Trespass was never even a good album, it is at best mediocre, but on the other hand, Nursery Cryme is a very good album.

King of Loss wrote: Trespass was never even a good album, it is at best mediocre, but on the other hand, Nursery Cryme is a very good album.

^

Why those albums is in the top 20 of this chart is beyond me! Those stupid cult Genesis fans havn't got any taste!

I rate NC with 5 and Trespass with 4.5, so it's Nursery Cryme by a nose.

Iván

ivan_2068 wrote: I rate NC with 5 and Trespass with 4.5, so it's Nursery Cryme by a nose. Iván

Bit high, I don't think Nursery Cryme should be given the status of 'masterpiece', and Trespass is a solid four, would you really give it a higher mark?

Trespass:

1. An incredible evolution from a poppy album to a serious Progressive Rock release by a bunch of teenagers (Most of Genesis members reached 20 in 1970 except Ant who was one year younger).
2. Even darker atmosphere than in the next two albums.
3. Peter Gabriel's voice sounds more natural and clear than ever
4. Absolutely not a weak song. Really? Is this the same Trespass I got?
5. Excellent use of acoustic instruments like Tony's piano and Anthony's guitar.}

Those are my reasons.

Iván

Winter Wine wrote: ivan_2068 wrote: I rate NC with 5 and Trespass with 4.5, so it's Nursery Cryme by a nose. Iván Bit high, I don't think Nursery Cryme should be given the status of 'masterpiece', and Trespass is a solid four, would you really give it a higher mark?

I have reasons to give this high ratings: 

Nursery Cryme:

1. The best Genesis song ever which is The Musical Box
2. No fillers excpet maybe For Absent Friends, but it's still a very good song.
3. The perfectly dark atmosphere
4. Fountain of Salmacis, another top ten
5. Harold the Barrell, a taste of acid humor.
6. The first album with the classic lineup

Trespass:

1. An incredible evolution from a poppy album to a serious Progressive Rock release by a bunch of teenagers (Most of Genesis members reached 20 in 1970 except Ant who was one year younger).
2. Even darker atmosphere than in the next two albums.
3. Peter Gabriel's voice sounds more natural and clear than ever
4. Absolutely not a weak song.
5. Excellent use of acoustic instruments like Tony's piano and Anthony's guitar.}

Those are my reasons.

Iván

Winter Wine wrote: Ivan I understand you reasons, and i'm very interested in what you have to say (unless it's about Genesis after Hackett ) but I think that Foxtrot is a much more well rounded and cohesive effort than Nursery Cryme, it's certaintly dated better and some of Gabriels vocals on Nursery Cryme don't quite hit the mark. I also think that 'Supper's Ready' is THE definitive Genesis song, it's twists and turns are so amusing and breathtaking, and the finale!!

I get your point, I always had some trouble deciding which is my favorite album between Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme, because both have such a similar atmosphere, both have their high points and both have disadvantages in comparison with the other.

This is some things I think:

1. Foxtrot is more solid, but none in the level of Musical Box.
2. Nursery Cryme has three superb songs, one very good two good and one weaker, but not bad.
3. Supper's Ready is not my favorite Genesis song, my top 5 are:
   • Musical Box
   • Fountain of Salmacis
   • Can-Utility and the Coastliners
   • White Mountain
   • Supper's Ready
4. Both should have been originally released as one whole perfect album that today would be considered the icon of the genre.
5. Both deserve 5 stars, but Foxtrot is slightly better IMO as a whole.

Iván

Yes, Snow Dog, I believe it's the same Trespass, the difference is in the taste.

Iván

ivan_2068 wrote: Yes, Snow Dog, I believe it's the same Trespass, the difference is in the taste. Iván

You mean I haven't got any?

I think if those albums had've been released as a whole they would have no character, and Nursery Cryme would not have seemed so innovative in 72 as it did in 71, if you get me.

Yeah I agree, Foxtrot is a stronger album, but there are a couple of other Genesis albums that I feel are also stronger than Nursery Cryme. I think 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' is their darkest, most ambitious and out and out WACKIEST hour, for me listening to that album is like being immersed in a fantasy type film as the lyrics are just so vivid! It's amazing. So I think Foxtrot and The Lamb are their most important.

