straitjacket. Almost all prog rock albums contain experiments with time signature, to a greater or lesser degree. All of which brings us to the vexed issue of musicianship. In order to experiment in this way, a certain degree of "technical proficiency" is required of the band members and this leads to the misunderstanding that exhibitions of musical prowess are somehow progressive.

It was Robert Fripp, arguably the greatest of prog rock guitarists and undoubtedly the one with the widest, most enduring reach, who said that once progressive rock had become a collection of repeated conventions it had ceased to be progressive. Without experimentation and the willingness to fail, there can be no progress. Of course, genuinely progressive rock music does still exist but it's not being made by prog rock revivalists. Genesis side-stepped the issue by becoming a pop band while Gabriel continued to experiment, crowning his career with Passion.

 

Concerning Peter Gabriel, I agree Passion is superb (certainly his apex of cinematic music). The "rock-oriented" albums of PG that I consider his most "prog" is PG3 (Melt). It's not my favorite of his, but PG3 postioned him into an area uncharted at the time. He found his singular voice (musically speaking) and he has tread that path (for better or worse) ever since.

It begs the question, though (for me) : if Passion (or any album in PG's solo catalog) is considered "prog" (there is nothing overtly complex or even classical in nature in that album or any of PG's albums, really), then why isn't Pink Floyd considered "prog" as well?

For me, Pink Floyd progressed musically (each album is/was different). They weren't part of "the norm".

Fripp is just too "out there" for me to appreciate a lot of his work.

Prog doesn't mean an artist has to be angular / dissonant / difficult to understand. At least for me.

 

I'd call Passion World Prog, or something like that. The classical influences are Eastern, not Western.

 

I like both points you made!

 

I meant that PG's music continued to push boundaries not that it's prog rock (agreed PG3 is progressive in the genuine sense).

I would say there are elements of what prog was originally all about in the Pink Floyd. They recorded extended compositions and experimented sonically. Rogers could be claimed to be the master of the concept album (they never quite make narrative sense, but which concept album does?). I hear elements of jazz and electronic music in their music. They improvise but more in a psych-jamming kind of way. And they didn't reject blues structures (think Shine on You Crazy Diamond). Unusual metres rarely feature (Money being an exception rather than the norm). The progressions/motifs, etc. aren't complex. I would say Dogs is their last progressive composition, complex in structure and dispensing with conventional song melodies, and maybe even the pinnacle of their achievements. The Wall retains only conceptual and lyrical ambition.

 

There are hundreds if not thousands of artists who sell records by the truckload and are entirely worthless and disposable. You're really on the wrong forums if you equate success with music as an artform.

 

Thinking about it, I guess I should have added prog often experimented with chromatic scales, repeated motifs and variations on a theme. There was also a surrealist/absurdist aesthetic involved in the lyrical/visual side (Monty Python were the prog rock band of the comedy sketch).

Less appealing tendencies came to characterise some prog music too - grandiosity, pointless displays of manual dexterity, whimsy, cod-philosophy... None of these features are to be found in the best prog rock, to my ears.

 

None of those features are exclusive to prog rock, either.