If nothing else, "... calling All Stations ..." answers the question: How do you make rock critics miss Phil Collins? Some veteran bands have been able to take on new personnel late in their careers and make credible, energetic new music, but this latter-day Genesis ain't one of them. That's no knock on the band's twentysomething singer, Scotsman Ray Wilson, whose pleasant if generic voice falls into the territory between original Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel and the more straight-ahead commercial approach of Collins. No, the ultimate problem here is the usual one: the dearth of decent material beyond a few pleasant if generic FM-rock tunes like "Shipwrecked" and "Not About Us." Call any station you want, gentlemen, the world doesn't need a Mike and the Mechanics artrock album. (RS 772)
DAVID WILD
DAVID WILD
We Can't Dance
Like some phoenix of classic rock rising above the creative debris left by other decaying dinosaur bands, Genesis has arrived again with its seventeenth album, We Can't Dance, the first combined effort from Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks since Invisible Touch from 1986. Despite hyperactive lives immersed in solo projects, Collins, Rutherford and Banks still seem to treat Genesis as a concentrated commitment rather than a mere avocation. This time around they smartly rekindle the best elements of their less commercial, more contemplative sound of a decade ago. Although We Can't Dance doesn't quite achieve the vulnerable grace of Duke or the exuberance of Abacab, Genesis has nevertheless delivered an elegantly spare – and even adventurous – album.
Collins daringly lets down what's left of his hair on "I Can't Dance," a gritty, tongue-in-cheek anthem for the average guy. Equally unadorned are the fractionally hopeful "Hold on My Heart," the mournful, majestic "No Son of Mine" and the eerie "Dreaming While You Sleep." Collins's haunting "Since I Lost You" is a tragic lullaby written after the death of Eric Clapton's son, while "Jesus He Knows Me" is a sharp indictment of televangelical piety.
We Can't Dance falters, however, when Genesis raises the torch of social consciousness. Although Collins and Rutherford can compose crushingly personal love songs, they remain distant observers of the big picture on "Tell Me Why" and "Way of the World," respectively. If Genesis risked something more than impotent concern on such songs, perhaps its well-intentioned messages might carry more import. (RS 621)
KARA MANNING
Collins daringly lets down what's left of his hair on "I Can't Dance," a gritty, tongue-in-cheek anthem for the average guy. Equally unadorned are the fractionally hopeful "Hold on My Heart," the mournful, majestic "No Son of Mine" and the eerie "Dreaming While You Sleep." Collins's haunting "Since I Lost You" is a tragic lullaby written after the death of Eric Clapton's son, while "Jesus He Knows Me" is a sharp indictment of televangelical piety.
We Can't Dance falters, however, when Genesis raises the torch of social consciousness. Although Collins and Rutherford can compose crushingly personal love songs, they remain distant observers of the big picture on "Tell Me Why" and "Way of the World," respectively. If Genesis risked something more than impotent concern on such songs, perhaps its well-intentioned messages might carry more import. (RS 621)
KARA MANNING
Invisible Touch
If ever there were a time for Genesis to abandon art rock in favor of a pure pop approach, that time would be now. The pop hits, after all, were what finally catapulted the trio out of its cultact status, and a flair for Top Ten singles has made stars of Phil Collins and Mike (and the Mechanics) Rutherford. So why not jettison the extraneous arrangements and get down to business?
Because without that tendency to orchestral pomposity, it really wouldn't be Genesis. Take, for example, "Anything She Does." The song opens with a brisk, synthesized brass figure that could easily have been copped from one of Collins's solo efforts, but instead of continuing on in that groove (as Collins would), Genesis hits the brakes, dropping back into a quirky skank that effectively halves the beat. It's a real showoff move, and entirely typical of the Genesis canon.
Except that such tricks are no longer the focus of each track. Instead, every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook. Much of the credit for this belongs to Tony Banks, whose synth style has never seemed more appropriate; it's his keyboards that set the mood for "In the Glow of the Night" and maintain the tension in "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."
In the end, though, what essentially distinguishes this from the next Phil and the Mechanics project is that no single player dominates the sound, that each member keeps his touch invisible. And that, as it turns out, is plenty pop enough. (RS 480)
J.D. CONSIDINE
Because without that tendency to orchestral pomposity, it really wouldn't be Genesis. Take, for example, "Anything She Does." The song opens with a brisk, synthesized brass figure that could easily have been copped from one of Collins's solo efforts, but instead of continuing on in that groove (as Collins would), Genesis hits the brakes, dropping back into a quirky skank that effectively halves the beat. It's a real showoff move, and entirely typical of the Genesis canon.
Except that such tricks are no longer the focus of each track. Instead, every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook. Much of the credit for this belongs to Tony Banks, whose synth style has never seemed more appropriate; it's his keyboards that set the mood for "In the Glow of the Night" and maintain the tension in "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."
In the end, though, what essentially distinguishes this from the next Phil and the Mechanics project is that no single player dominates the sound, that each member keeps his touch invisible. And that, as it turns out, is plenty pop enough. (RS 480)
J.D. CONSIDINE
Genesis
In many ways. Genesis' fifteenth album is the group's safest to date. Instead of resolutely pushing forward, as Abacab did, or merely refining the achievements of its predecessors, as was the case with Selling England by the Pound. Genesis seems little more than an attempt to be all things to all fans.
