The Voice Of Gabriel or Collins in Genesis Songs - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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catfood03

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Topic: The Voice Of Gabriel or Collins in Genesis Songs
Posted: January 30 2011 at 09:22

JakeMM626

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Posted: January 30 2011 at 08:46

In a band Like Genesis where two great Rock vocalists take the band in very different directions over time, you almost have to consider it as two bands. Peter Gabriel's Genesis was much more classic prog with mixed rhythms and Yes/Zeppelin-esc vocal lines. Of course Gabriel's voice isn't comparable to either band really, the classic style that make albums like Foxtrot and the Lamb the favorites of many Genesis Die-Hards.

On the other hand, As a Die-Hard myself, my favorite Genesis album will always be Duke. I feel like I relate to that album as if it were a childhood friend. I love every songs and lyric on it, and yet it is the beginning of Phil Collins' 80's pop trending. I find that Phil's voice has a smoother yet more passionate tone to it, as opposed to Peter Gabriel's rasp and frantic dynamic shifts. Phil brought prog and pop together, which I believe is a constant struggle of all prog artists these days. Simply, how do you get the common person to listen to a complex prog song? you make it relatable to the masses (Invisible Touch, Genesis, I Can't Dance are all good attempts at pop, but the band by this point has strayed so far from the original sound to be more mainstream.

So my argument? I'm sorry fellow Die-Hards, but I love Phil. Just an amazing voice with great precision. Phil seizes to let me down in his solo career to this day. I never would have loved that disney remake of Tarzan if it wasn't for Phil's Voice.

cstack3

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Posted: January 29 2011 at 15:57

I quite enjoy the vocal doubling-effect at the beginning of "Supper's Ready," where Gabriel and Collins sing together, Collins singing an octave higher in a falsetto/contratenor mode. Spine-tingling stuff.

catfood03

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Posted: January 29 2011 at 06:29

For the record I do enjoy Gabriel's contribution to the band, both as singer and performer. I'm just reacting more to people dumping on Collins so much when I think he is as, if not more so, talented than his predecessor.

Gabriel has proven himself a worthy singer/songwriter with his solo material, IMO.

Dellinger

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 22:43

catfood03 wrote:

FullMoonRising wrote:

I'm sure I will get and endless mountain of sh*t from this forum for saying this, but I honestly fail to see why prog fans are so obsessed with Peter Gabriel.

How about endless mountains of agreement?

I too fail to hear the greatness of Gabriel. He even won a "poll/competition" about the best prog singer, above even Peter Hamill, Greg Lake, Francesco Di Giacomo (and well, above Jon Anderson, whom I personally love his singing, but can quiet understand him to being everybody's cup of tea). But well, it's the majority voting...

iluvmarillion View Drop Down

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 19:52

Wanorak wrote:

Thank You FullMoonRising!!! I just got the 1970-1975 boxset and the DVD footage is hard to watch!! Peter Gabriel's live singing and theatricality is awful and just looks foolish now. Even then you could hear how much better Phil Collin's voice is!!! Ditto for Fish and Hogarth in Marillion. Hogarth is a much better singer also!!

Why must it be a competition between two totally different singers?

catfood03

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 17:54

FullMoonRising wrote:

I'm sure I will get and endless mountain of sh*t from this forum for saying this, but I honestly fail to see why prog fans are so obsessed with Peter Gabriel.

How about endless mountains of agreement?

catfood03

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 17:50

If only Tony and Mike would reunite with Peter for one more Genesis tour...

so we could hear Peter sing Collins-era songs like "Mama", "In Too Deep", and "I Can't Dance" and see if he fares better than Phil. LOL

Wanorak

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 15:47

Thank You FullMoonRising!!! I just got the 1970-1975 boxset and the DVD footage is hard to watch!! Peter Gabriel's live singing and theatricality is awful and just looks foolish now. Even then you could hear how much better Phil Collin's voice is!!! Ditto for Fish and Hogarth in Marillion. Hogarth is a much better singer also!!

A GREAT YEAR FOR PROG!!!

hobocamp

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 08:36

I like them both. I even love Abacab. That's right. Love, not like. Times changed. So did music. The Lamb will always be my fav, though. Gabriel sounds weaker on the higher register notes but displays shredding prowess in the same song. Back in NYC has some great vocal melodies but the part that goes No time for romantic escape....is so weak the instruments drown him out. But I do like Petes solo stuff more than Phils for style, not vocals.

iluvmarillion View Drop Down

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 07:32

FullMoonRising wrote:

I'm sure I will get and endless mountain of sh*t from this forum for saying this, but I honestly fail to see why prog fans are so obsessed with Peter Gabriel. For one, he's really not a very good singer. His voice kind of lacks depth, and gets really thin and weak at the top of his range.

I know that era was pretty collaborative and admittedly, I'm not sure what role Gabriel played in writing, so I could be completely wrong about this, but the impression I've gotten is that Hackett, Banks, Collins and Rutherford handled more of the musical aspect (which is what made Genesis good to begin with) and Gabriel just did lyrics/melodies and all the theatrical bullsh*t.

And I'm sure people are also going to cite the theatrics as a reason why Gabriel was so great. But for me it's actually a major turn-off. To me, it just seems like a gimmick. And I think it just confirms the stereotypes of prog being this artsy-fartsy, pretentious, superficial, over-theatrical genre. And I think that definitely could alienate some people that might like Genesis for the *good* elements of their music. I know at least for me, watching Gabriel trot around stage in that f**king flower costume almost kills it for me, and whenever I listen to them I have put in extra effort to try to look past the cheesiness to appreciate the amazing musicality behind Gabriel. Same with the weird "quirky" and "weird" kind of things he does with the vocal delivery (eg, "a pin-up guru every week!" in TBOEF). I honestly think I would like Genesis a lot better if it weren't for Gabriel's weird bullsh*t. It just makes the whole thing seem like a charade; it lacks a certain honesty and earnestness that I think is important in music, and it makes it that much harder for me to take seriously.

