..I'd prefer to listen to Genesis almost any time..

Tull: great

Genesis: meh

I didn't even consider that. 

But if Phil's genesis can increase the number of genesis-voters and secure the win, count it in. 

I prefer TAAB to any Genesis album but in general I prefer Genesis) 

And now I vote for JT because Genesis will win in any case and JT deserve more votes)

 

Tull continued to release prog albums way after Genesis gave up

Gave up? Or Phil just realized money was more important to him than making good music? I think had this been a forum of Peter Gabriel Genesis and Solo vs Jethro Tull, it would have been a very hard decision because after leaving Genesis he was still making great albums. Genesis just had two after that then switched to pop. 

 

songs from the wood-quality folk prog

heavy horses-more quality folk prog

stormwatch-strong bonus tracks make this good album into a really strong cd

 

then they have the 3 monsters:

 

thick as a brick-classic prog

a passion play-almost classic prog

living in the past-my fave tull release

 

and these 2 are probably the best value remasters of all time

 

warchild-the 7 bonus tracks are the best songs on the remaster mainly. Very good remaster

benefit-some classic tunes, expecially the bonus tracks

 

As for genesis, trespass and foxtrot are pretty cool. Nursery cryme is a bit dull. The lamb and Selling England have their faults but they are cool too. Not really a gabriel fan. Doesn't have a very good voice and some of his lyrics are cringeworthy. I liked what Genesis were doing in Wuthering and Trick. They gained a cleaner sound. I'd rank Garbriel era among the top 10 bands from 1970-75 probably, but the combination of Hacketts depressing guitar sound, Gabriels squeely rough voice and Banks occasional strange sounds prevent Genesis from being among my top 5 bands. With so many good bands in the 70s, I've always found it weird that bands such as genesis and crimson are ranked at the very top. Top 10 is understandable

Genesis are ina lot of polls recently.

 

I appreciate Jethro Tull and I agree that they're one of the best prog bands, but I like Genesis much more.

So they throw everyone at them that they can. Mostly to tout their own favorite.

 

Love Tull, Genesis is my pick.

 

 

I definately wouldn't consider gabriel era genesis the best. There are things about the band which I would gaurantee would hold them back if most people got into 70s prog. I reckon most people would get into prog after enough listening but most people have pretty simple/dumb taste in music. But in the end they would wake up to how good prog is after enough listening. I'm very confident they would rate tull higher than genesis in the end though. Tull remasters are full of great value. Even the remaster of Warchild compares pretty similarly to The lamb even if the original album wasn't that strong. Both from 1974 and both pretty much double album length. Both have strong and weak tracks. I love those bonus tracks on Warchild the most on the cd. They are the songs that should have been on the soundtrack in the first place, not those poppy songs like bungle, third hoorah, sealion, 2 fingers.

 

I think if someone had these releases of both bands i'd think tull would still come out of top.

 

TAAB-excellent

LITP-excellent

Bursting out-very good

SFTW remaster-very good

Heavy horses remaster-very good

Stormwatch remaster-fairly good album, but very good year in studio(bonus tracks really add quality)

Warchild remaster-decent soundtrack, but very good year in studio(7 bonus tracks are among 10 best songs)

Benefit remaster-fairly good album, but very good year in studio(teacher and witches promise are excellent)

APP-pretty good album

 

Foxtrot-very good

Trespass-very good

The lamb-very good although i can't stand NYC and 2nd half of title song

Wind and wuthering-very good

Trick of the tail-very good

Selling england-pretty good

 

 

 

 

Actually, Ian Anderson might disagree with you about prog (and he certainly doesn't seem to respect Gabriel-era Genesis).

 

Anderson from the new Classic Rock Presents Prog: "Prog became a bit of a joke, really. Perhaps the archetpal prog rock bands were the spaghetti noodlers like Yes and ELP, who could take a good idea and make it last for days! Some of it was silly, when you think about Peter Gabriel dressed a giant sunflower. It was ridiculous."

 

He's kind of right. Tull are the perfect blend of rock,folk, classical and jazz. When they did a long song they made sure the whole song was full of strong changing melodies. They didn't put in 5 minutes of sound effects to fill in space. ELP were finished after Trilogy imo. When I see pictures of Gabriel with his head shaved down the middle I think showpony/rebel which doesn't go down as cool at all. His voice on the Lamb is pretty annoying and his outfits were pretty embarrasing lol. Tulls remasters from 1970-74 and 1977-80 are awesome

 

If Ian Anderson is kind of right, as you say, then maybe music fans who aren't into prog don't necessarily have "simple/dumb taste in music" and probably wouldn't "wake up to how good prog is after enough listening." Especially not if prog's about "spaghetti noodlers" and ridiculous theatrics. Reading Anderson's quote, one gets the feeling that the fans who turned away from prog and aren't interested may be more clued-in than you're giving them credit for. On the other hand, maybe you're right about people getting into prog if they'd only give it enough listening... but then Anderson's statement would have to be taken with a grain of salt (and probably disagreed with).

 

well the thing i love about prog is the composition. I don't really care about experimenting or songs lasting 20 minutes with 5 minutes of filler.

I agree with that. Tull has always found a way to put very different music in their albums, somehow preserving the authentic Tull sound. Even though they are classified as folk rock in this forum, their music is more eclectic and full of many different influences.

Genesis vs Mozart next.

