Yes Vs Genesis

Genesis with Gabriel!!!! Yes' emotions do not compare to the old Genesis.
Don't worry though, I still love Yes.

The two greatest prog bands, in my opinion.

 Good topic. Also, the idea of making a rivalry out of two bands is very interesting. I wish more people would also be explicit why they think one is better than the other. I´ll try to do that with my limited english.

 My personal favorite has always been Genesis, since I was 15 (now 30). By 19 I met Yes. First I thought their music was very uninspired, repetitive and souless. It seemed to have no real human feelings in it. It just sounded too mechanic and with lack of textures. By then, I had heard everything by Genesis. I had not heard many bands by then but still, even after comparing it with others, I knew this should be the most creative and imaginative band ever. Their music has always sounded full of passion, soul, conviction and the number of different moods and images is greater than any other´s.

 Genesis created a variety of styles, sounds, feelings and moods throughout the 70´s that no other band ever matched. Whatsmore, they did that with such a way that no album from that period sounds immature within it´s style. There is no question about the differences between the style, concept and sound of "Foxtrot" and "Selling England". Or between "The Lamb" and "A trick". In the same issue, YES never changed a bit and what´s worse, just turned every time less creative and more repetitive.

 Well, I started liking YES some 5 years ago. I discovered their best albums are "YES" and "Time and a word". Curiously, when they were the least prog, but the most inspired, creative and when they delivered the best songwriting of their carrer. These two pop albums really had conviction and very well expresed feelings. Songs like "I see you", "Every little thing" (great covers), and "Astral traveller" are some of the songs that I consider, expose the best of a musician´s energy and passion. ...After these records they became more prog and less inspired and much less creative.

 Has anybody thought about the possibility of "Close to the edge" (The big epic by YES) being a "Prog-pop" song ?. It is a pop song with the playing of a prog song. The structure is that of a regular pop song and the chorus is repeated more than ..7 times ?. The hooks on this song are the choruses. Oposed to "Supper´s ready" which is as lenghty as "Close" but never uses "the chorus cheap trick". "Supper´s" never waste a second with no music or with simplistic music as "Close" in that pointless "I get up I get down,I get up I get down, I get up I get down" middle section. "Supper´s" never come back to the main theme to close the song like "Close" with the exact same "Close to the edge, down by the corner, close to the edge down by the river" part.

 Also, there is no argument about the Lyrics issue. Read the lyrics on "Close" and the ones in "Supper´s".....No comments.

 Is "Roundabout" supposed to be the prototipe of prog?. Be carefull when telling that to an antiprog person. "Roundabout" is one of many Prog-pop songs by YES. A band than after the third album couldn´t manage to create a song with more than 3 ideas. "Roundabout" is not only repetitive, it also gets boring after 10 listens. Like any commercial song. After you dug on the chorus line, there´s nothing to listen at. Yeah ¡¡, the bass and the playing is great, no question about it, that´s why this is another Prog-pop song. Genesis very rarely repeated a word in their songs. Unless they really tried to make a pop song like "I know what I like". When they made prog, they never made Prog-pop like YES did. Genesis made Prog-pop after ´77, when YES started doing "CRAP-PROG-POP".

 I do really appreciate "South side of the sky". It has everything I like; Passion, conviction, creativity, diversity, good textures, good songwriting. To be fair. By the way, it shows way more ideas than "Close to the edge", and the horrible and repetitive instrumental in "Gates" together.

However, song like "Heart of the sunrise" are impressive on the first 15 listens. Then, there´s nothing in it. After you have heard that playing enough, and start paying attention to the structure of the song and the textures and the rest of the elements (the songwriting included), you will notice this song could have been written in 6 minutes. The instrumental parts are impressive and you may not want them to end, but they are always the same ¡¡. It´s the same as repeating a churus 20 times during a song. After the 15th listen to this song I just thought: "Í know the trick". And most of their songs are like that. Also, some of their songs are made out of nothing, or with one single idea, like "And you and I", which has a nice melody. That would be good for a 3:00 song, but a 10:00 song of a single chorus??¡¡

 I will tell you why YES won this voting excersise. YES is way more conventional than Genesis. While Genesis played "The return of the gisnt hogweed and never sang the same word twice", YES was singing the word "Roundabout" over and over. Or repeating the same 10 imprssive seconds of music over and over in "Heart of the sunrise". Or making 10 minute balads out of a single idea, while Genesis would make short but full of creativity and passion balads like "Harlequin".

