Ange vs Magma

Might not be that simple.

London had the premier of MARAT/SADE in 1964, and it went on to become a very valuable symbol that had a lot of its lines used in rock music ... however, the costume parade and insanity was now on the loose when you see a video of that original performance (incredible cast!) ... and realize that things like cabbages were being used and cut on stage like heads in the days of the French Revolution! 

So, there would have been an important visual link here, and it's not like no one in London goes to the theater, since both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater are considered two of the most innovative theater companies in the world.

I really think that with Anthony Phillips, GENESIS was a bit more serious and "composition" defined and yes, some folks would have thought it BORING, because rock audiences were not known for sit down concerts like they did classical music in every university campus. The addition of costumes makes sense and it is possible/likely that GENESIS learned how to better interpret their music, or all of a sudden realize what they could do with it and come up with Jack the Knife, and so on, to be able to use these costumes ... but they were not new or revolutionary at all ... it was only the London reviewers and audiences that thought it was original, and totally ignored the history of theater in Europe ... somewhat similar to what many folks do here ... like the arts are not connected at all and they are.

However, the harlequins theme and stories and material that ANGE was doing was more honest than the little kiddie stories that GENESIS came up with and decided that they were more important, because PA says so due to its fame. Some of this even goes back to the Grimm's fairy tales originally published in 1812 ... and some of those stories were trying to turn the news of the horrors taking place in France and other places in Europe ... and of course ... Walt Disney corrupted several of those stories even more to the point that a lot of PA's ideals are just like a Walt Disney movie!

This history, is the part that Melody Maker and the other periodical would not discuss or include in their magazines, because they were an entity designed to push the sales of the albums for the record companies, and it worked to the point that even Virgin could corrupt (later) the concept and fool people and also get sales by the million.

Again, to my estimation, this was almost all a media manipulation thing, and if you look at theater and film, and literature, you will find massive differences as to make you wonder ... why is music, and specially rock music so far behind and late to the party?

Both ANGE and MAGMA fit into an area of creativity that is peculiar to France more than anything else. That one brought along a language for its own evolution was totally original, which was something that would make sense within a literary concept, but within the rock music, or jazz music scenes, was totally weird and off kilter, and even today, few can understand it, or appreciate it. I like to say that the French have a peculiar "I don't care" attitude in their many film satires, and this is something that you don't see in their rock music, but the attitude of how it is supposed to sound and be, is way different and you can go back to Richard Pinhas and his incredible discussions on EUROCK about his music and its political/social relevance, and you and I will go ... what? ... how? ... but it is very French and you can easily find that attitude in Jean-Luc Godard ... without the costumes ... he didn't need that to pull it off and did many times, all the way to things like ALPHAVILLE and even more later!