chopper wrote: Yes, most of the band went to private school (Charterhouse, not Chesterhouse) and I guess that reflects in their work, especially lyrically, otherwise I doubt they would have written songs based on TS Eliot. However I think you might be overstating their "poshness" a bit, I doubt they sat around all day watching "snotty" high-class entertainment.

I remember what I read about the (in)famous so-called "6 bob tour" featuring Genesis, Lindisfarne and Van der Graaf Generator in the VdGG book. Peter Hammill made a remark along the lines that "Genesis were the prissy schoolboys, Lindisfarne were the drunkards and we were the spliffmasters"

I remember what I read in the VdGG book about the (in)famous so-called "6 bob tour" featuring Genesis, Lindisfarne and Van der Graaf Generator. Peter Hammill made a remark along the lines that "Genesis were the prissy schoolboys, Lindisfarne were the drunkards and we were the spliffmasters"

That figures, Lindisfarne being Geordies an' all.

Robert Fripp was working class too. On the other hand, Pink Floyd were at least as posh as Genesis but straight up in both music and lyric.  

Yeah I've heard Banks say that he considered Genesis to be an art rock band. I suspect that ELP were much to blame for this. They were a rock band first and enjoyed themselves and were well over the top. But at least for a few years they were one of the most visible bands in the world selling out massive stadiums. Banks could never see himself being anything like Keith Emerson (understandably!) and I reckon just felt that Genesis had to be more serious and introspective. So if they weren't 'prog rock' then they had to be something else. Art Rock sounded a much more cooler thing to be part of. You can see why there was a simple divide between bands like Led Zep , the Who and ELP ( the ones that ripped things apart) and the quiet ones like Gentle Giant and Genesis that were not comfortable with that whole rock excess thing.

Yeah but if we're going to give Gen an arbitrary genre distinction I don't think art rock really fits (from those examples, you can't really call them similar to Bowie or Queen lol!)

I guess out of the prog subgenres symphonic rock applies the best, but granted Gen's a lot less bombastic than ELP or a lot of other bands. In classical music you've got a lot of bombast and more subtle music as well though, so if you're going to base a new genre on it, might as well have a wide range of sounds there too.

I think the point I was making that Banks was never comfortable with Genesis being bracketed with certain bands and neither was Collins apparently. I know that Banks didn't like ELP although he didn't mind The Nice ( The Knife is a clear reference to their track Rondo and he admitted that)  and Collins didn't like Yes at all.

I think they were very stuck up in the early days , very elitist , more so than many other prog bands of the time. Gradually they came out of that and it was Collins that helped in that respect. He could connect with an audience and that was one of the biggest reasons they became so successful from 1976 onwards.

Surprised Collins didn't like Yes - usually he's pretty positive about the other prog bands when he's interviewed these days. I can see why Gen maybe doesn't fit the template set by some other prog bands, but yeah art rock i think is an even less apt distinction. But yeah, you're probably right that it was a slight case of grandiosity on Banks' part.

I was surprised to hear years later that he was kind of the de facto leader of the band. It seems he would try to keep everything to a vote, but this ended up limiting PG's influence (who left after struggling to bring the Lamb to life as he'd envisioned it) and Hackett's as well. Even Phil got fed up when he felt unappreciated despite being the main songwriter at that point - and from what I've read Phil's usually pretty easy to get along with. (Banks even worked with Fish on his solo albums as a PG replacement, and didn't seem to have any problems with replacing Phil for CaS.)

yeah I agree on your choices for genres for those bands, was just responding to the original list from richardh of the bands Banks was comparing gen to

I'm not convinced that Bowie or Queen were either (both were linked to Glam rock although that's also spurious) although Roxy Music definitely fitted the description of Art Rock. They were indeed taking more influence from US underground bands . Queen were just a well dressed hard rock band to start with while Bowie was just Bowie. He constantly re-invented himself as it suited him!