"Home by the Sea," for example, is fairly typical of recent Genesis, with an engaging minor-key melody, driving rhythm and just enough keyboard clutter to lend a sense of oceanic atmosphere. But "Second Home by the Sea," which immediately follows, picks up on the keyboard and guitar flourishes and amplifies them into the sort of instrumental pudding that marked the worst of ...and then there were three. It's as if the band members felt obliged to reassure their older fans that they remember them, too.
This is particularly appalling in light of what Genesis shows the trio capable of doing. Phil Collins' drumming is as tasteful as ever, and his gutteral delivery of "Mama" shows that his fondness for R&B may finally be paying off in his singing. Mike Rutherford's guitar work is surprisingly feisty, so much so that it's hard to understand why the instrumental tracks are so keyboard heavy. But even though Tony Banks sticks in some of his most bombastic synthesizer work in recent memory, some of his bits–the rubbery synth lines in "Mama" or the jazzy bounce of the organ in "That's All"–suggest it's more a matter of misdirection than misapplication.
Still, two songs, "Mama" and "That's All," do break some new ground. The former is powerful both rhythmically and conceptually, pushing the band to new heights of musical drama and rhythmic expression, while "That's All" is an engaging rummage through the false hopes of romantic regret. Overall, however, the drift of this album is one step forward, two steps back. (RS 413)
J.D. CONSIDINE
"Home by the Sea," for example, is fairly typical of recent Genesis, with an engaging minor-key melody, driving rhythm and just enough keyboard clutter to lend a sense of oceanic atmosphere. But "Second Home by the Sea," which immediately follows, picks up on the keyboard and guitar flourishes and amplifies them into the sort of instrumental pudding that marked the worst of ...and then there were three. It's as if the band members felt obliged to reassure their older fans that they remember them, too.
This is particularly appalling in light of what Genesis shows the trio capable of doing. Phil Collins' drumming is as tasteful as ever, and his gutteral delivery of "Mama" shows that his fondness for R&B may finally be paying off in his singing. Mike Rutherford's guitar work is surprisingly feisty, so much so that it's hard to understand why the instrumental tracks are so keyboard heavy. But even though Tony Banks sticks in some of his most bombastic synthesizer work in recent memory, some of his bits–the rubbery synth lines in "Mama" or the jazzy bounce of the organ in "That's All"–suggest it's more a matter of misdirection than misapplication.
Still, two songs, "Mama" and "That's All," do break some new ground. The former is powerful both rhythmically and conceptually, pushing the band to new heights of musical drama and rhythmic expression, while "That's All" is an engaging rummage through the false hopes of romantic regret. Overall, however, the drift of this album is one step forward, two steps back. (RS 413)
J.D. CONSIDINE
Three Side Lives
Live albums generally are a retrospective of a band's career from the beginning, but Three Sides Live stands as testimony to what Genesis has become only very recently. Unlike Seconds Out, where the concert versions of Genesis' songs were shrouded in virtuosic bluster, this album offers incisive, sharply focused performances uncluttered by theatrics or instrumental tedium. Where once Genesis represented art-rock at its most fatuously spectacular, they now show how lean and compelling such music can be. At the center of this change is singer Phil Collins, whose husky vocals no longer merely adorn the instrumental tracks but provide them with direction and pacing. Although Collins is hardly versatile, he is remarkably adept at projecting personality into Genesis' music, which in turn keeps the instrumental excesses in check.
While all of this might have easily been expected after the leaner sound of last year's Abacab, it's still worth noting that Genesis has applied its new perspective to older material, even shrinking such songs as "The Colony of Slippermen" and "The Cinema Show" into a single, concise medley. Too bad that the fourth side of Three Sides Live, comprising unreleased material, is flat semipop that was better left in the vaults. (RS 375)
J.D. CONSIDINE
While all of this might have easily been expected after the leaner sound of last year's Abacab, it's still worth noting that Genesis has applied its new perspective to older material, even shrinking such songs as "The Colony of Slippermen" and "The Cinema Show" into a single, concise medley. Too bad that the fourth side of Three Sides Live, comprising unreleased material, is flat semipop that was better left in the vaults. (RS 375)
J.D. CONSIDINE
Abacab
The irony of singer-drummer Phil Collins' recent solo disc, Face Value, charting higher than any previous Genesis LP apparently hasn't been lost on the band as a whole. Abacab, Genesis' third outing as a trio, not only features a blast from the Earth, Wind and Fire brass section (which was largely responsible for the R&B overtones of Face Value) in "No Reply at All," but most of the album quakes with a radically stripped-down sound, traceable to the thoroughly modern mood of Collins' record and his deep-echo ricochet drum technique.
XTC, for example, marks the spot in the industrial rumba "Keep It Dark," while the sonic distances between piano, percussion and voice in the upbeat, Peter Gabriel-like mantra "Another Record" approximate the wide-open instrumental spaces of the Police. With the exception of their dueling solos in the prolonged, pseudopunk Emerson, Lake and Palmer-style title track, Tony Banks exhibits admirable restraint on keyboards, and utility guitarist Mike Rutherford generally concentrates on his pumping bass. Throughout, the novel sparseness of the group's arrangements and some highly rhythmic interplay contrast sharply with the forbidding ivory-tower artistry that has been Genesis' bread and butter in the past.
