GENESIS
Music and Lyrics by Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford
Produced by David Hentschel & Genesis
Released March 28, 1980
GENESIS:
Tony Banks: Piano, Keyboards, Synthesizers
Phil Collins: Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Drum Programming
Mike Rutherford: Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitars, Bass Guitars
March 27th marked the 64th birthday of Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks and in his honor on the mythical WSPC, I felt myself compelled to "play" a selection of music that forever altered my perceptions of what rock music could actually be. The track was the expansive, sweeping, sprawling, and downright cinematic and mostly instrumental suite "Duke's Travels/Duke's End" the closing selection from the album "Duke," which has now met its 34th Anniversary! But before I speak of the end, please allow me to go further backwards to the beginning.
My intense love for Genesis began sometime during my year in the 7th grade. On a whim I had purchased "Abacab" (released September 14, 1981). While I did listen to it often and enjoyed it very much, especially the sound of Phil Collins' drumming, it wasn't until I was introduced to "Duke," that album that preceded "Abacab" the year before, that my new journey in my musical education began. I was introduced to "Duke" in a most nondescript fashion yet it was also a cosmic one as that may have been one of the earliest times in my life when I realized that music does indeed often choose the listener and the communication between the listener and the art can arrive in the most mysterious ways, as if it was designed to happen in just that way. It was all so simply, really. I was sitting in my 7th grade Science class, daydreaming away, when the strains of Genesis' radio hit single "Misunderstanding" floated through my brain. It was not a song I particularly liked that much but when it came on the radio, I never changed the dial either, so I guess it was all a certain indifference. Anyhow, the song entered my brain and stayed with me from that slumberland of a class all the way through the rest of my school day, to the degree that I somehow found myself wanting to head to the record store to purchase the album. But there was a problem...
You see, Science was my worst subject in school. Even the thought of those days in those classes, often makes me return to a childlike sense of anxiety as I just did not have the aptitude for the material no matter how well it was presented, a quality that was seismically unacceptable to my parents, both educators (my Mother was a high school Science teacher) as well as people who had majored in the Sciences during their college days. I had (then) recently performed very poorly upon an exam and was doing just as poorly in the course overall, a transgression that my parents felt forced to punish me for by restricting my television viewing, no phone calls with friends during the week and also, there was the decree, "NO MORE RECORDS!!!" Hmmm...so how was I to obtain "Duke," the album which contained the song that was obviously travelling through the ether to meet me?
Well, they said "NO MORE RECORDS!!!" But they didn't say anything about cassettes! And that's how "Duke" entered my life.
On the weekends, my restrictions were lifted so that felt to be a fair time to listen to "Duke" openly and in earnest for the first time (and I had so many albums by this point, I reasoned that there would be no way for my parents to possibly know everything I had and what it all sounded like to even know if it was a new purchase or not). I placed the cassette into the stereo cassette player and pressed "PLAY," fully unaware that my life was about to change forever.
"Duke" opens with a suite of songs that I did not initially recognize as a suite. The grand "Behind The Lines" opens the album as if the most spectacular fanfare ever written as oceans of Tony Banks' keyboards flowed through the speakers into my basement room with such unprecedented triumph. Phil Collins' drums entered into the scene like cannons, perfectly underscored by Mike Rutherford's rumbling bass guitar work and then, there was Rutherford's soaring guitar work that sailed overhead, feeling like birds in fight. It just all felt like clouds parting, the skies opening to reveal the most beautifully blazing sunshine ever witnessed. I think I first began to understand what the word "majestic" meant when I heard this music.
