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Album Club (April 1, 2007 - March 1, 2009); Like a book club, but with albums!
Topic Started: Apr 1 2007, 05:36 PM (18,217 Views)
Kira
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Hate me, do it and do it again.
Andrew picked the perfect time for this album, though. I listened to two discs of my Genesis compilation and I've been in my every couple months Genesis mood. Shall review soon time.
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Carpenter
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Genesis - Foxtrot

The problem with Genesis at this phase in their career is not that they're not good musicians. They are. They can all play the shit out of their instruments. The thing that doesn't allow me to like them is what they do with their skills. I find their albums to be self-indulgent, pointless, lacking substance and any real songwriting skill. Don't get me wrong, I could see why someone would or could like this album. I just don't (and can't), no matter how hard I try.

As I said before, everyone in Genesis is a master at their instrument, and Peter Gabriel has a bearable (though I would never call it 'good') voice. But they are terribly self-indulgent and simply aren't good songwriters. They don't know how to really craft a song: they just seem to come up with a theme or chord progression and go with it, depending only on their instrumental virtuosity and not much else. The album is only about 51 minutes long, yet seems to go on forever and ever, even after listening multiple times. Peter Gabriel is always shouting some mystical non-sense as the rest of the band are giving it their all in the background, and I found that (unlike my experiences with the other 'progressive' bands of the period) I preferred the parts when he would shut the fuck up. Also, a lot of the 'effects' that Genesis use on this album were over-used and got to be quite annoying (especially the buzzing sound on the left channel during "Watcher of the Skies").

The best I can really say about this album is that there are many nice musical ideas (vocal melodies, guitar riffs, bass and keyboard lines, drum beats and fills etc) and that "Horizons" is absolutely beautiful. Basically the album is nearly an hour of music, of which I only thouroughly enjoyed maybe ten minutes total. This is a sum of its parts album so I won't talk about what I thought of the individual tracks (except for my aforementioned admiration of "Horizons"). I'll just break it down to the pros and cons of the album:

Pros:
- Very good instrumentation from every single member of the band
- Some good musical ideas and themes
- Good production

Cons:
- A lot of the aforementioned ideas and themes are dropped before they have a chance to develop
- Practically any moment someone is singing is horrid
- Overly self-indulgent
- The synth effects & such that were used a lot by progressive rock bands of the era are criminally over-used by Genesis here and get to be quite annoying

In short, this is an album I didn't really enjoy because the cons greatly outweigh the pros but I will keep it and give it a listen every once in a while as there were some nice bits to it.

I give Genesis' Foxtrot a 4/10.
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PinkerThanFloyd
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hey
Carpenter
Apr 8 2007, 12:47 PM
Genesis - Foxtrot

The problem with Genesis at this phase in their career is not that they're not good musicians. They are. They can all play the shit out of their instruments. The thing that doesn't allow me to like them is what they do with their skills. I find their albums to be self-indulgent, pointless, lacking substance and any real songwriting skill. Don't get me wrong, I could see why someone would or could like this album. I just don't (and can't), no matter how hard I try.

As I said before, everyone in Genesis is a master at their instrument, and Peter Gabriel has a bearable (though I would never call it 'good') voice. But they are terribly self-indulgent and simply aren't good songwriters. They don't know how to really craft a song: they just seem to come up with a theme or chord progression and go with it, depending only on their instrumental virtuosity and not much else. The album is only about 51 minutes long, yet seems to go on forever and ever, even after listening multiple times. Peter Gabriel is always shouting some mystical non-sense as the rest of the band are giving it their all in the background, and I found that (unlike my experiences with the other 'progressive' bands of the period) I preferred the parts when he would shut the fuck up. Also, a lot of the 'effects' that Genesis use on this album were over-used and got to be quite annoying (especially the buzzing sound on the left channel during "Watcher of the Skies").

The best I can really say about this album is that there are many nice musical ideas (vocal melodies, guitar riffs, bass and keyboard lines, drum beats and fills etc) and that "Horizons" is absolutely beautiful. Basically the album is nearly an hour of music, of which I only thouroughly enjoyed maybe ten minutes total. This is a sum of its parts album so I won't talk about what I thought of the individual tracks (except for my aforementioned admiration of "Horizons"). I'll just break it down to the pros and cons of the album:

Pros:
- Very good instrumentation from every single member of the band
- Some good musical ideas and themes
- Good production

Cons:
- A lot of the aforementioned ideas and themes are dropped before they have a chance to develop
- Practically any moment someone is singing is horrid
- Overly self-indulgent
- The synth effects & such that were used a lot by progressive rock bands of the era are criminally over-used by Genesis here and get to be quite annoying

In short, this is an album I didn't really enjoy because the cons greatly outweigh the pros but I will keep it and give it a listen every once in a while as there were some nice bits to it.