Art-rock lovers who are confused by the manic, Ian Dury-type follies of "Who Dunnit?" may be able to take solace in more typical Genesis fare like "Me and Sarah Jane," with its classical gestures, and the pop of "Like It or Not."
Though you can't actually dance to Abacab, it does prove there's life left in the band yet. (RS 357)
DAVID FRICKE
XTC, for example, marks the spot in the industrial rumba "Keep It Dark," while the sonic distances between piano, percussion and voice in the upbeat, Peter Gabriel-like mantra "Another Record" approximate the wide-open instrumental spaces of the Police. With the exception of their dueling solos in the prolonged, pseudopunk Emerson, Lake and Palmer-style title track, Tony Banks exhibits admirable restraint on keyboards, and utility guitarist Mike Rutherford generally concentrates on his pumping bass. Throughout, the novel sparseness of the group's arrangements and some highly rhythmic interplay contrast sharply with the forbidding ivory-tower artistry that has been Genesis' bread and butter in the past.
Art-rock lovers who are confused by the manic, Ian Dury-type follies of "Who Dunnit?" may be able to take solace in more typical Genesis fare like "Me and Sarah Jane," with its classical gestures, and the pop of "Like It or Not."
Though you can't actually dance to Abacab, it does prove there's life left in the band yet. (RS 357)
DAVID FRICKE
Duke
With Duke, their second album as a trio, Genesis continue to rack up commercial success in inverse proportion to the creative losses they suffered with the successive departures of lead singer Peter Gabriel and guitarist Steve Hackett.
Compared to the conceptual musical pretensions of A Curious Feeling and Smallcreep's Day, last year's surprisingly limp solo outings by keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist Mike Rutherford, Duke serves as a testament to strength, even in reduced numbers. As art rock goes, "Turn It On Again" is vibrant rock & roll with keyboards, rhythm section and vocalist deliberately working at rhythmic cross-purposes. Such typical examples of the group's epic classicism as "Duchess," "Man of Our Times," "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End" possess a refreshing urgency marked by singer-drummer Collins' confident snap and the cool orchestral breeze of Banks' ivory armory.
Still, in the six years since their psycho-opera, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Genesis have lapsed into a stylistic predictability that sorely misses Gabriel's perverse wit and the sensual, near-Indian strains of Hackett's guitar. Yet the familiar, almost anesthetic sound of Duke is comforting: a reassurance that Genesis aren't ready for an exodus yet. (RS 325)
DAVID FRICKE
Compared to the conceptual musical pretensions of A Curious Feeling and Smallcreep's Day, last year's surprisingly limp solo outings by keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist Mike Rutherford, Duke serves as a testament to strength, even in reduced numbers. As art rock goes, "Turn It On Again" is vibrant rock & roll with keyboards, rhythm section and vocalist deliberately working at rhythmic cross-purposes. Such typical examples of the group's epic classicism as "Duchess," "Man of Our Times," "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End" possess a refreshing urgency marked by singer-drummer Collins' confident snap and the cool orchestral breeze of Banks' ivory armory.
Still, in the six years since their psycho-opera, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Genesis have lapsed into a stylistic predictability that sorely misses Gabriel's perverse wit and the sensual, near-Indian strains of Hackett's guitar. Yet the familiar, almost anesthetic sound of Duke is comforting: a reassurance that Genesis aren't ready for an exodus yet. (RS 325)
DAVID FRICKE
And The There Were Three
Steve Hackett has left Genesis as far behind as he can. To pursue a career as a songwriter, he's abandoned all of his old band's epic devices, but his wonderful orchestral guitar playing, which once governed his subtle use of effects, has unfortunately evaporated in the baldness of his new material. Hackett's guitar is still engaging at times: the reverberant acoustic picking that opens "Narnia" is sprightly and eager to please, and it carries the song's rinky-dink arrangement. But the thick fuzz tone of "Racing in A," the classical sentiment in "Kim" and the drecky genre parodies that make up side two are examples of mere excess.
Hackett has written verses, choruses and a few guitar solos but no developments, counterpoints or lasting melodies. His worst offense is trying to assume colloquialisms and dialect jokes in the name of the blues. It's really funny when guest vocalist Richie Havens, no Uncle Remus, sings every one of them with perfect diction and knocks them all flat.
Genesis fares even poorer musically....And Then There Were Three... lumbers about in a pea-soup fog of electronics, twists through a maze of odd tempos and dropped beats and ultimately spends itself in gratuitous effects. The melodies have never been less substantial, while the songs revel in pettiness and two-bit theatricality. In short, this contemptible opus is but the palest shadow of the group's earlier accomplishments. Not only is the damage irreversible, it's been widely endorsed: ...And Then There Were Three...is Genesis' first U.S. gold record. (RS 271)
MICHAEL BLOOM
Hackett has written verses, choruses and a few guitar solos but no developments, counterpoints or lasting melodies. His worst offense is trying to assume colloquialisms and dialect jokes in the name of the blues. It's really funny when guest vocalist Richie Havens, no Uncle Remus, sings every one of them with perfect diction and knocks them all flat.
