The Song that Screams Prog

I don't think Supper's Ready is overrated at all. If anything, the direction Genesis took after Hackett left is what should be counted as overrated. I do like some of ...And Then There Were Three and even Duke, but it always felt like when Hackett left he took the soul of the band with him.

Early Beatles leads to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

LITSWD....leads to the Tommy Overture.

Tommy leads to ELP and love for keyboards...but I wouldn't have considered anything up to that point Prog.  Symphonic rock perhaps. 

...and then then, in an act repeated by so many college roommates, mine introduced me to a gateway drug: Dance on a Volcano.   1,1 2,2 1,1 2,2 1,1 2,2 1,2,3,4!!!!

And that lead to Supper's Ready......then and only then, did I know I was fully in the jaws of Prog.....and the monkey has been on my back ever since.....

One thing to keep in mind when you listen to Foxtrot is the year it was recorded: 1972. This was an outstanding album for that year and I think it still holds up well because of the solid musicianship, craftsmanship, the emotional directness, and just for offering the listener a plethora of sounds and styles while still retaining those now, and often imitated, Genesis trademarks. This is a band that, while having some incredibly gifted musicians, was more interested in writing songs. Some of them were short, some of them were long, but nobody has come close to matching this band's ingenuity for me. Granted, I love Pink Floyd and Yes a lot as well, but Genesis will always be my ultimate prog band. 

getting off topic a bit here - sorry - I'll try to wrap it up...

I got to thinking about posing this question in the forum - at one point (exactly where in a particular song or album) did the words "genius" or "musical genius" first cross your lips while listening to a particular band that you now love for the first time. This point BTW is often accompanied by the first appearance of goose bumps to the flesh...

Since Nursery Cryme was my first Genesis album, I have to look to that album to find that particular point. It occured in perhaps an unlikely spot - during the song "Harold the Barrel" (not otherwise one of my favorite tunes on that album). But I think the goose bumps and the words "genius" first crossed my lips when Gabriel interjected mid song with the slow passage  "If I was many miles from here..."  It was so unexpected and so beautiful that from then on, I was totally hooked. 

Maybe one could come up with a name to describe that point when you become totally hooked and declare that what you have just heard/experienced is the work of a genius. 

aldri7

Thanks for this memory. I'll be honest with you and say I couldn't even remember the first time I got goosebumps and thought 'genius' when I first heard Genesis. The reason I can't remember is because there are an inordinate amount of times that this has happened. One of my recent 'wow moments'  came from the song The Colony of Slippermen from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I don't think I've ever paid much attention to this song (for whatever reason) and it just hit me a few days ago. I've had many moments like this whilst listening to The Lamb because there's just so much music there and this album just took quite some time for it start sinking in, but when it did, it did in a huge way. Since you mention Nursery Cryme (a personal favorite of mine), I have fallen for Harlequin quite recently (thanks in large part to the excellent remix done by Nick Davis as Nursery Cryme has always had lower production values), but this is another piece where I just never really thought too much about it, but it just hit in a beautiful way. It's only 2 and half minutes long or so, but it seems to get completely under my skin and crawl into my heart. Normally, these kinds of Genesis songs don't do much for me, but I've been noticing how I've grown fond of them all of these years later. They'll never be what The Musical Box is for me for example, but it's nice to experience this different side of the band.  

This one also is to scream prog to me.