FOXTROT

I have tried and tried and tried to get into this band. Starting in the mid-seventies, I purchased some of their albums. And they have some very good songs. Some songs I like a lot. But somehow they couldn't come close to my top ten bands of their era. Maybe not even top twenty. Why? It's not Peter Gabriel. Despite his thin, buzzy voice, he manages quite a bit of expressiveness to make his vocals interesting. It's actually the rest of the band that just seems to make them second tier in seventies prog. Phil Collins has shown himself to be a great drummer, particularly on Brand X albums, but on Genesis recordings, he lays back too much. The rest of the band too. They never come through with that soaring solo that a Fripp, Wakeman or an Emerson might display. Particularly Tony Banks. I'd put him on a par with Tony Kaye of Yes. He's okay with arpeggios, but he rarely plays anything with that "wow factor". Rutherford is capable of playing a nice bass line, but the great lines are all too rare. And Hackett disappears in the mix all too often.

That said, Watcher Of The Skies is very good song, and Supper's Ready is a nice epic suite, albeit nowhere near as goos as, say Close To The Edge or Tarkus. Sorry, Genesis fans. That's just the way it is.