Genesis vs Renaissance

Genaissance! 

Genesis

"both" makes it an easy vote. 

A part of me wanted to go with renaissance but guitar drums and lyrics are in heavy favor of Genesis here but i do adore renaissance so i went with both.

Genesis BY FAR!!!!!! .......BUT, i'm probably just as interested in Renaissance's music as you are. i listened to their Scheherazade album not long ago and i was impressed. one of these days maybe i'll listen to more of their stuff. 

Renaissance = pleasant folk rock with proggy elements (I always thought they were like a proggy version of Steeleye Span). Annie Haslam's vocals have that mannered folk style (not unlike Maddy Prior) which I find a little grating over the course of a whole album. In terms of prog rock, they are a minor side-show - interesting, but of little consequence.
Genesis = prog rock brilliance. One of the truly great bands in the history of popular music.

rogerthat wrote: I meant the part about sighting their sights lower more in terms of how progressive their tracks were (or weren't).  While they did use orchestra, a lot of the orchestral interludes were banal or went absolutely nowhere.  Running Hard is exhibit A.  The fact that Annie could easily compensate for the lack of orchestra by vocalising those parts suggests they weren't THAT complex (which is not to say you should try this at home).  If say you compare Dancing with the Moonlit Knight with Running Hard or just about any song off Cards, the instrumental passages on the former are way more interesting.  At least for me they are and I don't think I am alone there, probably even micky would agree.  Ren did finally get more progressive on Novella but again dragged down Can You Hear Me with a very boring interlude.  They got it right on Song for All Seasons but had already begun to introduce a more 'commercial' element in their music.  So in that sense, they lacked ambition compared to Genesis imo.  Even the dreary Wind and Wuthering has some passages of shimmering brilliance.  What is often said in Ren's defence is they were more vocal oriented and hence the instrumental passages were underplayed.  But if that were the case, they wouldn't have been writing 10-12 minute tracks at all and in any case an interesting interlude can support a singer a lot better than a boring one.  Long story short, I don't think they were as talented but played well to their strengths and with the occasional bout of resentment relied on their trump card to carry the day.   Re consistency, yeah, overall PF were the most consistent and because they had already crossed over in the 70s, they also aged more gracefully.  The worst that can be said about AMOLAD or DB is that they were terribly boring and exceedingly safe by PF standards but they never succumbed to making dated pop music.    Even AMOLAD sounds very pleasant and not too 80s like.

Great post.

About Renaissance puting their sights lower than Genesis... well I'm not sure, perhaps it depends on the point of view. Conceptually, I guess that's a given (but I don't really care for that, since I don't really like Genesis concepts anyway), on stage theatricallity, that's a given too (but once again, I don't really like Gabriel's concept of theatricallity). As for music, well, Renaissance were certainly softer, but I guess their love for orchestrating their music isn't setting their sights low at all. And about the change of sound from Selling England to The Lamb... I rather dislike The Lamb... there are some songs I do like, of course, but the new sound they got, dropping the long songs with beautiful instrumental passages, it just lost what I did like from the band.

Camel's albums from Mirage to Moonmadness were great indeed. I haven't heard the whole first album, only songs, but it seems to be nice enough too... though I guess not at the same level from those 2. After Moonmadness I lost interest, specially after listening to the songs chosen on a greatest hits album... Lunar Sea I think it was called (for I actually bought it getting confused and wanting to buy Moonmadness)... however, most of the songs presented from after Moonmadness just didn't do it for me, they had just lost their touch... and I understand that many of those songs are actually fan favorites.

About Gentle Giant, I really love their first two albums, and sort of like their next two. After that I lost them. But many like those albums from Power and the Glory and on better, so that might make a good amount of consecutive great albums for them.

However, as I had just stated, for me the one band that really gets my choice for consistency is Pink Floyd, I really like most of what they did, with some albums being really masterpiece class.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I always said that Renaisance is the most Symphonic of the Symphonic bands, the voice of Annie es marvelous, and Live at CH is beautiful, the rest is good but too sweet sounding for m taste. Song of Sheherezade is as good as Supper's ready (SR never been a favorite of mine)...But Renaissance mixed terribly weak songs with great ones and let's be honest, after 2 songs I'm bored. Genesis from Trespass to TLLDOB only recorded ONE weak song (More Fool Me), the rest is simply outstanding, they didn't have a band album from Trespáss to W&W (I like it more than Trick). Genesis is with Yes the symbol of Symphonic, no other band of the sub-genre will ever get close to them. So Genesis it is....Ad by far.

For me, the problem with Genesis is that they always had songs I don't like in their albums... even songs I hate. The closest they got to a perfect album for me is Selling England, and even that one has Epping Forest, which I really dislike. Reniassance, at least in the 3 albums I got (Ashes, Turn of the Cards, ans Sheherazade) don't have any song I dislike as much as many Genesis songs, plus I like Turn of the Cards better than any Genesis album, as a whole. If I put my favourite songs from each band, it becomes really difficult for me to choose which one I like better... perhaps Genesis takes the edge.