Overrated Genesis?

Royal Jelly wrote:

ken4musiq wrote: A vocalist is something more, a vocalist is a guy who knows his voice, his strong points and his weak points, a person who creates and or adapts music to fit with his voice, a person who makes an advantage of his weak spots.>>   I think it is good that we re-clarified that distinction. (although I would say that we might let singers get away with technical flaws that others would be criticized for) I would not let anyone get away with saying that Gabriel's singing at the end of Supper's Ready is good singing.  If you feel that moves you and you enjoy it, great, but it is not good singing. For many in detracts from the enjoyment of the ending.     Wrong, his singing at the end of Supper's Ready IS good singing, though it may not be to your taste. Please name a few singers then, who are better? In my opinion, he's the best singer to come out of rock, period, easily the best in prog (next to Hammill), and any talk of him being not a good singer is totally ga-ga.

100% agree with you Royal Jelly, at the end of Supper's Ready Peter Gabriel is spectacular, good singing is too weak to describe this moment.

A good singer may have a great and trained voice, but Gabriel never pretended to be a Carusso or Pavarotti, he's a rock singer and the requirements for Rock are not the same that to sing Die Walkure (Pavarotti or Carreras, not sure which one, once said that Wagner was a sadist that composed music that was almost impossible to sing by humans).

But what Peter Gabriel achieves at the end of Supper's Ready is beyond what most great rock singers with better voices do, he makes the song believable, hey the Lord is comming back, and the guy shows and incredible range of emotion, I almost kneel and pray.

Compare it with Phil Collins (Who does a nice but inferior job), he shouts as he was angry, as I said once seems like his mother in law is comming to dinner and not the Lord of Lords, king of kings to take us to the new Jerusalem.

He's not Freddie Mercury, no way, but I don't imagine Freddie or Greg Lake singing this part with the same emotion, despite both hae more gifted voices. But this guys were born with hose voices, it was almost fror free, Peter Gabriel created his own style starting from a somehow limited range, and this my friends is worth an applause.

Iván

We all knoew the difference between a trained singer and a popular singer (Including Progressive Rock), the difference is huge, but you are over analyzing and contradicting yourself repeteadly.

Beside Freddie Mercury (Who had choral trainning) and Del Giacomo (Who's near the level of any tenor and has clear trainning, most vocalists in Prog are amateurs, so you're not bringing new information.

You keep saying that you base your comments in musical history, your knowledge of vocalists styles, your advanced and deep knowledge of music, etc,, but you haven't given a solid argument, not a single one to prove Peter Gabriel is a bd singer.

For example, your opinion on Don't Give Up is just taste,  I feel this is one of the songs in which he has more problems, the contrast between his range and Kate Bush's is easily discovered by any newbie, but you still consider this his peak (???)

Peter sung this track the two times I saw him in person, one with Sinead O'Connor in Chile and the second one in the States in 1996 with Paula Cole if I'm not wrong. On both concerts he directed to the musicians and asked to lower the tone, in Chile (Rock from the Ashes - Amnesty International) it was even worst, because both Peter and Sinead kept asking the band to play in a lower tone.

You are making a bold statement, that he is extraordinary, the best maybe even created a new singing style.  The least I can ask for is a basis of support to back it up. 

You're trying to limit your appreciation and evaluation to technicall aspects (To be honest using complex words almost as a politician), but you leave the effect that his voice and his singing causes in the audience, The reaction to Sopper's Ready closing section is simply amazing, I seen videos of people with their mouth wide open and others almost levitating because of the emotion.

Probably for an artistic tecnocrat this doesn't matter, but for poor ignorants like us that know what we like and recieve the emotion provided by Peter Gabriel, he's superb.

I may name at least 10 singers with better natural voice than Gabriel and hundreed of tenors much more trained than him.

But I can't imagine anybody else singing Supper's Ready.

RoyalJelly wrote:      Actually, as far as the end of Supper's Ready goes, I find it to be among the weakest passages compositionally of any of the earliest Genesis albums. It's a repetition of the earlier section chordally, but arranged in a rather pompous and blown-up fashion. Gabriel's voice saves it, in that he sings it in a very raw and interesting manner.      And if we've failed to convince you with objective explanations as to why the singing there is good, you've equally failed in explaining why it is bad. Why is it that other people's opinions are "taste" while yours are "musical evaluation"?

I was waiting for that question, which is the logical continuance of the conversation but not totally fair because I am not saying that Gabriel's singing is superlatively worse than anybody else, just that it leaves me wanting for more sometimes. (So does Lake's; I hate when he oversings) You said he was the greatest singer in rock and roll.   

Why is it that you say that the reprise is pompous? The chimes and trumpets.  I enjoy the general spaciousness of the texture, sustained notes and repeated rhythmic phrasing, which brings me right out onto the field of the Megghido Valley?  Where I want to be . . . I think it works.

Why should the singing be so raw? What does that add to the texture? It adds dissonance to a situation that should be harmonious. I would expect that the Second Coming is quite extraordinary.  This is where it fails. His rawness loses the lyricism of the line and the words. He has what he wants, Why is he still grabbing/reaching for it?  He's reaching for the notes because he does not have the notes. (He has them later on in his career.)  