 

How about Genesis vs Mozart  vs W.C. Handy vs Bertolt Brecht? Just to stir things up?

 

There's a touch of filler in the title song I think. I think Relayer has more filler though. Gates doesn't need to be 20 minutes long. I only rate the first 5 or 6 minutes highly. Nothing beats composition. Noises and ballads show lack of ideas imo

 

The only filler on TAAB is near the start of side 2. But it is filler I guess. But I do prefer TAAB over CTTE

You're very much entitled to your preferences. nobody is questioning them.  But don't come up with specious arguments to create a pseudo-empirical basis to dismiss another band.  

 

Why not? I think Yes were best from 1970-72. I honestly think they started to run out of composition ideas after that. They only did 2 albums from 1975-1979. 2 albums in 5 years isn't much. Was never a big fan of GFTO either.

You are backpedalling now. You earlier defended Anderson's statement which tantamounted to saying that Yes simply covered a decent idea with noodling and said you don't like compositions with a lot of filler. A reasonable reading of what you said would give the impression that you think Yes in general were just a pile of noodle, which you are backtracking from now.

 

I never said anything bad about Yes, so why you say I did?

All I'm saying is while Yes are one of my top 10 fave bands, they kind of lost their greatness after 1972 because they dragged out songs to 15 or 20 minutes when there wasn't enough strong composition to fill the song. I see great moments but also holes in Relayer. GFTO isn't bad, but nowhere near the quality of 1970-72. I quite like Tormato because it was back to the shorter songs like Fragile/The yes album. I quite like Tales but I still don't see the need for a double album. Tull was capable of making a 45 minute song without much filler, while Yes would struggle to make a 20 minute song without the same amount of filler. Ian Anderson was  such a good composer. He came up with so many good melodic verses/chorses. So many great bonus tracks

Again, that's not what you were saying earlier so you have changed your stance.  And you are again generalizing in the last part. Yes at their best could make an epic, namely CTTE, tighter than any of JT's compositions. It has no filler whatsoever, so I don't see how you came to that conclusion.  And even when I don't like TFTO, I don't think they padded out their songs intentionally to stretch them to 20 minutes, it's simply that the material itself isn't that strong.  I don't think that is the same thing as padding or noodling at all, whereas you were agreeing to a statement of Anderson that Yes and ELP simply noodled out decent ideas.  

 

I haven't changed my stance at all. I never said anything about not liking Yes. I think you had a dream about me knocking them because you are saying stuff i never said and somehow you think I dislike the band. I obviously do like them because i have all their 60s, 70s and early 80s remasters as well as the 20 year box set. I like Yes alot but I like Tull more. Same with Genesis, I like their mid 70s without Gabriel and quite like their Gabriel years although there are some cringeworthy moments from Gabriel which takes some gloss off their 1970-74 period

If you did not change your stance and if you really like Yes, care to explain what do you find justifiable about Anderson's disparaging comment about Yes?  So, you like taking a decent idea and running with it for a week with piles of noodling, am I to take that as your 'final' stance?

 

Ian is just saying that bands such as Yes and Genesis took it a step too far occasionally. I agree with him. I would like Yes more if they stuck to shorter tunes, but the question is Could Yes continue to produce 10 compositions per album?

He didn't say that at all, at least the words used were much harsher.  What is a step too far, anything you don't like? As I said, each one is entitled to his preferences but the concept of noodling is not so whimsical. It is clearly a section of music that completely lacks any initiative, does not take the composition forward and lacks much relation to what comes before and after it. You'd be hard pressed to objectively name more instances in the 70s recordings of Yes than JT.  Generally, their material is thoroughly composed regardless of whether it's brilliant or mediocre. Moreover, anything that is unorthodox or unconventional like Sound Chaser is not necessarily noodling. JT rely much more on songs than free form and so will tend to be more accessible, but that doesn't mean using free form is in itself a bad idea.

 

Soundchaser is exactly what Ian is probably talking about. A song that starts great but repeats itself for nearly 10 minutes. Becomes a bit annoying by the half way mark. Gates starts off great too, but then you have 5 minutes of effects and the eerie Soon. Nothing beats great melody imo. I expect at least a dozen strong melodies in a great album, not 2 or 3. TAAB has about a dozen great compositions.

Those 'effects' are all thoroughly composed and I can clearly discern a direction to the composition.  You may be simply unaccustomed to unconventional music. Calling that noodling is, I am sorry, preposterous when the band clearly has intended to build a mood through the so called effect. I don't even think that is what Anderson meant, it seems to be a rather lazy and dangerously generalized comment, probably with an eye to endear his music more to the classic rock audience, which supposedly hates prog.

 

My whole collection consists of prog bands who started in the 60's or 70s so I'm obviously in the right place. But what I love about prog is the composition and I'd never replace composition with experimenting unless I ran out of composition ideas

It's a simple enough question. What do you prefer fish or eggs. It's answerable.

As I'd say that I like both apples and oranges, but like apples more.  

I'd argue that if they were the same kind of band, it would be harder to establish points of difference where preferences diverge.  I cannot really say who of Zach Stevens and Russell Allen I like more because they are similar kind of singers with their strengths cancelling off but I definitely like Jeff Buckley more than either, a completely different kind of singer.   That both Genesis and JT are progressive rock bands which don't veer too much into freeform or atonality, but with divergent influences, makes them eminently comparable to me.  But to each his own.