Duke: Genesis

Similar to my feeling about the prior album.  The songs I love, I really love, and the songs I don't, I almost always skip.  Most of them are good to great, though.  

Its got some great songs, complex and some simple pop songs....but I don't care, its Genesis and they are brilliant!

I absolutely, positively hated Misunderstanding, it really was some kind of mistake.  I always felt that if you slapped the proggier bits together as one log track and put they poppier stuff together it would have made for a better album.  But it is what is.  I have a copy of the LP that was autographed at this long defunct chain record store in Atlanta called Turtles.  Saw them live of course.

Very good album. Some very high points, Dukes Travels etc, and some desperately low points: Misunderstanding, Please don't ask.

Misunderstanding is among the worst songs they wever wrote. It's boring, listless, unimaginative, dull, insipid, uninspired and weak sounding. No wonder it was such a big (s)hit...

I love Behind The Lines, Duchess, Guide Vocal, Heathaze, Please Don't Ask, Duke's Travels and Duke's End

This album upon the first week of it's release...totally disappointed my life as a musician who took music very seriously. It was actually a very wholesome commercial effort and "I mean that!" Genesis were writing Pop songs and I believe they were interesting enough to add in progressive hooks/signature lines within those Pop songs...without taking away from the commercial sound. You've got to give them credit for that, because it is not easy my friends to write a Pop song and create all the right trimmings.

The year the album was released, one crowd of people utterly hated the existence of it and did nothing but laugh at it. The other crowd appreciated it. This was crazy to live through. Genesis were huge and influential to all the brilliant musicians I traveled the road with for years and so they just raised hell over Duke as if it were something to take away from their talent. They took it personally like a knife in the back. The personal insight I'm giving here reflects the attitude of the current mix of people who are Genesis fans. At the Genesis show in Philadelphia, (perhaps 5 years ago?), The older crowd would head for the door when Genesis played the 80's material. They would stand outside and smoke cigars, cigs/ and whatever else. Then when Genesis played the older material, the 80's fans got bored and proceeded to do the same thing...they went outside to relieve themselves of musical torture. These 2 extreme groups of fans developed their dislike for each others personal vision of Genesis around the time Duke was released.

It wasn't as if Genesis were totally cheesy? I remember decent guitarists struggling with the center instrumental bit in "Abacab"..so they would come to me and ask if I'd quickly learn it and teach them. I couldn't help myself because I was dragged down by extensive road travel , so I asked: "If this music is commercial garbage that has no value, then why do you find it challenging to play?" Both of these Genesis crowds were borderline insanity and very extreme reactions to a band whose decisions they could do nothing about. Duke started a war.

SteveG wrote: FYI: I heard songs from this album sandwiched between Styx and Boston songs on the radio and nothing sounded out of the ordinary to me. Now that's AOR!!

...just saying someone who plays an advance style on keys will still have to focus on retaining the Tony Banks keyboard parts. Duke is "Top 40" , but that has little to do with learning Tony Banks' keyboard parts which sometimes are a headache. The songs on Duke seem ridiculous to many of us, but to musicians..they have a better view from being on top of a high rise , (so to speak), and it's clear to many of us that those progressive parts written in the Genesis Pop songs were masked by the cornball melodies and dance beats. Tony Banks is a perfectionist and actually many of the songs on the commercial Genesis albums take some work to learn, retain, and perform live.

SteveG wrote: ^I agree Todd. Banks is an excellent keyboardist but so is Geoff Downs. Does this scenario sound familiar?

Very.

I think it's their best album after the Hackett era.

TODDLER wrote: SteveG wrote: FYI: I heard songs from this album sandwiched between Styx and Boston songs on the radio and nothing sounded out of the ordinary to me. Now that's AOR!! ...just saying someone who plays an advance style on keys will still have to focus on retaining the Tony Banks keyboard parts. Duke is "Top 40" , but that has little to do with learning Tony Banks' keyboard parts which sometimes are a headache. The songs on Duke seem ridiculous to many of us, but to musicians..they have a better view from being on top of a high rise , (so to speak), and it's clear to many of us that those progressive parts written in the Genesis Pop songs were masked by the cornball melodies and dance beats. Tony Banks is a perfectionist and actually many of the songs on the commercial Genesis albums take some work to learn, retain, and perform live.

Good point.  As I mentioned above, the guitar part for "Turn it On Again" has some strange chord voicings that don't lend themselves to standard neck movement.  Maybe it's a piece of cake for experienced players, but if that's the case, then I'm further down the guitar ladder than I thought.