If you want to say that the rawness is in character of the people in the vignette I would buy that.  They're firemen, farmers and working class people after all. So this Paul Revere of the apocalypse comes across as being quite unsophisticated and rather a rogue and that's why we identify with him. That works for me. 

The music of the second coming is blaring rock and roll.  So there is a whole socio-economic dimension of the ending.  This is interesting because Gabriel, like Waters I believe, were both public school graduates/brats, where English imperialism was born.  I would assume they came from money.  I don't know what kind of guilt Englishmen have about that.  But Waters and Gabriel dealt a lot with class issues, especially Gabriel.  The part after Willow's Farm seems to have been lifted for The Wall. I'm sure there is a link between imperialism and the apocalypse.  WW II was an imperialist war and Gabriel references it. The theme is a major part of the album; this ending where he sees it taking us.

Dylan phrasing is so impeccable that it has been copied and anyone who was born before 1970 can readily recognize it. It came right out of the beats with their howling and swinging poetry. I don't hear a defining character in Gabriel's phrasing or delivery that would garner him a superlative title. If anything he picks up on Dylan. Like Ivan said, he does well with what he has. But if I am wrong, I am ready to be enlightened.

you probaly are going to argue again that I'm talking with myself but I am trying to do a some thinking through this here.

cheers

Syzygy wrote: Genesis were the band that got me into prog, but I don't think any of their albums is an unqualified 5* masterpiece. There are substandard tracks on all the Gabriel era albums, although they also contain some of the defining pieces of 70s symphonic prog. Having said that, if somebody can sit through The Battle of Epping Forest and still call SEBTP a flawless masterpiece, they're entitled to that opinion. It's one of the great things about this site.

i'm gonna have to agree with my good friend syzygy here, If the battle of epping forest had been replaced with something better, then SEBTP would be nothing short of amazing

but we also need to think about this forum...there may be too many topics about the same thing in this crib

Why must I do all the work. I think I've done my share. I deleted a whole paragraph that discussed more of the singing in technical terms when I realized it may not apply here.  For the rest you'll have to wait for the book.

Because most of the members disagree with you about this issue, I hae done it many times, and it's fun to be the Devil's Advocate sometimes.

I did not disagree with Royal Jelly, if anything I came to agree with him.  I know people have a problem with the round about way I dscuss things but usually I do not agree with the fundamental assumptions people have and have to work around them, i.e. your division of pop and prog.

Funny way to agree, you have avoided the musical problem with his voice at the end of Supper's Ready, you made a complex and again pompous Sociological explanation about how his English was too complex for farmers and firemen or for kids from a public school, but about his voice, you only give your opinions and your tastes, which to be honest are as valid as our's.

In essense, what I was saying is that there could be another way to perform Supper's Ready, that it need not be limited to what we have on the album.  As it is I think the dissonance the voice adds is problematic for me. The ending could be brighter and more lyrical and I think it would work especially if the rest of the piece is darker because now we have the transformation.  But at the same time I can see why the raw ending works and I could see his point by referencing the text of the piece.  

Of course it can be performed in a different way, andit was, Phil Collins ended with loud sreams instead of making emotional vocal inflections to cause the reaction he wants in the audience, reaction that IMO he achieved perfectly.

My problem is that the song fades into the nothingness after the explosive vocals, they reached the climax and lost it. That's not the vocalist problem, I believe the song was written 60 seconds larger than it should have been.

PS I overrated bands that I thought were underrated and underrated bands that I thought were over rated, maybe excepting Pink Floyd, although I don't know why I m not a big Pink Floyd fan.

I don't like Pink Floyd...Sounds like an expression of personal taste to me

In retrospect, I think I would have waited to rate anybody, but it's too late now. I certainly would have had less qualms about giving Foxtrot five stars as well as Trilogy by ELP.  It was funny that as I opened up more to one band I opened up more to other bands and was not as critical. Notice I have waited to rate any of the biggies now.

If you criticize any band, you should expect reactions from the people who appreciate their musical quality.

But it is important that there is dissent and a diversity of opinion and that was the point that I was trying to make because I felt that anybody that criticized Genesis or Peter Gabriel was jumped on too quickly. 

Maybe because you've been here for about one month and you haven't read the hundreed of times people criticized Genesis or ELP. Read Progger's comments, he almost said that Genesis fans are ignorants, stupid and corrupt without giving a single fact.

Look at all my criticism and where I have come. I think I put a lot of thought into many of my reviews and hopefully some of what I say is useful to people and that's what really matters. I am not so arrogant that I can't admit I was mistaken or find a new take on things.

Sometimes you're arrogant, you criticize our opinion calling them taste and boast about your's calling them deep research, but you don't give a single fact, you jump from history to sociology, to politics but avoid the central issue that is music.

Anyway a top ten list is so anti prog. It's just a lot of fun.  I never had a forum to discuss this music with anyone so I have learned as much or more about it in the last few months here as I have in the last thirty years.