Winter Wine wrote: Your top 5 I do find surprising but they're all excellent songs, no matter what order. I think if those albums had've been released as a whole they would have no character, and Nursery Cryme would not have seemed so innovative in 72 as it did in 71, if you get me. Yeah I agree, Foxtrot is a stronger album, but there are a couple of other Genesis albums that I feel are also stronger than Nursery Cryme. I think 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' is their darkest, most ambitious and out and out WACKIEST hour, for me listening to that album is like being immersed in a fantasy type film as the lyrics are just so vivid! It's amazing. So I think Foxtrot and The Lamb are their most important.

Lately I've been more surprise for the repeated times I read some member saying that Trespass is their favorite album. When I started in the net this gem was underrated, now it's getting the recognition it deserves.

But back to the issue:

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway: Created by and for Peter Gabriel (mostly)  to be the icon of an era, a double conceptual album done by one of the big 5 with their roots in Kafka and in Peter's childhood. Full of symbolism and secret messages that not even today are revealed by it's creator (s).

But it has something I don't like, they lost the atmosphere, before The Lamb, Genesis music floated in the air as a heavy mist that slowly felt over us and covered everything, the music seems to come from everywhere, the audience is part of the music.

In the lamb we're part of the adventure, but from the start instead of a heavy mist, we have an electro shock, and that's what Peter pretended.

Don't look at me! I'm not your kind.
I'm Rael!

The Lamb is different, in first place is a conceptual album, the longer songs format is replaced for a short and more aggressive one. If in Musical Box we were there in the lawn to see how Cynthia Jane de Blaise-William with a smile removed Henry’s head, almost as spectators, in The Lamb Rael is spitting all his anger in our face.

In Can-Utility and the Coastliners we see a King who can force the waters to retreat at his command, in The Cage we share the pain, anguish and claustrophobia with Rael. The aggression is veryr strong, but the atmosphere is not present. Steve Hackett doesn't play a very important role in The Lamb as in the previous albums.

For me The Lamb is less a team work, this album has Peter's signature al over it.

But of course it's a masterpiece. only different. I love the concept of The Lamb, but that dark atmosphere, that thick mist which was Genesis trademark dissapears inthis album.

Iván

Snow Dog wrote: ivan_2068 wrote: Yes, Snow Dog, I believe it's the same Trespass, the difference is in the taste. Iván You mean I haven't got any?

Don't be so dramatic (You're sounding like a politician on campaign)  I mean we both have a different and unique taste, as I been saying all along this weeks.

Iván

Two weeks after getting the album I would have said the exact same thing, 1) Hackett doesn't play as big a role and,

Not that Steve doesn't play a big role in it, maybe I said it wrong, but he doesn't play the basic roled he had on his to first releases with Genesis.

Before The Lamb, Genesis was mainly Peter's voice with Tony and Steve working together plus any good drummer and bass player.

Don't misunderstand me, Phil is a top ten drummer and Mike is flawless, but they are not essential for the band's sound, even a less talented drummer would had make it with Genesis and there are hundreed of bass players that could have replaced Mike.

Genesis with Peter, Tony and Steve, didn't really needed another virtuoso, because  their music is based in bandwork more than in individual talent.

If Genesis is unique for something it's because the special sound created by the complemented work of Steve Hackett and Tony Banks, they blend their instruments, and reach a point in which you don't 100% know who is who, it was perfect.

I remember a few years ago with a younger cousin who came with his band to jam at my house (his drummer was sick and I lived in a bigger house with a music room back in the garden), and I showed them a VHS of early Genesis, he laughed on Steve's style and how he played sitting down (My coiusin is a metal head), so I asked him to try following a record while I was trying to make the drum parts.

After 15 minutes he said, that this guy was impossible to follow and far much more complex than anything he had played before, I had to play Firth of Fifth 5 times before he was convinced that Steve's solo wasn't layed by a keyboard.

