Box Set Review

Part One: 1970-1972

For a little over a decade, the prog-rock group Genesis was one of the most creative bands in rock. Before 1978’s “Follow You, Follow Me,” they would have passed into history as an underground “arty” band with a tight following and an incredible collection of recordings that never stopped pushing the envelope. Though I would gladly defend the merits of the eighties Genesis against anyone, the fact of the matter is that their first full decade together as a band saw their most challenging and impressive works, and the release of the new box set covering 1970-1975 marks a great moment for anyone who has been meaning to find out why fans love this band or just what is meant by the word “prog.”

Over the last year or so, Genesis has been re-releasing their classic albums with rather amazing extras: tons of vintage TV and live performance footage, new interviews, music videos and even entire DVD concerts. But it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that they put out box set three, offering 13 discs of CDs and DVDs. This is the so-called “Gabriel-era” of Genesis before Peter Gabriel left the group to pursue what turned out to be a very successful solo career. All that’s left out from this time, in fact, is the more pre-prog Genesis to Revelation album that collected the band’s very early ’67-’69 recordings.

It was in 1970 that Genesis made a great shift from being an edgy late-Brit-Invasion group to one often categorized alongside King Crimson and Yes. Throughout this period, the band was key in bringing rock showmanship to a new theatrical level. Gabriel’s notorious costumes and weird stage antics were only part of the act. Thanks to clever lighting and film projections, Genesis helped to usher in a type of total experience that made a rock show resemble serious culture without all the snooty society-types in attendance.

In the beginning, the boys in Genesis resolved to make themselves a progressive rock group. Trespass, the first album of this period, was released in the same year as Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and the Beatles’ Let It Be. The group at the time consisted of Gabriel, keyboardist/composer Tony Banks, bassist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Anthony Phillips and drummer John Mayhew. The lineup changed significantly after this album, and so on its own it stands as a sketch of one direction the group could have gone.

Trespass has all the prog stuff: time changes, lengthy songs, keyboards, intellectual lyrics — even a bit of flute now and again. Structurally, much of the template for later Genesis records is in place. What is surprising to a lot of listeners, however, is the degree of introspection and, well, “twinkliness” to be found here. Anyone who has listened to Anthony Phillips’ later work will see the influence he had on this more pastoral, rainy-day Genesis. One of the best examples of this style is on the album’s first track, “Looking for Someone.” An altogether mesmerizing tune, the song begins with the plaintive voice of Gabriel as he illustrates a life lost in some sort of existential crisis. One of the great things about Genesis is the band’s ability to suddenly build energy from nowhere, and “Looking” certainly shows that aspect at work. The verses are brought maddeningly to life by Anthony Phillips’ bursts of electric guitar, and as the song progresses, an instrumental frenzy builds to a final crescendo from which our lost hero might never return.

“White Mountain” begins the Genesis attachment to very “English” subjects like fox-hunts and kings. The bouncy organ illustrates the chase in a haunting and inventive way. It isn’t until about mid-way through the album’s fourth track, “Stagnation,” that Genesis really starts to hit their stride. Moving through a very quiet opening and into the sort of controlled anarchy that typifies their brand of “rocking out,” this tune offers up one of Tony Banks’ best keyboard lines, and then has the self-control to return to the lyrics. The last three minutes build a dazzling and almost religious energy reminiscent of the Velvet Underground’s better material.

But the real gem here is the violent, heavy call to revolution, “The Knife.” Part call for freedom and part warning of the Mansonian elements endangering Western culture, the song threatens and prods with Biblical vitriol: “I’ll give you the names of those you must kill / All must die with their children / Carry their heads to the palace of old.” The speaker implores his followers: “Some of you are going to die / Martyrs of course to the freedom I will provide.” There’s no telling whether the song is meant as a dark prophecy of coming demagogues or an honest call to action. One thing is for certain, however, is that Phillips’ guitar-work here is unparalleled. I could listen to the second half of this song, with its crushing instrumental work and crowd noises, a hundred times in a day and still find something new to like.

The band had already come a long way with Trespass, but before recording their follow-up, two integral members joined the proceedings. One was the virtuosic guitar god Steve Hackett, who would help define a clean, quick style equally prepared for rock and jazz as it was for more classical riffs. The other member to jump in was Phil Collins, drummer for the space-rock group Flaming Youth, who would help give Genesis a far more rhythmic sound and prepare it for the experiments in time and structure that were to follow. What came of this line-up change is nothing short of a super-group, and its first product, Nursery Cryme, is a touchstone in the development of progressive rock.

