FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION

Before Jonathan King became one of the world's biggest scumbags in music, he was a man with great ambition. Already a successful singer songwriter, his next step was to become a producer, and in 1967 he would discover one of the most important bands in Prog history. That band was called New Anon, consisting of five plucky young men who had no idea they would be making waves in music as a whole. For Jonathan King, this was the beginning of his career as a producer, the genesis you could say. And thus, New Anon were no longer anonymous, and became forever known as Genesis. And their to call their first album From Genesis To Revelation rough would be an understatement. FGTR is so rough, it's like a freshly cut down tree that hasn't been made into lumber.

So to give context, when Jonathan King first stumbled upon Genesis, he liked what he had heard. But King wanted control over the band, from small ideas like going fully acoustic, to insisting Genesis write simple pop-rock songs like the Bee Gees before they became the faces of discorama. After the recording of this album, Jonathan King would go behind the backs of the band, and with a team of audio engineers, add in some horns and strings into the music. As you might be guessing, working with Jonathan King would prove to be a frustrating experience that would revolve around the parents of the band renegotiating a predatory contract. This is a recipe for disaster, but perhaps maybe there's something we can salvage from this album knowing the direction Genesis would take.

I'll be honest, this album doesn't get off to a bad start. Where The Sour Turns To Sweet shows a few signs of what will be. I love the opening of this song that feels like a group of friends inviting you to hear their song. Unfortunately, the song fell apart for me when I heard the horns come in out of nowhere. This is going to be a problem with the album, the added strings and horns do not help to elevate these songs, they actually make them worse.

Then things get psychedelic. In The Beginning is the proggiest song on the album, and also has the hint of what Genesis could be. It has that feel of something off of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and Gabriel's vocals on top of the instrumentals shines greatly. You know what else makes this song great? I can't hear any added horns or string sections. If only Jonathan King didn't have his head so far up his own ass and realized what he had.

We then jump right into Fireside Song, a pretty little acoustic ballad that allows us to hear a soft Peter Gabriel. Well, I would say it's pretty, but the whole thing is marred by that same god awful added string section robbing the song of any softness and tries to make the song bigger than it needs to be. I don't need added violins Jonathan King, it's absolutely distracting and not in the good way.

The Serpent Song opens with an instrumental interlude before it begins proper, and we once again, hear Genesis as it should sound. There's definitely more of that psychedelic space rock sound to it as we heard on In The Beginning, and the band absolutely shows off what they could be. And I just dig Anthony Phillips' guitar playing on this album, it's a great song, and probably the best thing the album has going for it. Am I saying that because it's the longest song on the album? Not really, it's more about the depth of the instrumental.

Things calm down with another acoustic ballad in Am I Very Wrong, which again, lets Peter Gabriel's vocals shine. But once again, the added horn section takes away from that and creates a distraction. I know, I'm harping on it, but the added horns absolutely destroy the mood of the song. Now I'm starting to understand why No Reply At All backfired with fans, It's an annoying distraction hiding the band's true sound. Horns should never be near Genesis, I get it.

Let's try this again. In The Wilderness is the next song, and it starts off okay, until that damn string section kicks in. Well, if we take the string section out, what are we left with? Frankly, this sounds like Bubblegum Pop, right down to the chorus. This is probably one of those songs written specifically to please Jonathan King, but again, he wasn't pleased enough until he added the extra strings without realizing how much it's drowning out the rest of the band. Even when the song fades out, the strings are still too god damn loud they serve to hide the fact there's a good band underneath it all,

The Conqueror is more like it. No distracting string section, no annoying ass horn section. Just the band as it should be heard. It's fine. Thank god it's not full of horns or strings, because I can actually hear the damn band. Once again, I can hear a little bit of that early Bee Gees, and early Pink Floyd sound. The pieces are there, they just need a better producer than Jonathan King.

In Hiding is another ballad that shows off Peter Gabriel's singing... oh no, you know what that means right? Yep, a string section is going to take away from Peter Gabriel's voice and Anthony Phillips' lovely acoustic guitar. And that's exactly what happens. Only difference is I can hear the guitar against the strings, but still, the strings are too damn loud and absolutely take away from the song's beauty. Oh god, make the horns and string sections stop.

It doesn't stop though. One Day is not an acoustic ballad, but a bit more lovey-dovey song meant to please Jonathan King, but this one not only has the added strings, but it also has the added horns, and once again, everything is so loud it drowns the band out. Which is a shame because Rutherford's bass sounds great on this song, when I can hear it that is. Otherwise my ears are blasted by the same loud string and horn section I can barely hear anything other than Peter Gabriel and Jonathan Silver's drums. Now I understand why Anthony Phillips stormed out after hearing the changes, it sounds like ass.

Onto Window, and this acoustic ballad once again has that damn horn section, in the beginning at least. In the first minute, we get a hornless section where we hear what this ballad is meant to sound like, but then the strings and horns kick in. I'll be honest, if the strings were brought down on this song and used more for texture, and the horns completely eradicated, I could see this song somewhat working. Unfortunately, we cannot have that, the horns and strings need to be loud as hell.

Next, we find ourselves on the track In Limbo. Once again, we have a loud horn section drowning the band out, until eventually the horn section is finally lowered in volume. I can hear some semblance of psychedelic rock when I try to imagine the horn section not being there. In fact, I think the horn section being texture robs us of a solid song. It's not the strongest song on the album, but also not the worst. At least by this point Jonathan King found a way to make the horn section a little less distracting, but unfortunately, it's still there.

And here we go, Genesis writes the earliest attempt of Follow You Follow Me, The Silent Sun. Peter Gabriel has an amazing voice, but he's having to compete against a needless string section that makes the song a lot less romantic. Instead of being an endearing tune, it turns into one of those instances where you're at dinner with your significant other and you want to impress them so you get an entire symphony in to back you up as you sing to them. It's unnecessarily big, kind of embarrassing, and not a good way to show love to someone.

The album ends with A Place To Call My Own, a soft 2 minute song to close out what has been a mess of bad production choices. How does Jonathan King fuck this up? Why don't we add a loud horn and string section to take away from Tony Banks' somber keyboard, that will kill this song's mood for sure!

And that's the best way I can describe FGTR, it's a hot mess of bad production choices well out of the band's control. Everything was working against this album, right down to the release. It's been speculated that the album was mistaken as religious music and got shoved in there by mistake, and while I believe that it's possible, it's more likely people didn't know the album existed. It's been said that the album only managed to push about 600 copies, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even move that many. Well, there is a bright side to all this, and it ends in a goofy fashion for one party. After the band's parents managed to successfully renegotiate their contracts with Jonathan King, Genesis would get back together to join the famous Charisma label and make a proper opening statement in Trespass, while Jonathan King would be stuck with only From Genesis To Revelation. He has re-released the album multiple times, including an instance where he added an extra drum track, and I can recall at one point he attempted to re-release it as a greatest hits CD. If only there was a version of this album that existed without the horns and strings... if only...