2) The Genesis atmosphere had gone with the wind, I also thought 

It was gone, the sound and darkness of the three previous albums is subtle, the atmosphere covers everything and the music seems to float, that was Genesis trade mark. You knew all the musicians were virtuoso, but it was hard to identify them clearly because of the lack of solos.

In The Lamb, the sound is direct, from the start, the tittle song is mostly a Rock track with keyboard fugues, Hackett plays in a different style than his natural one, maybe that's the reason why he doesn't like The Lamb as much as SEBTP or Nursery Cryme.

3) Lamb Lies Down is too dark and claustrophobic to make me feel any sort of connection with the album.

The Lamb is not dark (At least not as the previous) by the contrary it's fantastic and bright, but it's clearly claustrophobic (I still believe that Peter had read The Trial by Kafka before creating The Lamb), and I love that.

Listen In the Cage, for God's sake I'm almost at the border of a nervous break each time that I play it but still have to listen it over and over, and I don't believe that Steve is so impórtant there.

The spirit of the song is in Peter's voice, he's semi yodelling is almost a cry for help and panic, and the breathtaking keyboards by Tony are badkuped by Mike Rutherford (Who does a spectacular work) and not by Steve.

I love that song.

Only in the last few weeks i've felt, Christ, this album really is something special, it sort of just opened up and at the atmosphere returned, the album can be so subtle that (As with Wind and Wuthering)

I disagree, The Lamb is as subtle as an elefant in a cristal shop. It's pompous, over blown complex and deep, and that's what makes a masterpiece of it.

Except for Peter's voice, doesn't sound as a Genesis album, it's totally contradictory with the moment in the evolution of the band, they started pop, made a high jump and released a very Prog and haunting album, the next two were even more complex, but then they started to come softer and friendlier with SEBTP and them comes The Lamb, unique and totally different to anything done by Genesis or even any Prog band.

 I never really noticed the musicians doing anything special, Hackett in particular. But when I listened to the album more it became easier to listen to and I picked up on all these wonderful melodies and excellent instrumental parts. I mean listen to 'Fly on a Windsheild', listen to that in the dead of night and tell me that has no atmosphere, and how Banks and Hackett work together to create it.

After almost 30 years, I stand on my point, Genesis does a totally different work to their usual in The Lamb.

Listen to Hacketts guitar parts on 'Cuckoo Cocoon', 'In the Cage', 'Counting Out Time', 'Hairless Heart', 'Lilywhite Lilith', 'Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist', 'Ravine', 'It.', even his simple counter melody to Gabriels vocals on 'The Carpet Crawlers', all the magic of Hacketts playing is there, subtle of course, hidden behind Gabriel's characters and storyline maybe but it's very much a part of the album.

The magic of Hackett is there, yes, but he's wasted, he could have done much more using his natural style, he sounds a bit forced and artiificial, this doesn't mean I don't like The Lamb, I love it, but IMO Foxtrot, NC and even Trespass are better. Despite the fact that The Lamb is more important for Prog history than almost any other Genesis album.

For me, something like 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' is so unique and so fresh sounding that it stands very much by itself in the Genesis catalogue. I think maybe it helped the band from becoming stale, it's a whole new sound, that's what makes it a challenge, especially for me as I had already become a huge fan of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound.

I became a fan of Genesis with ATOTT and SEBTP, and The Lamb was impressive, but when I really got into the first three Prog Genesis aklbums, the band became an addiction.

Iván

Maybe yes, but there is one thing that Mike brought to the band that other bass players may not have had, his songwriting, i'm pretty sure that he and Banks wroth Firth of Fifth together, sure there may be more qualified bass players, but to me, it's not always how technically skilled a musician is, it's how he adds to the music, through songwriting or simple melodies etc. That said though, Collins is fun as hell to listen to, I mean listen to the end of 'The Waiting Room', that always has me breaking out my air drums.

Lets be honest WW, Mike's contribution to Genesis sonwritting before W&W is practically zero, he helped with a couple of arrangements but nothing more, first the job was done by Peter, Ant and Tony (Anthony Phillips was a major writting force in Genesis) then mostly by Tony and Peter.