Genesis fares even poorer musically....And Then There Were Three... lumbers about in a pea-soup fog of electronics, twists through a maze of odd tempos and dropped beats and ultimately spends itself in gratuitous effects. The melodies have never been less substantial, while the songs revel in pettiness and two-bit theatricality. In short, this contemptible opus is but the palest shadow of the group's earlier accomplishments. Not only is the damage irreversible, it's been widely endorsed: ...And Then There Were Three...is Genesis' first U.S. gold record. (RS 271)
MICHAEL BLOOM
Seconds Out
Genesis has a reputation for being a group of calculating art rockers, which makes Seconds Out, a double live album recorded in Paris during the band's '76-'77 world tour, something of a contradiction. The band says its approach to live shows is to faithfully recreate the studio sound. Genesis does this admirably—its concerts are astonishing in their musical precision and sonic perfection. But that's the problem with this album. If you close your eyes, you could be listening to their records on God's own juke box. Or, perhaps, listening to Seconds Out.
As a sampler, Seconds Out nimbly moves through Genesis' nine-album career, jumping from the heavy-handed fantasy tale of "Supper's Ready" to the stronger, more pop-oriented "I Know What I Like." Since Peter Gabriel's departure, the other band members have rightfully been acknowledged as first-rate musicians, with Tony Banks' keyboard contributions becoming the heart of a formidable, if sometimes sterile, instrumental attack. With less reliance on theatrics and an added dollop of jazz-rock inclinations, Genesis has become a much stronger band. But because of the inherent contradiction of Seconds Out, the album only puts the group on a holding pattern. (RS 257)
JOHN MILWARD
As a sampler, Seconds Out nimbly moves through Genesis' nine-album career, jumping from the heavy-handed fantasy tale of "Supper's Ready" to the stronger, more pop-oriented "I Know What I Like." Since Peter Gabriel's departure, the other band members have rightfully been acknowledged as first-rate musicians, with Tony Banks' keyboard contributions becoming the heart of a formidable, if sometimes sterile, instrumental attack. With less reliance on theatrics and an added dollop of jazz-rock inclinations, Genesis has become a much stronger band. But because of the inherent contradiction of Seconds Out, the album only puts the group on a holding pattern. (RS 257)
JOHN MILWARD
Wind & Wuthering
The current consensus is that rock is well into its third generation. But the bands which have pulled the music furthest from its roots remain critically dismissed. There are reasons for such disdain. Lumped together as art-rock, such bands as the three above seem to threaten the artistic stature of anything less complex, or more simple. But it is even harder for hard-rock-oriented listeners to find rock at all in the styles of bands as diverse as Focus, Gentle Giant, Be-Bop Deluxe, Boston and Kansas, the other young bands which share sounds or approaches similar to Genesis, Queen and Starcastle. Yet such music can't be denied analysis forever. Liking it asks too much, perhaps, but listening is probably obligatory, at least for critics.
These groups are not art-rock in the sense that they confine their borrowings to orchestral classical music, as such progenitors as the Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer often did. Nor were they spawned in artistic communities such as the ones that nurtured Roxy Music or Patti Smith. For performers such as Genesis, Queen and Starcastle, rock is still the dominant influence. These third-generation bands have a mixed litter of second-generation antecedents: the Mothers of Invention, Cat Stevens, Procol Harum, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Traffic, Jethro Tull, Yes, Phil Spector, King Crimson, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Yardbirds.
In the most noteworthy art-rock essay (contained in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll), John Rockwell calls such bands "eclectic experimentalists." But until one attempts to assemble such a list of sources, it's hard to see how awesomely accurate his term is. The eccentric combination of influences is what distinguishes most of these groups. The vocal structures of the Beach Boys, for instance, have influenced Queen as deeply as they have Eric Carmen. Yet Queen's instrumentation owes more to Led Zeppelin, Yes and the Beatles. Starcastle are an inflection-accurate replication of Yes. Genesis are nearly free from overt emulation, but their debts to Jethro Tull and King Crimson hardly need ferreting out.
Still, the sensibility of these bands is discernibly different from that of the equally imitative third-generation heavy-rock acts like Aerosmith, Kiss and even Thin Lizzy, The heavy bands are, in some ways at least, attempting to recapture and redefine the spirit of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. The eclectic experimentalists are more baroque—their goal is a rigorous, complicated structure rather than emotive resonance.
This sometimes takes the form of grand silliness. A Day at the Races is probably meant to be the sequel to Queen's 1976 smash, A Night at the Opera, but nothing much has changed. Queen is the least experimental of such groups, probably because their commercial aspirations are the most brazen. They have managed to borrow all that's frothiest from their influences, from the fake-orgasmic vocal contortions of Robert Plant to the semi-vaudevillian pop of the Beach Boys and Beatles. In addition, to cement their "seriousness," they use instrumental effects which hint at opera in the same way that bad movie music palely evokes the symphony. Blessed with Freddie Mercury's passable pop voice and guitarist Brian May, who manages to fragment and reassemble the guitar styles of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton in interesting, if pedestrian, ways, Queen will probably top the charts until one or the other of its leaders grows restless and spins off another version.