And then, Genesis continued to play, and play, and play with such speed, precision and joy and yet, I was so confused by it all. I mean-how come there was no singing yet? I mean, the song had propelled itself for a full two and a half minutes before Phil Collins' voice ever enters the mix and I was just surprised already that you could actually have a song where there was no singing for that long. I mean, really, there are complete Beatles' songs that last for two and a half minutes and here was this one whose opening was longer than the opening to Led Zeppelin's immortal "Stairway To Heaven." It just felt to be so impossible but there it was, so majestically so. The trio then settles into a powerful groove, allowing Collins to at last enter the scene. To this day, don't even ask me what this song is all about as the lyrics about the narrator who "held the book so tightly" in his hands who eventually asks, "Can't you see me? I'm slipping away," has always confounded me. But, somehow they connected through the open, powerful empathy in Collins' voice and the majesty of the music that surrounded it.
"Behind The Lines," which continues for another three full minutes fades away, as a minimal drum machine beat fades itself in, as if suggesting that we are entering a new scene in an audio film. Minimal piano notes reveal themselves subtlety, as if walking in an empty church or auditorium. Rutherford's equally subtle guitars enter as well and then more of Banks' quietly enveloping keyboards, thus making what I was hearing rhythmically trace inducing. The slowly builds itself upwards, Collins' real drums blasting to the front of the mix and again, over two minutes into the song, Collins' singing brings us "Duchess," a song about the rise and fall of a female pop idol, the pressure of fame and the consequences faced when the artists begin to second guess themselves and perform for everyone except themselves and their muse. The melancholy of the song was prevalent and again, the music overall was sweeping and I felt submerged into this awesome, epic sound and like waves that hit the beach shorelines and then travel backwards towards the sea, "Duchess" disconnects itself back to its' most minimal elements and then segueing into the album's brief third track "Guide Vocal," which brings the first thirteen plus minutes to a most pensive close.
The pause between those first three songs and the album's fourth selection, the spectacularly booming "Man Of Our Times" was just long enough for me to question, "What was that?!" Dear readers and listeners, I have to explain to you that by the time I had heard "Duke" for the first time, my musical horizons were only really beginning to broaden as most of my life was listening to AM rock radio. While I had heard Rush by this point and had already held a love for Led Zeppelin, everything I listened to was fairly easily digestible and therefore understandable. There was music I liked and loved and conversely, there was music I already knew that I didn't like. But for the music that actually forced me to confront what I thought music could actually be, well, that was a rarity at that time. I, of course, had The Beatles but even so, their songcraft was so genius, they could take the most esoteric surroundings and make then entirely accessible. Only Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" (released October 12, 1979) confused me so profoundly that it took me nearly ten years after receiving it for me to even begin to appreciate it. And Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (released November 30, 1979) blew my head part so completely that the affect was terrifying and also over time, I slowly found myself accepting it, and loving it to this day.
All of that being said, what I was hearing on Genesis' "Duke" was completely foreign to me. It seemed to be breakage every conceivable rule in the rock music book...and even so, isn't rock and roll completely about breaking rules? The band itself was comprised of three members, when you typically saw four. There were the song lengths, which were epic. The keyboards seemed to be driving every song while the guitars and basses, usually the predominant drivers, were more supportive and atmospheric.
Then, of course, there were the drums, which were pushed to the front of the mix, which was also quite unusual (and therefore, so incredibly AMAZING as I was/am a drummer). And then, there was the presence of Phil Collins himself, a figure who very quickly became a hero to me. While his playing was a profound influence upon me and also opened the door for me to hear other landmark rock and roll drummers of that time and era like John Bonham, Keith Moon, Stewart Copeland and most certainly Neil Peart, Phil Collins was the first drummer since Ringo Starr to touch me on an almost primal level as he completely re-defined what a drummer, the musician who consistently receives the least respect, could actually be. Here was was, this man who shared my last name who was not only the drummer (and a monstrous, left-handed one at that, with a sound that was uniquely his own), but the frontman, the lead singer and a songwriter. This was unheard of to me and the inspiration was revolutionary for my senses.
"Misunderstanding" followed "Man Of Our Times" and showcased Collins as a lyricist, a most heartfelt one at that as he chronicles the heartbreaking tale within the song's title. And then side one concludes with the track "Heathaze," a song I tend to always emotionally link to the warm winds that accompany late Spring especially as lyrics of trees and the warm wash of Banks' enveloping keyboards carries and drifts you as if on a languid, lonely, wistful breeze.
