Genesis - Their Place In The Prog Rock Pantheon?

If Genesis isn't in your list of top ten 'greatest' (not favorite) prog bands then you have incredibly specific taste or are more likely having a laugh. They were not only one of the best doing it all through the 70s, they had arguably the biggest effect of any of the prog giants on how prog sounded in the 80s. Even if you don't like their albums by that point, without their earlier work contemporary neo prog would sound radically different.

 

Just below Gentle Giant.

 

No, indeed, nor just to music.

 

Wow. This thread has inspired me. I pulled out the Genesis CDs that I owned: their first album, nursery crymes, foxtrot, The Lamb lies down on Broadway, abacab, and the one with a geometric shapes on the cover and listen to the them all. I still enjoy them and was inspired to go online and buy a couple old CD imports that were new to me. I decided on selling England by the pound, and trick of the tail. I'm thinking about trespass, and the wind and the wuthering.

 

Can someone please give me an idea why And then there were three has mixed reviews?

 

Because some people don't like it as much as their other albums?

 

for me, as a prog fanatic for the past 45 years, I say Genesis is on the top tier, with Yes and King Crimson.

 

The revisionism is bad enough. But the smug, self-anointed sanctimony is unbearable.

SHMF poster "Well I don't consider them prog."
Rest of the world "ST...heckU!"

 

Are there any progressive fans other than me who like early
Gino Vannelli? I recommend his albums “Gist Of The Gemini”,
“Storm At Sunup”, “A Pauper In Paradise”, “Nightwalker”.

He reminds me of ELP and Zappa.

 

Yes. I agree that those albums (with possible exception of Nightwalker) do fit somewhat with 70s prog. But I don't hear Zappa or ELP in his music at all. Rather, I hear more the influence of 70s fusion (especially Herbie Hancock and Weather Report) in his sound.

 

#1. Just no question. Yes and KC are more virtuosic, but dudes had the songs, had the haunted quality to their melodies (even way late in their career), had the staying power. Made pretty good new wave styled music, as did every other prog rock band at the time. They did it better though.

 

I have a workable definition of progressive rock: "English and European rock, mainly from the 70 s which is not blues based."

Doesn't cover everything, but workable in most cases.

 

All of them are great... they only start to lose me around Abacab. I've discovered their 70s work in earnest only this year- it's made quarantine a little bit better.

 

If I feel like some listening to some 70s prog then it's generally something from Genesis. Selling England By The Pound is still one of my most favouritist albums ever. So #1 in the prog rock pantheon for me.

After that (and just considering classic era artists) : Yes, Rush, King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, Renaissance, Camel, ELP

--Geoff

 

Genesis are near the top. It's hard to say who number one is. It ultimately depends on who you like. I could say Yes but not everyone likes Yes. I could say Pink Floyd but not everyone considers them prog. I could say Genesis but at least half of their output was more pop. So it really comes down to personal taste.

 

I’d like to credit Steve Hackett for the amazing job of keeping the legacy of early Genesis alive. Since 2012, Hackett has done more for their reputation than anyone else in the band.

When he played in Auckland, New Zealand in 2017, it gave many, including me, the opportunity of hearing Genesis tracks live for the first time. What an experience! Sure the vocalist wasn’t Gabriel or Collins, but hearing ‘Supper's Ready’, ‘The Musical Box’ and ‘Firth of Fifth’ sung by Nad Sylvan, was stunning. Hackett seems to have improved as the years have gone by and his band including the mighty Nick Beggs on bass (Steven Wilson band, Iona) together with keyboard wizard Roger King and Gary O’Toole on drums had the audience mesmerised. Sure live concert sound has improved massively, so what I heard was a prog rock extravaganza true to sounds of the 70s, yet with current production. I was taken aback and became a Genesis fan all over again. Thanks Mr Hackett! Hope he benefitted from my splurge of buying his solo as well as recordings, Wuthering nights (live) 5.1 sound and Genesis Revisited ( live).

 

Interesting that the combined total number of Spotify listeners for Yes, ELP and King Crimson, is well below Genesis’s nearly 5 million followers. Their pop years obviously did a lot for them! (I despised this selling out, but I guess they have the last laugh!)

 

Active membership of a Prog pantheon effectively lapsed as early as 1978 or as late as 1983. Depending on your tolerance for the suave mid Atlantic pop ambitions of Banks and Rutherford.

 

There are still elements of prog in the 1978 album "ATTWT", after that though they became more of a pop group, very successful too with a whole new audience. Maybe they should have changed their name after Hackett left

 

I'd say one is more likely having a laugh if an artist is on their "greatest" list but the person doesn't consider the artist a favorite. Well, a laugh or a lapse of brain function or something.

 

Is it in any way arguable to say that a lot of the music being made by Prog bands in the 80s wasn't all that progressive?

It was either a backward looking continuation of the 70s or an undisguised grab for some chart action with no real progressive aspects.

I can hear that "Duke" still has some progressive elements. After that they are barely recognisable as the band that made what fans from the Gabriel years see as being the main sequence. Unlike Crimson the music gets more conservative as they go on. Accessible to the widest possible radio and MTV audience rather than energising a generation of technically adept art rockers like "Discipline", "Beat" and "Exposure" did.

The most progressive music being made in the 80s was arguably being made more by artists from a Post Punk background, especially those with more than passing knowledge of Krautrock, or at very least Moroder, and the new sounds emanating from New York in particular. Which is why the likes of Thomas Dolby, Japan, Simple Minds and Ultravox (and from a slightly later era Bark Psychosis, Mansun and Spiritualized) are wholeheartedly welcomed into the pages of Prog magazine.

I think it was David Stubbs who said that Post Punk was Prog by other means. He's not wrong but something by Asia or Kansas or Cinema (wearing a Yes logo for three albums for marketing purposes) or trio Genesis will go into a progressive music pantheon way before "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space", "Tin Drum" or "Sons & Fascination". That really makes no sense.

Maybe we need a pre and post Punk pantheon of Prog?

 

If I discount outliers like Pink Floyd and E.L.O, and discount Krautrock as not true Prog, I'm not sure that I could come up with ten Prog bands I like, so Genesis might sneak in somewhere by default, and I'd sure be laughing at that.

 

Was it country-based?

 

Genesis where like the Beatles of Prog. Rock.
You had great musicians in other bands but Genesis were great musicians who reached across the isle of let’s just play a bunch or minor notes with a few majors at a 8/12 beat to show off our talent.

 

For the 1,342nd time, where's the dislike option?