Fountains of Light is not the sequel to Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrow." It is the follow-up to Starcastle's self-titled debut album of last year, a moderate hit. Starcastle might have been celebrated as the first American group to break the British eclectic-experimental hegemony. Unfortunately, Boston's 2 million-selling debut album eclipsed them. But Starcastle has another distinction. It is the most blatantly imitative group ever assembled. Fountains of Light continues on the path of the band's first album; from beginning to end, Starcastle can hardly be distinguished from Yes. The vocals are a perfect echo of Jon Andersen's, the changes in tempo and dynamics are straight from the Yes catalog, the fascination with pop mysticism is identical (though this is a trait common to the genre). Occasionally, harder elements intrude, as though in assertion of a rougher Americanism, but never for long enough to challenge the feeling that one might be listening to the world's first musical clone.
Genesis is closer to the mainstream of the form, and far superior to either Queen or Starcastle. Their assemblage of elements is more truly experimental than the simple recycling the others do, or at least it's more interesting. The most noticeable ingredients are British folk, King Crimson-style space music and, lately, with the ascendance of vocalist (and drummer) Phil Collins, jazz rock. The last is abetted by the recent addition of percussionist Chester Thompson, a veteran of Weather Report and Frank Zappa's Mothers.
Genesis is more listenable, though, mostly because its music is prettier. Its gracefulness is derived from British folk, in somewhat the same way that Jethro Tull's was. Onstage, the guitars of Steve Hackett and Michael Rutherford are dominant, generating a kind of fire that's as close as such bands come to rock & roll of the old order. Wind & Wuthering relies more heavily on Tony Banks' synthesizer, which costs them some bite but lends a feel that is more pop. Rutherford's "Your Own Special Way" is a first-rate pop song, somewhat like the Yes hit, "Roundabout."
What is most surprising about these bands is that they are not the cold technicians that hostile, dismissive criticism often paints them. Indeed, Wind & Wuthering is more melodically innovative than most of the new mainstream rock. What really leads to the charges of iciness is something else, I think — a kind of class-based cult of musicianship, which is truly arrogant because it refuses to articulate just what moods its complex structures are meant to evoke. Eclectic experimentalism is determinedly middle-class—thus, the general obsession with synthesizers and other gadgets, the devotion to science fiction and pop mysticism and, in the case of Genesis, a ruinous lyrical preoccupation with half-digested English literature courses. If pretty but empty describes most bands of this type, the emptiness is more lyrical than musical — somewhere, each of these groups is driving at a point having meaning to itself (and maybe its cult). Without accepting such folderol as Starcastle's "Dawning of the Day" or Genesis' "All in a Mouse's Night" at face value, extracting meaning from the songs is like code breaking.
Still, the presumptuousness of Genesis in naming an album after a classic children's tale and an Emily Brontë novel is no greater than that of Joni Mitchell on her equally obfuscatory The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The lyrics of "All in a Mouse's Night" are no sillier than half of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The excesses of others do not excuse these. Queen and Starcastle seem, like most rock right now, to be filling a marketing void—Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and Yes being inaccessible to varying degrees, they provide alternate product. But Genesis are doing something different than that. However haughty they may be about it, and however short of the mark they may fall, they are at least attempting to make art of their own particular jumble. This seems, to me at any rate, a much more worthy goal than simply churning out another million-seller—even if the producers of successful product rather than failed art are the ones I am more comfortable listening to. (RS 233)
DAVE MARSH
These groups are not art-rock in the sense that they confine their borrowings to orchestral classical music, as such progenitors as the Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer often did. Nor were they spawned in artistic communities such as the ones that nurtured Roxy Music or Patti Smith. For performers such as Genesis, Queen and Starcastle, rock is still the dominant influence. These third-generation bands have a mixed litter of second-generation antecedents: the Mothers of Invention, Cat Stevens, Procol Harum, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Traffic, Jethro Tull, Yes, Phil Spector, King Crimson, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Yardbirds.
In the most noteworthy art-rock essay (contained in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll), John Rockwell calls such bands "eclectic experimentalists." But until one attempts to assemble such a list of sources, it's hard to see how awesomely accurate his term is. The eccentric combination of influences is what distinguishes most of these groups. The vocal structures of the Beach Boys, for instance, have influenced Queen as deeply as they have Eric Carmen. Yet Queen's instrumentation owes more to Led Zeppelin, Yes and the Beatles. Starcastle are an inflection-accurate replication of Yes. Genesis are nearly free from overt emulation, but their debts to Jethro Tull and King Crimson hardly need ferreting out.
Still, the sensibility of these bands is discernibly different from that of the equally imitative third-generation heavy-rock acts like Aerosmith, Kiss and even Thin Lizzy, The heavy bands are, in some ways at least, attempting to recapture and redefine the spirit of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. The eclectic experimentalists are more baroque—their goal is a rigorous, complicated structure rather than emotive resonance.
