DUCHESS/OPEN DOOR

Duchess / Open Door was a single released by Genesis from their Duke album of 1980. Duchess was one of those better prog singles released that had enough catch to it to make it on radio and enough progressiveness to it to make it interesting to new listeners and keep the attention of older fans. I'm rather surprised it was ever released as a single because there were plenty of other numbers off of Duke that would've been even more radio friendly. Duchess is also particularly noteworthy as it was one of the first Genesis songs to feature a drum machine. I believe it was the Roland CR-78 which was launched in 1978 and was in use by a number of artists at the time (Blondie's Heart of Glass and Phil Collins In the Air Tonight come to mind).

The B-side, Open Door, is a Mike Rutherford number and probably would have been a better addition to the Duke album than a number of the other songs (like Misunderstanding).

Clearly this is for collectors of vinyl 45-rpm singles as you can get Duchess from the Duke album (and in its proper context with the rest of the album), and Open Door is available on the 2nd archive box set, and the 1976-1982 remastered box set. Musically, a sound three stars.