FOLLOW YOU FOLLOW ME

(It's peculiar how Genesis albums get hudreds of reviews/ ratings, and singles may have just one review. This is the second one for this single. No, I don't feel too good about writing single reviews, but often I just choose to do so when visting the pages of the top bands - that are usually my personal long-time favourites too...)

So, this song marks a big turn in Genesis career, which surely furiated old fans and won lots of new listeners for the band. Perhaps a whole new generation of them who knew almost nothing of the Gabriel-era. They went quite commercial and catchy (compared to their prog years) with this hit. You know what? I haven't got any bad feelings for this song at all. Even in general, thinking of Genesis' later direction, I do have some respect for them not trying to make the same kind of music as in the seventies. I don't personally much care about their 80's - '90's stuff but it's just fine for me if they reached their popularity peak back then. It doesn't necessarily mean they sold their souls to commerciality. And if Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett had never left the group, I'm sure we'd have much fewer fine albums to enjoy. Instead we might have a dinosaur who would endlessly milk the old cow.

Oops, I wandered away from this single. 'Follow You Follow Me' is a nice little love song. It has almost nothing to do with prog, unless you count the synth solo to be proggy, or the arrangement/sound which is not quite mainstream pop. It has a joyous atmosphere that makes the listener feeling happy too (unless he only thinks "this is not prog! It's awfully commercial!" ;D) Lyrics are very simple and naiive but full of sympathy.

Flip side includes 'Ballad Of Big', another song from ...And Then There Were Three. I think it's very representative of the album in which the airy keyboards dominate. Quite a proggy arrangement and some mild progness in the song structure, in a relatively straight pop approach. Also its narrative nature is typical for ATTWT (on some fan magazine in '86 or 87 they spoke of the album as a cousin to Nursery Cryme). A Western tale of "Big Jim Coolley", "who died like all good cowboys / with his boots on next to his men". I like it. I like ATTWT in general even if it's a huge let-down as the follower of the superb Wind & Wuthering (but one doesn't HAVE to compare those albums, right?). Nevertheless it's the last enjoyable Genesis album; Duke is good too but with more uninteresting material in it.