This sometimes takes the form of grand silliness. A Day at the Races is probably meant to be the sequel to Queen's 1976 smash, A Night at the Opera, but nothing much has changed. Queen is the least experimental of such groups, probably because their commercial aspirations are the most brazen. They have managed to borrow all that's frothiest from their influences, from the fake-orgasmic vocal contortions of Robert Plant to the semi-vaudevillian pop of the Beach Boys and Beatles. In addition, to cement their "seriousness," they use instrumental effects which hint at opera in the same way that bad movie music palely evokes the symphony. Blessed with Freddie Mercury's passable pop voice and guitarist Brian May, who manages to fragment and reassemble the guitar styles of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton in interesting, if pedestrian, ways, Queen will probably top the charts until one or the other of its leaders grows restless and spins off another version.
Fountains of Light is not the sequel to Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrow." It is the follow-up to Starcastle's self-titled debut album of last year, a moderate hit. Starcastle might have been celebrated as the first American group to break the British eclectic-experimental hegemony. Unfortunately, Boston's 2 million-selling debut album eclipsed them. But Starcastle has another distinction. It is the most blatantly imitative group ever assembled. Fountains of Light continues on the path of the band's first album; from beginning to end, Starcastle can hardly be distinguished from Yes. The vocals are a perfect echo of Jon Andersen's, the changes in tempo and dynamics are straight from the Yes catalog, the fascination with pop mysticism is identical (though this is a trait common to the genre). Occasionally, harder elements intrude, as though in assertion of a rougher Americanism, but never for long enough to challenge the feeling that one might be listening to the world's first musical clone.
Genesis is closer to the mainstream of the form, and far superior to either Queen or Starcastle. Their assemblage of elements is more truly experimental than the simple recycling the others do, or at least it's more interesting. The most noticeable ingredients are British folk, King Crimson-style space music and, lately, with the ascendance of vocalist (and drummer) Phil Collins, jazz rock. The last is abetted by the recent addition of percussionist Chester Thompson, a veteran of Weather Report and Frank Zappa's Mothers.
Genesis is more listenable, though, mostly because its music is prettier. Its gracefulness is derived from British folk, in somewhat the same way that Jethro Tull's was. Onstage, the guitars of Steve Hackett and Michael Rutherford are dominant, generating a kind of fire that's as close as such bands come to rock & roll of the old order. Wind & Wuthering relies more heavily on Tony Banks' synthesizer, which costs them some bite but lends a feel that is more pop. Rutherford's "Your Own Special Way" is a first-rate pop song, somewhat like the Yes hit, "Roundabout."
What is most surprising about these bands is that they are not the cold technicians that hostile, dismissive criticism often paints them. Indeed, Wind & Wuthering is more melodically innovative than most of the new mainstream rock. What really leads to the charges of iciness is something else, I think — a kind of class-based cult of musicianship, which is truly arrogant because it refuses to articulate just what moods its complex structures are meant to evoke. Eclectic experimentalism is determinedly middle-class—thus, the general obsession with synthesizers and other gadgets, the devotion to science fiction and pop mysticism and, in the case of Genesis, a ruinous lyrical preoccupation with half-digested English literature courses. If pretty but empty describes most bands of this type, the emptiness is more lyrical than musical — somewhere, each of these groups is driving at a point having meaning to itself (and maybe its cult). Without accepting such folderol as Starcastle's "Dawning of the Day" or Genesis' "All in a Mouse's Night" at face value, extracting meaning from the songs is like code breaking.
Still, the presumptuousness of Genesis in naming an album after a classic children's tale and an Emily Brontë novel is no greater than that of Joni Mitchell on her equally obfuscatory The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The lyrics of "All in a Mouse's Night" are no sillier than half of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The excesses of others do not excuse these. Queen and Starcastle seem, like most rock right now, to be filling a marketing void—Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and Yes being inaccessible to varying degrees, they provide alternate product. But Genesis are doing something different than that. However haughty they may be about it, and however short of the mark they may fall, they are at least attempting to make art of their own particular jumble. This seems, to me at any rate, a much more worthy goal than simply churning out another million-seller—even if the producers of successful product rather than failed art are the ones I am more comfortable listening to. (RS 233)
DAVE MARSH
Trick of The Tail
The release of guitarist Steve Hackett's solo album offered assurance that Genesis still had enough talent to compensate for the departure of singer Peter Gabriel. A Trick of the Tail, the first post-Gabriel Genesis LP, confirms it, surprisingly drawing most of its strength from the writing of keyboardist Tony Banks, who contributed to all eight of the songs.
Voyage of the Acolyte invites comparison to Genesis, of course, because the band's drummer, Phil Collins, and bassist/guitarist, Michael Rutherford, assist Hackett. The differences lie in Hackett's musty tenor vocals on "The Hermit," and Sally Oldfield's fluid soprano on "Star of Sirius."
Hackett's record is organized around Tarot themes. "Ace of Wands," for instance, opens in a frenzy of guitar reminiscent of King Crimson's Robert Fripp. Like Fripp, Hackett uses the guitar to create sound effects; unlike him, he stresses clarity and fluid note sequences to build instrumental drama. From that base, Hackett builds lithe textures of acoustic guitar and swarming beds of mellotron occasionally pierced by fuzzy electric riffs. Though his music tends to be more abrupt than the group's, he is for the most part equally resourceful.