While you find underrated and overlooked songs like "Can utility" from "Foxtrot" in Genesis´output, you will find overrated, overlong and simplistic songs like  "To be over" by YES.

YES was always more accesible to the audience, that´s why more people like it. Even among prog-heads like the ones in this site.

Curiously, Genesis managed to make way better pop than YES, when it was time for making POP. Genesis is slammed for making pop. But no one seems to remember YES tried hard being succesfull and never made it. They even tried sooner than Genesis. The reason?, Genesis was more creative and would always make better songs than YES on any field.

Thanks 

I've never really participated in the fascination for Yes. They are fine musicians, sure, but the squeaky, childish, sort-of-eunuch voice of Jon Anderson and the lack of passion in most of their music never have completely convinced me. Genesis on the other hand, with excellent versatility, complex and interesting subjects in their lyrics, top musicianship (but never show-offs) and timeless harmonious music walk all over Yes any day. But that's only my opinion and as with food and love, there's nothing universal in tastes.

Greetings

Mogens

YES!

Love them both, but the best albums were made by Genesis. I am not particularly fond of albums like Invisible Touch, Duke or Calling all stations, but Tormato and other newer Yes stuff is also not my choice.
Biggest difference for me is the singer. For me, Gabriels voice carries more feeling, is more sensitive. I sometimes get annoyed by the high pitched Anderson voice.
IMO, Genesis' lyrics are also better than most Yes lyrics( but this is maybe because I can understand most Genesis songs, and can not understand most Yes songs). Yes lyrics often sound to 'out of this earth' for me.
It looks like my choice is only influence by the singer (Gabriel - Anderson). And I must even say that I like the first two Collins-sung genesis albums also very much.

BTW, recently Anderson visited Tilburg in the Netherlands, a city (some 180.000 inhabitants) where he lived for a short time in the late sixties 67/68. He sung with a Dutch band Le Cruches (for other Dutch members of Progarchives, Henny Vrienten was also in this band) for a short while and releasedsome solo singles in this period. Jon gave a solo concert in Tilburg. A friend went there and told me it was a good performance.

Since this is PROGarhives, I will limit my assessment to the proggy years of these two bands. (Cheeky me as I haven't really explored either band's pop material yet, ahem... )

Both are great, but overall I do admire the pure musicality of Yes' best moments more than I admire the high points (personal opinion, of course) of Genesis. Also, the sometimes overblown theatrical streak of Genesis songs doesn't sit as well with me as the more sophisticated approach by Yes. Gates of Delirium can certainly get kind of theatrical, too, but it's still a different kind of theatricality than the one found in Supper's Ready or The Musical Box...or The Battle of Epping Forest, for that matter. While Yes can get a bit too hyper sometimes, Genesis can get, well, a bit too pompous for their own good (Apocalypse in 9/8 and the ending of Supper's Ready -yikes)

Then again, we can't forget TFTO, which is far too meandering for its own good...and it doesn't have the hooks that Genesis were very good at even before their pop years.

Still, Yes all the way for me. (One only needs to compare the bass-playing of Squire and Ruthford to come to that conclusion  ) Listening to Yes at their best is for me a more intense experience than listening to the classic Genesis material; it's more assertive somehow, it demands one's concentration to the fullest. To use a rather clumsy analog: the musical gold nuggets of Genesis might be more visible and accessible than those of Yes (which perhaps gives Genesis an emotional edge) but that is also why Yes manages to hold my interest better than Genesis.

Finally, IMO Genesis never made a practically perfect prog record. Yes did. 

 

 

 

Edited by Fritha

Yes and Genesis are my two favourite bands. I'd say they're on the same level for me, but I listen a bit more to Yes than to Genesis, so if I have to choose (and this poll leaves no tie-option / tie - rack ) then it's Yes.

Love them both,but if I have to choose one I'll choose Yes.

eduardossc wrote: YES was always more accesible to the audience, that´s why more people like it. Even among prog-heads like the ones in this site.

That's a really wierd comment.  I'm not critisizing; to each his own, after all.  But it's been said many times that Genesis are the "prettiest sounding" classic prog band.  Yes on the other hand had many dissonant, experimental, improvisational bits, especially in the TFTO/Relayer phase, which is in my opinion their strongest period.  It's not uninspired, it's just further outside the box than Genesis usually went.  That's why I personally prefer Yes.  That, and the fact that I find their music to be more impassioned.  This last point is VERY arguable, however, and it's just me, so feel free to ignore it entirely.

Oh, and just figured I'd mention that CTTE isn't in a pop format, it's in sonata form.