We’re waiting for you, come and join us now … as we look back on Genesis’ 1969 debut album, “From Genesis to Revelation.” No need to hang out in limbo when you can follow the members of the Tabletop to the land where the rainbow ends …
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Thanks for the time and effort to do this review. I love what you guys do. However, I could have done without the snarky laughs. Some of the reviewers had not listened to the album more than a couple of times before preparing to do this review. Then at the end, they say there are no memorable songs or they did not have a favorite. Most good albums take me 4 or 5 listens to before I get them. I grew up with this album and its many versions including the new 50th-anniversary reissue which has isolated some of Peter’s vocals. As a first album, I think it is great.
Thanks for this episode. I was surprised while listening you didn’t mention the obvious Liam Gallacher esque vocals in The Conqueror. Imagine him singing this song!
“Prog wasn’t a thing back then”? In 1969? There was the Moody Blues and Tony Banks has mentioned seeing The Nice live. It may not have been a big thing but it was a thing.
Slough of Despond is from John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” A work to which I’m sure a public school lad would have been exposed. (BTW, I’m commenting as I listen to the podcast)
Great episode, guys! PS – I think a tidbit of piano on one these FGTR tunes got recycled on Visions Of Angels– but to be more sure, I’d have to listen to FGTR again, which I’m not willing to do. 🙂
I think you may have missed a fairly obvious point of influence for very early Genesis: The Zombies.
Just think, if Genesis had gone by (an even slightly) different band name in ’68/’69, we wouldn’t even have to wrestle with the issue of whether FGTR “counts” as a proper Genesis album it not!
Great episode, as always. Never heard the album before, but at least I got a taste of the band in their formative years. Going to get it to complete my collection.
I think the panel were a little hard on FGTR. “Has to be listened to in context” was said many times, and it’s true, but having said that there are several later Genesis albums that I like less than this one.
I agree with the comment that some of the “transitions” are better than the songs themselves, and indeed they do indicate what was to be the way forward. The intro to “Fireside Song” is very Tony, and could almost have been on A Curious Feeling; the start of “Window” is not a world away from the beginning of Cinema Show; and as mentioned, the final track, “A Place to Call My Own” would find echoes later on The Lamb. I also think “In Hiding” is simply a great pop song by any standards.
Along with comparisons to the Bee Gees, a band I think should be mentioned is the Moody Blues. Maybe it’s the production, but when I hear the soaring backing voices on songs like “In the beginning” I immediately think of songs like “Question” or “Ride My See-Saw” – which of course came later. This would not be the last time Genesis would borrow from the Moodies’ sound – I am thinking in particular of the closing track on The Lamb.
I don’t listen to FGTR awful lot, but I enjoy it when I do. I don’t mentally compare it to Foxtrot or Wind & Wuthering when I do; I hear it for what it is – a relatively unsophisticated album of what people nowadays calls “baroque pop”, which is a term that seems to be used for any pop that actually has an interesting tune.