Top ten in this case is just the average of ratings given by reviewers, nothing more, doesn't mean a band is better but only that more people appreciate more  a determined band than another.

Iván

ivan_2068 wrote: ken4musiq wrote: RoyalJelly wrote:      Actually, as far as the end of Supper's Ready goes, I find it to be among the weakest passages compositionally of any of the earliest Genesis albums. It's a repetition of the earlier section chordally, but arranged in a rather pompous and blown-up fashion. Gabriel's voice saves it, in that he sings it in a very raw and interesting manner.      And if we've failed to convince you with objective explanations as to why the singing there is good, you've equally failed in explaining why it is bad. Why is it that other people's opinions are "taste" while yours are "musical evaluation"?   I was waiting for that question, which is the logical continuance of the conversation but not totally fair because I am not saying that Gabriel's singing is superlatively worse than anybody else, just that it leaves me wanting for more sometimes. (So does Lake's; I hate when he oversings) You said he was the greatest singer in rock and roll.    Why is it that you say that the reprise is pompous? The chimes and trumpets.  I enjoy the general spaciousness of the texture, sustained notes and repeated rhythmic phrasing, which brings me right out onto the field of the Megghido Valley?  Where I want to be . . . I think it works. Why should the singing be so raw? What does that add to the texture? It adds dissonance to a situation that should be harmonious. I would expect that the Second Coming is quite extraordinary.  This is where it fails. His rawness loses the lyricism of the line and the words. He has what he wants, Why is he still grabbing/reaching for it?  He's reaching for the notes because he does not have the notes. (He has them later on in his career.)   If you want to say that the rawness is in character of the people in the vignette I would buy that.  They're firemen, farmers and working class people after all. So this Paul Revere of the apocalypse comes across as being quite unsophisticated and rather a rogue and that's why we identify with him. That works for me.  The music of the second coming is blaring rock and roll.  So there is a whole socio-economic dimension of the ending.  This is interesting because Gabriel, like Waters I believe, were both public school graduates/brats, where English imperialism was born.  I would assume they came from money.  I don't know what kind of guilt Englishmen have about that.  But Waters and Gabriel dealt a lot with class issues, especially Gabriel.  The part after Willow's Farm seems to have been lifted for The Wall. I'm sure there is a link between imperialism and the apocalypse.  WW II was an imperialist war and Gabriel references it. The theme is a major part of the album; this ending where he sees it taking us. Dylan phrasing is so impeccable that it has been copied and anyone who was born before 1970 can readily recognize it. It came right out of the beats with their howling and swinging poetry. I don't hear a defining character in Gabriel's phrasing or delivery that would garner him a superlative title. If anything he picks up on Dylan. Like Ivan said, he does well with what he has. But if I am wrong, I am ready to be enlightened. you probaly are going to argue again that I'm talking with myself but I am trying to do a some thinking through this here. cheers Pompous sociological reply, but musical? I'm still waiting for it. Royal Jelly asks you why musically Gabriel's ending in Supper's Ready is weak and yoiu answer mentioning public schools, farmers, firemen, WWII British Imperialism, etc. But your musical evaluation is still on your mind, this kind of comments are ok for your book about Apocaliptyc influences or whatever, but not for a musical forum. Iván

Why must I do all the work. I think I've done my share. I deleted a whole paragraph that discussed more of the singing in technical terms when I realized it may not apply here.  For the rest you'll have to wait for the book.

I did not disagree with Royal Jelly, if anything I came to agree with him.  I know people have a problem with the round about way I dscuss things but usually I do not agree with the fundamental assumptions people have and have to work around them, i.e. your division of pop and prog.

In essense, what I was saying is that there could be another way to perform Supper's Ready, that it need not be limited to what we have on the album.  As it is I think the dissonance the voice adds is problematic for me. The ending could be brighter and more lyrical and I think it would work especially if the rest of the piece is darker because now we have the transformation.  But at the same time I can see why the raw ending works and I could see his point by referencing the text of the piece.  

PS I overrated bands that I thought were underrated and underrated bands that I thought were over rated, maybe excepting Pink Floyd, although I don't know why I m not a big Pink Floyd fan.  In retrospect, I think I would have waited to rate anybody, but it's too late now. I certainly would have had less qualms about giving Foxtrot five stars as well as Trilogy by ELP.  It was funny that as I opened up more to one band I opened up more to other bands and was not as critical. Notice I have waited to rate any of the biggies now. But it is important that there is dissent and a diversity of opinion and that was the point that I was trying to make because I felt that anybody that criticized Genesis or Peter Gabriel was jumped on too quickly. Look at all my criticism and where I have come. I think I put a lot of thought into many of my reviews and hopefully some of what I say is useful to people and that's what really matters. I am not so arrogant that I can't admit I was mistaken or find a new take on things. Anyway a top ten list is so anti prog. It's just a lot of fun.  I never had a forum to discuss this music with anyone so I have learned as much or more about it in the last few months here as I have in the last thirty years.