genesis ( duke )

One of my least liked albums,not because of musicianship ,which i must say is well above par especially phils drum fills but i just cannot fathom the idea that this is a concept record .All the songs for myself strictly speaking do not form a clear back story for instance TURN IT ON AGAIN,ALONE TONIGHT and MISUNDERSTANDING please don,t think i hate this album oppositely i really enjoy most of it especially DUCHESS and MAN OF OUR TIMES which i love immensely it is an odd one for my genesis catalog .Just wondering if anybody feels this is just weird or maybe it,s my lack of knowledge ,when it comes to DUKE thank you for reading by the way GENESIS is my favorite group of all time.

Edited by grantman - October 02 2017 at 14:09

Duke is not a concept album.

It is, though, rather excellent.

I love Duke. Great album. Just spun it the other night and it still has the magic after 30 years of listening to it (though for a fair bunch of years I did move on from it.....)

I have a rather different history with this album. First off, when it came out in 1980 I never heard anything from it played on the radio except for Misunderstanding. OK, it's a harmless little pop-ish tune, sure, but it ain't MY Genesis!  So I pretty much completed the process of writing off Genesis that I had begun with their previous work, ATTWT. Same thing with it, too. Only heard the one single and thought that was the end of the Genesis I had known and loved. Turn the calendar forward about 40 years or so and I actually began to go out of my way to listen to the previously unheard tunes and, damn!, this ain't half bad. Still not up to Trick of the Tail  but not bad. Duke is where I can really tell the beginnings of the huge changes to come in Phil's vocals. He projects more power - and perhaps confidence, too - than he ever did before.

A lot of credit for guiding me to revisit those two albums in particular lie with YOU, the knowledgeable membership here at PA. This place has led me to discover so many things I had missed out on way back then and the surprising amount of newer Prog that is out there now. I never had the opportunity to say it before but DAMN, I LOVE THIS PLACE!


Edited by SquonkHunter - October 05 2017 at 19:37

unlike ATTWT (OK, didn't like FYFM, but the rest was different, but still OK of sorts), I hated Duke at first (the three "hits" sucked), and I didn't really give it a chance for about a decade, when I did like the un-hits (read, the rest of the album)

The reason why I didn't "try" more on Duke sooner was that Abacrap & Shapes were even worse.

Nowadays, I think ATTWT and Duke are about equal in terms of quality (but don't own either), far above what came after (the only good moment is the A-side of Shapes), but well behind all that came before 

Misunderstanding really was some kind of mistake.  I saw them on that tour and by and large like the album.  I also like Abacab.  After that my interest in the band starts to seriously wane.

Supposedly there WAS a concept behind this album, but the record company talked them out of it. "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn it on again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End" were all supposed to run together, but they ran too long for one side of an LP. On that year's tour, the band played these six songs sequentially. The other songs on the album were not part of the concept.

If you had come to it fresh, in an alternative universe with no previous Genesis albums, would you rate it? I probably wouldn't have given it the time of day, although I quite like Duke's Travels. Mostly my reactions to it were just trying to hold on to what little was left of a band I loved.

Part of the downward spiral that was announced loud and clear with FYFM.  Lot's to love here though, the beginning (Behind-Duchess-Guide) and end (D's Travels-D's End) are especially cool and I have to admit even though it's prog-pop I still think Turn it on Again is a great song

Just purchased the entire 80's Genesis catalog for one of my wife's Christmas presents.   As long as she plays Duke and others in her car, we'll get along.   I've never heard any of the 80's Genesis albums.   Just the songs on the radio.  I have to cut this short...The last crescendo to The Music Box is about to crescendo.

Edited by omphaloskepsis - December 06 2017 at 15:27