“Musical Box” starts ethereally, with Hackett’s childlike fretwork helping to illustrate the tale of a grown man injured as a boy and forever stunted. At about two-and-a-half minutes, the music explodes in all directions. The galloping rave-up gives us a glimpse of the inner turmoil of our otherwise quiet narrator. This turmoil explodes again when the narrator’s very adult desires for his nurse surface, and what follows is one of Genesis’ most dazzling moments of raw musical emotion. When Gabriel’s voice returns, the emotive quality shown on their first album returns for one of the more memorable moments in the singer’s long career.

Collins takes the lead vocals on the poetic “For Absent Friends,” an imagistic tune that tells of an old couple making their daily prayers. On “Return of the Giant Hogweed,” the band tells a tongue-in-cheek horror story of an unstoppable suburban weed that London’s imperiled citizens cannot wipe out. Beginning with Gabriel’s shout of “Turn and run! Nothing can stop them!” the song pokes fun at the obsessions of the middle class — a favorite theme Genesis will return to again and again. Note the impeccable attention to time on this track. From afar, the band seems to be moving in several directions during the harder parts, never quite settling on a particular melody. But a math-rock sort of brilliance keeps everything together, turning corners in unison and ever changing. As the piano-led bridge builds back up into the song proper, this attention to time really begins to pay off. Followed by the dramatic “Seven Stones,” Nursery Cryme is already the group’s most solid album to date.

Then comes one of my favorite Genesis songs, “Harold the Barrel,” a quirky pop tune with a sped-up-Beatles sound that tells of a runaway restaurateur who has cut off and served his toes to customers. The song utilizes a lyric structure that Gabriel will use on several other occasions. Rather than having only one narrator, an entire cast of characters have “parts” that Gabriel recites altogether to give the full picture of his story. The jerky, bouncy music here is as easy to get hooked on as an old Kinks’ riff, and twice as complex.

The album takes another down-tempo break with “Harlequin,” a dreamy song with Collins and Gabriel sharing the vocal track. Reminiscent of a lost old English pub sing-along, the tune prepares the way for the Greek mythology of “The Fountain of Salmacis.” Another showcase for the group’s increasing instrumental talent, “Fountain” moves through several time and melody changes with ease, building along with them a swirling 3-dimensional experience.

In anyone else’s music career, a mounting achievement like 1972’s Foxtrot would be considered enough to warrant legendary status. From the synth-orchestral opening and hammering bass-line of “Watcher of the Skies,” it’s hard for even the casual listener not to be swept up in the idiosyncratic genius of a band at the top of their game. Moving from a syncopated jazz rhythm to a heavy march and then off into stranger territory, Foxtrot’s first track is hard to ignore. Complete with foreboding organ and lilting guitar-work, this may be the best opening track on any prog record.

Another of their most impressive workouts in time and interval structure, “Get ‘Em Out by Friday” cuts into class politics, telling the story of poor working families being moved out of their homes to the benefit of real estate developers. Hackett’s controlled buzz on the guitar here is really something else, and Banks’ moody synth helps guide Gabriel’s tale from a run-of-the-mill class conflict to a dystopian sci-fi nightmare. “Can-Utility and the Coast-Liners” follows, and builds from a quiet Trespass-style tune with very little teeth to a postmodern romp of noise and order.

My first copy of Foxtrot was an LP record mistakenly pressed with two side ones. I was so impressed with the album as it stood that I had convinced myself for over a year that Genesis had done this on purpose, and that the half-hour song “Supper’s Ready” was only a joke title for a repeat of the record’s first side. Thankfully, I was terribly (and ridiculously) mistaken about this. “Supper’s Ready,” is the crowning achievement of Foxtrot, and the Genesis song I listen to the most. An immense track of innumerable changes and hard-to-describe creativity, “Supper” gets to the heart of the suburban middle-class household with its tale of a husband and wife doing their best to ignore one another and feign romance all at once. But the topic of the song is a far second to the music here. Honestly, the song feels like a journey into a very real world.

Perhaps one of prog’s biggest goals is to do just this: create with the palette of sound something more physical and spacious. If so, “Supper” gets closer to achieving this than any song I know. Listen for the snippets of jazz, classical, rock and electro that fuse into this composition and you get the feeling Genesis is trying to teach a class on 20th century music. The shifting mood and imagery focus us on a prism of human experience that seems to grow inward from the everyday starting-point of our suburban household, delve into the deepest recesses of the imagination, and circle back to an amazing crescendo. But enough on that. “Supper’s Ready” warrants multiple listens.

DVD Extras

For all three albums, there are extensive 2007-08 interviews with the band. On Foxtrot, the folks at Rhino have also provided a TV appearance from Brussels and a live concert in Rome. Considering the profound visual experience that was Genesis at this time, fans need to see this stuff. What’s equally amazing about the look of the group onstage, however, is the fact they could play all this complicated material so well in front of a (rather baffled) audience.

Read Part Two: The Saga Continues 1973-1975

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