Genesis on TV

PaulBrewer

Just watching a documentary on Genesis on Sky Arts including some studio footage in the good oul days when bands booked studios first and worried about tunes after.

Could a band like Genesis even exist today ?

trackmixstudio

Peter Gabriel used to dress as a flower on stage.
Do you seriously thing these guys were coherent enough to plan ahead:-)

It's easy enough these days to write and arrange in a home set up.
The days of writing songs in an expensive studio are a thing of the past.

madtheory

PaulBrewer wrote: »

...when bands booked studios first and worried about tunes after.

Possibly over stating it I think? Because the thing is, Genesis could actually play, and got the songs together very quickly and competently! They were always brimming over with ideas as evidenced by the quality of their improvisations (you can hear some of these as studio out takes on the remasters). All they did in the studio was polish. Musically, they operated at a very high standard.

PaulBrewer

That is true - they were/are players ok.

They do say at one stage that they did go in without any music though. The bit where Hugh Padgham is being interviewed if you do get to see it.

But really, is there any chance a band like that could start these days ?

madtheory

I haven't seen the documentary, will check it out.

But I'm guessing they're overstating it. There's always a bit of exaggeration in these documentaries, I find. Maybe they didn't have songs as such, but they definitely had the ideas and used the studio to help shape them. There's an out take of "Mama" that's very cool, he's making up the lyrics, the music is all there although the structure is all over the shop. I got the impression that's how they always worked. One of the Gabriel biographies describes their rehearsals- basically extended jams. But they had the chops to do that constructively, as you said!

And to answer your question- I think there are loads of bands around just like that, except they record themselves e.g. Porcupine Tree.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Could a band like Genesis even exist today ?

If the band can charge large appearance fees.

Genesis could probably not exist today. How much would it cost to block book a studio and noodle away for months?

Some aspects of music production have become cheaper. Some haven't.

And no matter how good a musician you are, you've only got two hands.

You could equally say, Van Morrison couldn't have existed today.

Let's look at a graph.



Album sales, have completely and utterly collapsed.

I think it's terrible. When I was a kid, you might like a single, but it was an album that you'd love.

The focus is now on producing singles. So it's shifted back to like it was in the early 60s. Singles were the main product and albums were afterthoughts. Or the way they were produced. A song or two would be selected from the LP and given the bulk of the production - and the rest of the tracks wouldn't get much.

But something strange has been happening.

Let's now look at another list. The Westlife Croke Park farewell set list.

Setlist:
What About Now
What Makes A Man
My Love
Safe
Uptown Girl
If I Let You Go
Ain’t That a Kick in the Head
Queen Of My Heart
I Gotta Feeling >
Sex On Fire >
Don’t Cha >
Let Me Entertain You >
Bohemian Rhapsody
When You’re Looking Like That
Mandy
Seasons in the Sun
Swear It Again
Home
You Raise Me Up



Did you see how many covers were in the list? There are no hidden gems on Westlife albums that sound great live.

Bohemian Rhapsody could not have been created without months of noodling around. And it's not something that could have been created in a box room - with the band glued to the grids on the DAW. And if they'd banged it out with Freddie at the piano in just a handful of takes, it would have been nothing like it eventually was.

I know Westlife are a pop act, but still in the course of their career under different circumstances, the record company would have tried to create a great album - Something like a Whitney Houston album (lots of writers, lots of good songs, lots of production, etc). In the past, even pop acts would have an album passable enough to make an entire performance from their own tracks. This is not happening at the minute. And many of the big pop acts are fleshing out their sets with other peoples hits. The typical Simon Cowell act is just a karoke band - one original track and the rest is covers. Or they're all covers.

This isn't simply the artists. Back in the day of big album sales - fully fleshed out albums would be produced for even pop acts. If a pop act had a big hit - the record company would fork out for a well produced album.

We are well and truly back in the Showband era.

I could hear Westlife's farewell from my flat. I thought I was listening to a ghee'd up wedding band.

madtheory

krd wrote: »

Album sales, have completely and utterly collapsed.

Like I said in the other thread, that's a skewed view of things. They reached a major high in the nineties when everyone was replacing their LPs. Highest in the history of recorded music. So your graph is missing about 50 years worth of very important data.

krd

madtheory wrote: »

Like I said in the other thread, that's a skewed view of things. They reached a major high in the nineties when everyone was replacing their LPs. Highest in the history of recorded music. So your graph is missing about 50 years worth of very important data.

No. It wasn't really as simple as that. People were still buying lots of new albums.

The thing about an album - is if you put it on, it's too much of a pain in the arse to get up and change. And the same with CD singles, you have to get up off your arse and change it. Lot's of 90s CDs were close to one hour in length. You couldn't just do a shuffle play of all your CDs. You had to get up off your arse and pick them out. So, know one was going to listen to a really crap CD just for one good track.

madtheory

Not disagreeing with any of that. But the fact is there was a peak in sales that can never happen again. I'll post a graph Monday.