ProgPos Blog - Genesis Studio LP Tour

 

My guess is that in the early days a band like Genesis was really pioneering in a new sound, while bands that use a lot of Genesis elements often don't have the same sense of adventure. And then it sounds like you've heard it all before.

 

Just my first guess.

I have been involved in writing and recording music in bands and as a solo artist. I agree that there are some bands who go out of their way to sound exactly like the early Prog greats. But something I have found over the years is that it's easy to review or cast aside modern bands as copycat bands, just because some of their sound is similar to that of a band of years gone by. For example, I have always loved and enjoyed the harmony vocals of Simon and Garfunkle, Dan Fogelberg, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Beach Boys to name but a few, but in the past I have been accused of being an Anderson or Collins copycat, Knowone has ever accused me of being a Wilson or Fogelberg copycat, when really that is where my harmony ideas stem from. Just because I put my ideas to Progressive sounding music, it seems any ideas I put down for massed harmony vocals, means I'm trying to be Jon Anderson. The "oh they sound like" remark is a good way of helping people to know what kind of music they may get from a recording, but reviewers often use this as a quick line which sometimes hides what is really going on on the latest bands efforts. They don't look any deeper.   I sang on a recording once where different reviewers described me as sounding like Anderson, Collins, Gabriel, Michael Stype, Sting, Hogarth, Fish, And even Fergal Sharkey. all different coments from different reviewers about the same album. Do any of these side by side, really sound like each other. I think a lot of the time its not the artists that sound amazingly like the bands of yesterday, but just some listeners who are so wrapped up in their past and the bands from their youth that they cannot embrace new bands playing instruments and songs similar to the their hero's. Lets face it there are only a certain amount of sounds one can make, and they've all been made before. You either like it or you don't . Simples.

 

 

Fergal Sharkey!    Wow - it has been a long time since I've heard that name!  As a DJ in broadcast radio, I used to play some of his music on a Rock station in the 1980's.  Anyone remember "A Good Heart" or "You Little Thief"?  (I'm not so sure very many around here would *want* to... Great vocalist IMO!)

 

Perhaps if every reviewer compared you to a single vocalist, it might be worth asking whether you were consciously copying that particular vocalist and how effective that approach was for you...

 

 

Very interesting points Ivan.  At first listen, Genesis *sounds* easier to imitate because there are not as many  singularly dominant performances, thus more neo-proggers were emboldened to "give it a go".   But successfully "pulling it off" is deceptively difficult due to the subtlety of the interplay among the varous components of classic era Genesis music.

 

On a side-note, perhaps Genesis' reductionist future was sealed when they quit replacing band members.  They transitioned quite successfully (IMO) when AP left and SH stepped in.  But losing SH without a strong replacement... That set the stage for the deconstruction that would follow.

 

Whenever Yes hasn't replaced a departing member with a similarly strong composer, they too have deconstructed (Drama, Open Your Eyes, etc.)