On A Trick of the Tail, Hackett backs off from sound-effect guitar to blend with Banks's keyboards. They trade solos, but it's Banks's assortment of piano, synthesizer and mellotron that dominates instrumentally. The vocal problem has been easily solved. The twin harmonies of Genesis's early work suggested the similarity between drummer-turned-vocalist Phil Collins's and Peter Gabriel's voices. But on his own, Collins is unexpectedly adept at duplicating Gabriel's quality. Differences are hard to find, although he lacks a little in projection.
With the absence of Gabriel, however, Genesis now relies on subtlety and melodic continuity more than studio gimmickry. The title track, based on a choppy piano rhythm, is the closest they've come to a pop single. Although the familiar themes are always apparent, A Trick of the Tail is much more straightforward, possibly because it's more a joint effort than the Gabrieldominated albums. On their seventh attempt, Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success. (RS 213)
KRIS NICHOLSON
Voyage of the Acolyte invites comparison to Genesis, of course, because the band's drummer, Phil Collins, and bassist/guitarist, Michael Rutherford, assist Hackett. The differences lie in Hackett's musty tenor vocals on "The Hermit," and Sally Oldfield's fluid soprano on "Star of Sirius."
Hackett's record is organized around Tarot themes. "Ace of Wands," for instance, opens in a frenzy of guitar reminiscent of King Crimson's Robert Fripp. Like Fripp, Hackett uses the guitar to create sound effects; unlike him, he stresses clarity and fluid note sequences to build instrumental drama. From that base, Hackett builds lithe textures of acoustic guitar and swarming beds of mellotron occasionally pierced by fuzzy electric riffs. Though his music tends to be more abrupt than the group's, he is for the most part equally resourceful.
On A Trick of the Tail, Hackett backs off from sound-effect guitar to blend with Banks's keyboards. They trade solos, but it's Banks's assortment of piano, synthesizer and mellotron that dominates instrumentally. The vocal problem has been easily solved. The twin harmonies of Genesis's early work suggested the similarity between drummer-turned-vocalist Phil Collins's and Peter Gabriel's voices. But on his own, Collins is unexpectedly adept at duplicating Gabriel's quality. Differences are hard to find, although he lacks a little in projection.
With the absence of Gabriel, however, Genesis now relies on subtlety and melodic continuity more than studio gimmickry. The title track, based on a choppy piano rhythm, is the closest they've come to a pop single. Although the familiar themes are always apparent, A Trick of the Tail is much more straightforward, possibly because it's more a joint effort than the Gabrieldominated albums. On their seventh attempt, Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success. (RS 213)
KRIS NICHOLSON
Selling England By The Pound
"I know what I like, and I like what I know," Peter Gabriel sings on the second cut. This could be Genesis' problem. If American audiences are not willing to make the effort to decode the British English in which the lyrics are written, this album will not receive the attention it deserves.
Selling England merits some recognition because it contains a few good tracks which are pieces more than conventional songs. One number, "The Battle of Epping Forest," contains 13 stanzas, is constructed more artfully than a Top 40 tune, and uses military and sports terminology as metaphors for gang warfare. The opening selection, "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight," is an epic commentary on contemporary England that employs references to English staples like Wimpey hamburgers and Green Shield stamps.
Genesis are doing unusual things, but that does not automatically place them in the major leagues. Some of the instrumental tracks on "Dancing" are intriguing, and some of the lyrical imagery sprinkled throughout is appealing. But some of the lines are as absurd as they are obscure. "Me, I'm just a lawnmower," Gabriel professes at one point, "you can tell me by the way I walk." Eh? "'I do my double show quick!' said Nick the Prick, fresh out the nick," carries rhyming into the realm of the silly.
There are other defects. One instrumental passage sounds like a monotonous film soundtrack and a spoken introduction resembles the voice of the perturbed rabbit in Alice In Wonderland. The passion for puns occasionally has regrettable manifestations like, "He employed me as a karmacanic."
For all these faults the LP has its moments, and "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" should be at least heard if not purchased. Genesis may well be the most wordy of today's pop groups, and their facility for the language is admirable. Musically their artiness is, in small doses, engaging. And a band that is trying to do something different in a stagnant pop scene deserves encouragement. (RS 156)
PAUL GAMBACCINL
Selling England merits some recognition because it contains a few good tracks which are pieces more than conventional songs. One number, "The Battle of Epping Forest," contains 13 stanzas, is constructed more artfully than a Top 40 tune, and uses military and sports terminology as metaphors for gang warfare. The opening selection, "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight," is an epic commentary on contemporary England that employs references to English staples like Wimpey hamburgers and Green Shield stamps.
Genesis are doing unusual things, but that does not automatically place them in the major leagues. Some of the instrumental tracks on "Dancing" are intriguing, and some of the lyrical imagery sprinkled throughout is appealing. But some of the lines are as absurd as they are obscure. "Me, I'm just a lawnmower," Gabriel professes at one point, "you can tell me by the way I walk." Eh? "'I do my double show quick!' said Nick the Prick, fresh out the nick," carries rhyming into the realm of the silly.