Both Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford contributed to a couple of songs (Steve even a bit more) it's only in W&W that Mike dares to make a 100% solo song and it's boring to hell (Your Own Special Way) and Steve leaves the band because Genesis members didn't wanted his songs.

Phil is a great drummer, would have made it in any band, I believe he would have been a better replacement for Bill Bruford than Alan White and Alan White would have made a great job in Genesis, because Genesis didn't required a virtuoso drummer, Even John Mayhew did a good work with Trespass.

I have to disgree with you there, but i'm not sure that it is my place to. When I first heard 'Foxtrot', I honestly and truly never seen any dark qualities to it, of course when I heard Foxtrot first I never knew this site existed so I never thought I SHOULD have felt it was dark, if you get me.

Well, lets see a couple of thracks:

• Watcher of the skies: A destroyed society judged by an extraterrestrial watcher, plus the dark Baroque intro, is as dark as you can get.
• Time Table is absolutely obscure and nostalgic, which is consistent with thedark mood.
• Get 'Em Out by Friday: People thrown from their houses even if they wasnt to pay double the rent, humans forced to reduce their height to fit in overcrowded buildings, how much more dark you want,
• Can-Utoility and the Coastliners: Based on tyhe history of a King (Knute of Norway) who had to almost drown in a stone thrown to prove his people he was not a Satan's messenger who was able to make the waters retreat at his command.
• Horizons beautiful but sad track
• Supper's Ready has very dark passages.

Now can you agree?

 Whereas when I first heard 'The Lamb', well I did feel it was dark, some songs come to mind that have very dark qualities, eg. 'In the Cage', 'Anyway', 'The Lamia', 'In the Rapids'. These, especially The Lamia made me feel slightly uncomfortable, the album did not seem inviting, I felt it had a sort of claustrophobic quality.

I can't see the darkness in The Lamb, it's full of adrenaline, the songs pass as p´hotos in front of you (In the tour they used 5,000 photos that passed in the back of the band). Aggression and claustrophobia is not darkness, I see more the power of feelings that darkness.

When I think of Foxtrot I think of a big bright blue cover and then something full of wonderful imagery and colour, and that's the music i'm talking about hehe. So I never felt it was dark, maybe some of the lyrics at times, But I can't tell you you're WRONG, I mean we all have different emotional responses to different things, that's how I saw things and i'm fine with your view too (but it is a little wierd )

Read a few parragraphs above about Foxtrot

I like his dark heavy guitar in the background, not a big role? Hmmm, he's what I pick up on when I listen to the song, that and of course Gabriels singing.

He's important, but the voice full of pain, pluds the breathtaking keys and bass are the highlights of the rack IMO.

I have to agree with you there, it is very very deep, And it is complex, and the subtlety in the music is part of that complexity, I pick up something new every time I hear it. Could be a simple guitar lick or a keyboard fill, but the albums like a never ending story to me. And yes, at times it can be overblown, brilliant though when it is

We agree there

I think it seems very different because a lot of Genesis records had expanded on the album they had done before, Trespass - Nursery Cryme - Foxtrot, they just seem to get better yet there is a very strong connection with the last (Which makes me think of what you said about Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot released as one double album),

You make such a good point here that even Paul Whitehead noticed this when painting the cover for Foxtrot:

If you check at the back center in the limit of the mountains, you'll find the court were Little Cynthia and the nurse were playing croquet with the heads on Nursery Cryme.

BTW: Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot were once released as a double album:

 Selling England was a more approachable album because the mucky production that had given the albums before it their wonderful atmosphere had now gone, and the production was clean as a whistle, the simple beautiful melodies were now at the fore and they were CRYSTAL clear, so the album does have a soft edge to it, it's very musical though don't you think? Oh, and yes, Trespass can sound haunting at times, but not throughout the whole thing. So when something so radically different in sound came along like The Lamb, of course it was going to feel different, but shouldn't that be admired?

We agree again, except on Firth of Fifth which is very atmospheric also, plus the excellent Steve Hackett solo.

And IMO Trespass is the darkest and absolutely more haunting Genesis album, starting by the excellent art cover that describes the mood of the album.

Iván