I'm not Gabriel's greatest fan but your point about the writing is not correct. From their Charterhouse days, Gabriel formed a writing team with Banks, while Rutherford formed a writing team with Anthony Phillips. On the early Genesis albums Gabriel plays flute and percussion, so he's certainly capable of writing music (as we see later with his solo albums). Also, I don't think Gabriel's voice is thin in the top of the range - I just think Gabriel is a very expressive singer who at times does get a bit too theatrical. But this needs to be taken in context of the times when Genesis was struggling for an audience and Gabriel was the front man in a band where most of the other members of the band just sat quietly in the corner of the stage playing their instruments and thus Gabriel was the one expected to grab the audience (this is before Collins joined the band). Even if you don't like Gabriel's voice he has a distinct style of singing so you know that its Gabriel's voice as soon as you hear him (same as for Collins).

FullMoonRising View Drop Down

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Posted: January 28 2011 at 02:28

I'm sure I will get and endless mountain of sh*t from this forum for saying this, but I honestly fail to see why prog fans are so obsessed with Peter Gabriel. For one, he's really not a very good singer. His voice kind of lacks depth, and gets really thin and weak at the top of his range.

Edited by FullMoonRising - January 28 2011 at 02:29

iluvmarillion View Drop Down

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Posted: January 25 2011 at 00:59

Eärendil wrote:

Overall, Gabriel for sure. Especially his theatrics, but I think his voice is much more suited for prog, not to say that Phil is bad at all.

But Gabriel's voice does get too theatrical on songs like "Battle Of Epping Forest" which spoils it a little for me. On the other hand, Gabriel is much better on "Supper's Ready" than Collins is on the "Seconds Out" album. Collins is the more musical of the two but Gabriel is more expressive. That makes it a tie for me!

akajazzman View Drop Down

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Posted: January 15 2011 at 13:00

Great idea for a post. I feel sorry for Phil over the years getting compared less favorably in the press to Peter (not just in vocals but in everything). And certainly Phil's pop/pap in the 80s both solo and with the band didn't do anything to help that. Just yesterday in the grocery store they were playing that pop dittie "I Can't Dance". I actually felt a flash of anger. Here was the band that did Selling England By the Pound now doing pretty much the same type of song that Madonna does.

Still, I think the timbre of Phil's voice is actually more pleasant than Peter's. However, Peter has more command and power in his voice. At the end of the day, I call it a tie.

Of course Peter sang on more great songs. ( I actually do really like most of the Genesis albums up and through Duke. And I can even stand several of the 80s songs (if even they begin to all sound the same after awhile))

MonsterMagnet View Drop Down

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Posted: January 15 2011 at 07:46

Gabriel

jean-marie View Drop Down

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Posted: January 14 2011 at 17:39

nevermind collins or gabriel the question is is the music good or bad ,ijust love the gabriel era but ther's so much good stuff in the collins era!!!so have nice time with the thing you love ( music ) f**k the rest Wink

Altti_H

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Posted: January 12 2011 at 14:10

Hi,

I have preferred Peter's voice since the beginning of my frienship with Genesis.

Still, Phil's voice is ok and I enjoy it.

--

esky

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Posted: January 08 2011 at 14:06

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

esky wrote:

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

I believe that the only Gabriel song that Collins sung better than Peter was I know what I Like.

The rest...Gabriel by light years.

Iván

I wouldn't go as far as light years for this comparison. The bravura Phil added to the In the Cage medley on Three Sides Live made Gabriel's album version seem flat. I mean it's everything you'd want Collins to be on an old Gabriel-sung song. And I'll contend till my dying day that what Collins achieved with A Trick of the Tail greatly lessened the drama of Gabriel's flight from the band.

Are you crazy?

In the Cage is one of the worst tracks by Colins

Gabriel version expresses fear, claustrophobia, and panic, his semi yodel creates a sensation of anguish and being hopelessly trapped, while Collins version is flat with no changes.

An artist must convince, and while Gabriel version creates the sensation of being trapped in a cage, Collins transmits nothing, it's well sung, but emotionless.

Now, A Trick of the Tail is no Gabriel album, but being you entered into that territory, I must say that is beautiful, but closer to the way you will narrate a fairy story to a child, compare with the brutal violence of The Knife, Musical Box or the dramatic capture of Hermafroditus body in Fountain of Salmacis.

I insist, miles behind.

Iván

I won't ask if you're delusional - I'll just come out and state that you are. I love Gabriel's Genesis as much as the next fan, and being so, I have to say one simply can't dismiss Collins for the hard work he and the boys just because Gabriel was no longer around to sing the standards. As for your off-handed assessments of the two-album follow-ups to Lamb, learn this now - they were amazing and showed the band was a much tighter musical unit without their former front man.

esky

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Posted: January 08 2011 at 13:51

Slartibartfast wrote:

Gabriel was vocalizing during their most progressive phase and Phil took over admirably after his departure.

Too right.

MasoTMN

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Posted: December 28 2010 at 22:26

Gabriel for sure. For me, Genesis is no longer Genesis once Hackett left the group, they should have really changed the name (then again, who would give up the bloody name Genesis? 'I GOT IT, I AIN'T GIVIN' IT AWAY!'). Phil's way too poppy for my taste, Gabriel had the attitude and the theatrics, not to mention some pretty wild lyrics!

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