There are other defects. One instrumental passage sounds like a monotonous film soundtrack and a spoken introduction resembles the voice of the perturbed rabbit in Alice In Wonderland. The passion for puns occasionally has regrettable manifestations like, "He employed me as a karmacanic."
For all these faults the LP has its moments, and "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" should be at least heard if not purchased. Genesis may well be the most wordy of today's pop groups, and their facility for the language is admirable. Musically their artiness is, in small doses, engaging. And a band that is trying to do something different in a stagnant pop scene deserves encouragement. (RS 156)
PAUL GAMBACCINL
Genesis Live
Genesis Live is a collection of in-concert tracks recorded in early 1973, spotlighting material originally released on Foxtrot and Nursery Chryme. Long a favorite on the import racks, this album goes a long way toward capturing the gripping power and mysticism that has many fans acclaiming Genesis as "the greatest live band ever." Titles like "Get 'Em Out by Friday" and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" tell much about this band's modus operandi: a strange, visionary moralism highly reminiscent of both Yes and Jethro Tull. Genesis predated both of those bands in audio-visual productions though, and their dues-paying days are well documented by the high degree to which they develop multiple themes on both lyrical and instrumental levels.
Trespass is a re-release of a 1970 Genesis album, recorded well before the band was in full command of its craft. It's spotty, poorly defined, at times innately boring, and should be avoided by all but the most rabid Genesis fans. (RS 166)
Trespass is a re-release of a 1970 Genesis album, recorded well before the band was in full command of its craft. It's spotty, poorly defined, at times innately boring, and should be avoided by all but the most rabid Genesis fans. (RS 166)
Nursery Crime
The countryside cottage in which (it says here) Genesis regrouped their creative energies must have had a lot of strange stuff coming out of the walls to have been worthy of hosting this new contender for the coveted British weirdo-rock championship.
The cover of Nursery Cryme is a De Chirico-like painting of a croquet field littered with Surrealist paraphernalia. At stage center stands a large-eyed Alice sort, her mallet raised to poke through the wicket one of the disembodied heads that lie scattered about. Paul Whitehead's painting was "inspired by 'The Musical Box,' " the album's opener: playing croquet, Cynthia gracefully lops off Henry's head; two weeks later a tiny Henry makes an appearance in his music box, and his body begins aging rapidly; "a lifetime of desires" surges through him, desires that Cynthia will be no party to; the nurse enters and hurls the music box at the bearded child, "destroying both."
OK? Well, with the exception of "The Return of the Giant Hogweed," the rest of it isn't quite that bizarro. "Harold the Barrel" and "For Absent Friends" are observations of British life and characters that remind (in theme if not quality) of the Kinks; "Seven Stones" and "Harlequin" are vaguely poetic and impressionistic, and "The Fountain of Salmacis" relates the myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis in a straightforward manner.
Nursery Cryme's main problem lies not in Genesis' concepts, which are, if nothing else, outrageously imaginative and lovably eccentric, nor with their musical structures—long, involved, multi-movemented frameworks on which they hang their narratives—nor even with their playing, which does get pretty lethargic at points. It's the godawful production, a murky, distant stew that at best bubbles quietly when what is desperately needed are the explosions of drums and guitars, the screaming of the organ, the abrasive rasp of vocal cords.
It might really be there, and at times you can actually detect a genuine electricity in their music (which lies roughly within the territory staked out by Yes, Strawbs and Family, with a touch of Procol Harum). It could be simply a matter of taking off the lid.
Some numbers, including "The Musical Box," survive even under this handicap. "Harold the Barrel" moves well and features lots of enjoyable musical ideas and some fine lines. "Salmacis" swims about in a nicely drawn atmosphere and is a good example of Genesis' refusal to indulge in gratuitous eclecticism at the expense of rock & roll. And "Hogweed," while perhaps a bit stilted, is admirably ambitious and uses its excessive wordiness to humorous advantage.
It's definitely a type of music that skulks down back alleys far from the beaten path, but if Genesis (which consists of Tony Banks, Michael Rutherford, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins) learn how to gear things up to explosion level and manage to develop their ideas a bit more thoroughly, they could be the ones to successfully repopulate those forgotten passageways. (RS 120)
RICHARD CROMELIN
Trespass
Genesis Live is a collection of in-concert tracks recorded in early 1973, spotlighting material originally released on Foxtrot and Nursery Chryme. Long a favorite on the import racks, this album goes a long way toward capturing the gripping power and mysticism that has many fans acclaiming Genesis as "the greatest live band ever." Titles like "Get 'Em Out by Friday" and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" tell much about this band's modus operandi: a strange, visionary moralism highly reminiscent of both Yes and Jethro Tull. Genesis predated both of those bands in audio-visual productions though, and their dues-paying days are well documented by the high degree to which they develop multiple themes on both lyrical and instrumental levels.
Trespass is a re-release of a 1970 Genesis album, recorded well before the band was in full command of its craft. It's spotty, poorly defined, at times innately boring, and should be avoided by all but the most rabid Genesis fans. (RS 166)
Trespass is a re-release of a 1970 Genesis album, recorded well before the band was in full command of its craft. It's spotty, poorly defined, at times innately boring, and should be avoided by all but the most rabid Genesis fans. (RS 166)
Sources : Rolling Stone Magazine
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