Side two opens with the powerfully chugging power pop smash "Turn It On Again," a song that I had heard and loved but did not know was Genesis. What followed that slice of greatness is a passage of music that just floored me again and again and again.
While Genesis increasingly became targets for the prevalence of love songs and ballads on their albums, one must realize that their ballads were also ones that were some of the finest that you could hear. These were love songs that were truly romantic but also songs that carried an almost (and again) primal sense of yearning, longing, hopefulness, and sometimes, unbearable sadness. How all of that was conveyed to my then 12 year old heart, I have mo idea but again, the music chose me and it hit me right where I lived even though I had not yet lived through the emotions the songs themselves took me through. "Alone Tonight" is gorgeously conceived and performed loneliness and the devastating "Please Don't Ask," about the aftermath of Collins' (first) divorce, is one of the best love songs I have heard to this day ("Oh I can remember when it was easy to say, 'I love you.'/But things have changed since then, now I really can't say if I still do. But, I can try...").
Augmenting those selections were tracks that were expansive to the point of being nearly indescribable--or at least, I just did not understand and could not believe what I was hearing, that this music was even possible at all. There was the symphonic "Cul-De-Sac," which feels like a full Mozart styled orchestral piece in five minutes but the album's final 11 minutes, the aforementioned "Duke's Travels/Duke End," that was the undeniable jaw dropper.
The song opens with synthetic, nearly atonal washes of ambient sounds. Banks' keyboards, complimented by Collins' splash cymbals provides the scene, which soon phases in Collins' tribal drumming and the song's first movement in earnest. What follows is the three members of Genesis locked deep inside a musical escapade that was, and remains, so phenomenal in its scope, reach and sheer transcendence that I still get chills listening to it and tears almost spring to my eyes at its sheer beauty. It is a piece of music that needs to be fully heard to be understood if you have not heard it for yourselves. There is just nothing quite like it as the songs just flows from movement to movement, tempo changes to even more tempo changes, builds upwards and upwards as if the music itself will once again pierce the sky open. Tony Banks' keyboards are the sound of elevation and revelation. Mike Rutherford's guitars sound like the rays of the sun itself and Phil Collins drums...those DRUMS...just so spectacular is their sound, delivery and deliverance. The song then somehow and effortlessly, Collins' singing returns and weaves in the lyrics from "Guide Vocal," settles downwards into a more meditative and contemplative section provided by mournful piano and a tiny quiet keyboard flute sounding pause just to bring us back to the album's "Behind The Lines" fanfare theme for the ending victorious moments that feel like nothing short of spiritual exhalation.
My mouth was agape for the entire time as I listened for music itself had changed.
Genesis was the band who truly opened the door to a new musical world for me. As I poured over "Duke" constantly, that album not only led me to the remainder of their catalog at that time, their music led me to further explore the Music of Pink Floyd, Rush and Led Zeppelin while also opening the door to The Who, the world of progressive rock and the bands Yes and King Crimson in particular, and even furthermore into fusion and finally jazz music, much to the endless delight of my Father, a jazz aficionado. Genesis' "Duke" was the album that forced me to pay closer attention to the craft of learning a instrument and following that craft to the point of individual proficiency where the musical can somehow place such a personal stamp upon their chosen instrument that the listener will be able to identify the performer just by how the instrument in question is played.
Genesis' "Duke" was the album that taught me to keep dreaming BIG. To carve out my own path, whatever it may be, with commitment, talent and an always opened heart. It is an album of endless possibilities and sublime wonderment, supreme musicianship and stunning songwriting. It rocks and serves the soul as well as the body and I have never heard another album that was quite like it ever since.
Dear readers and listeners, I love and treasure Genesis' "Duke" with all of my being so completely through a very simple reason: This album is the sound of my life changing.
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