I give Genesis' Foxtrot a 4/10.

Nice review, that's pretty much exactly how I felt. I think my favorite was Get 'Em Out By Friday. The vocals kind of reminded me of The Trial (from The Wall), and something about the rest of it was kind of cool. There were times when I was listening to this album that I thought "This is pretty cool, I like it," but others time I just felt that it was dragging on too much. It was the first time I'd listened to Genesis, so I don't really know if I'd like their other stuff. And sorry, there's no way Supper's Ready was anywhere near better than Echoes (in MY opinion), it just seemed too jumbled. It wasn't terrible by any means, but the reason I like Echoes so much is how the different parts connect to each other, the nice verses, and especially the build up to the end.
I give this 5.5/10
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TheSmashedGuitar
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Love Will Tear Us Apart, Again
My Review:

I've listened to this album three times already, and I must say it's quite good. It's epic and complex without being too over-pretentious, which happens quite often in prog rock. The group has a real focus on melody on this album, and I just love the overall lyrical theme of authority making mistakes on purpose or by accident. I dunno what I would rate the album on a 1-10 scale yet, maybe an 8-9/10.

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Carpenter
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Anyone else?
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Conducting Sexual Congress
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Fuck the poeleece!
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.
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Carpenter
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Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:29 PM
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.

I half wanted to write a bitter one or two sentence review like that one, but I didn't want to deal with all the rebuttles that would lead me to proving my point, so I wrote a fucking essay instead.
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Conducting Sexual Congress
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Fuck the poeleece!
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:34 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:29 PM
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.

I half wanted to write a bitter one or two sentence review like that one, but I didn't want to deal with all the rebuttles that would lead me to proving my point, so I wrote a fucking essay instead.

I was actually thinking of writing a full fledged review, but that album is neither good or bad enough to warrant the time to write an essay about.
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Carpenter
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Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:37 PM
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:34 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:29 PM
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.

I half wanted to write a bitter one or two sentence review like that one, but I didn't want to deal with all the rebuttles that would lead me to proving my point, so I wrote a fucking essay instead.

I was actually thinking of writing a full fledged review, but that album is neither good or bad enough to warrant the time to write an essay about.

I totally agree with you, but I knew that people would've been on my case had I just said 'This album was incredibly boring and I'm an idiot for thinking this would be better than all the other shit I've heard from Genesis', so I decided to lay down most of my argument for why I hate it in that one post. I was just admiring the fact that you don't give a fuck :lol:.
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Conducting Sexual Congress
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Fuck the poeleece!
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:39 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:37 PM
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:34 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:29 PM
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.

I half wanted to write a bitter one or two sentence review like that one, but I didn't want to deal with all the rebuttles that would lead me to proving my point, so I wrote a fucking essay instead.

I was actually thinking of writing a full fledged review, but that album is neither good or bad enough to warrant the time to write an essay about.

I totally agree with you, but I knew that people would've been on my case had I just said 'This album was incredibly boring and I'm an idiot for thinking this would be better than all the other shit I've heard from Genesis', so I decided to lay down most of my argument for why I hate it in that one post. I was just admiring the fact that you don't give a fuck :lol:.

Oh. Ha, sorry, I'm not thinking today.

But you did it the intelligent way.
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LedZeppelin222
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I'm the taxmaaaaaan
lets get some more reviews!!!!
anyone for tennis?
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PinkerThanFloyd
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hey
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 01:40 PM
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:39 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:37 PM
Carpenter
Apr 9 2007, 01:34 PM
Conducting Sexual Congress
Apr 9 2007, 05:29 PM
These songs went absolutely nowhere. I nearly fell asleep listening to this.

I half wanted to write a bitter one or two sentence review like that one, but I didn't want to deal with all the rebuttles that would lead me to proving my point, so I wrote a fucking essay instead.

I was actually thinking of writing a full fledged review, but that album is neither good or bad enough to warrant the time to write an essay about.

I totally agree with you, but I knew that people would've been on my case had I just said 'This album was incredibly boring and I'm an idiot for thinking this would be better than all the other shit I've heard from Genesis', so I decided to lay down most of my argument for why I hate it in that one post. I was just admiring the fact that you don't give a fuck :lol:.

Oh. Ha, sorry, I'm not thinking today.

But you did it the intelligent way.

I had a hard time thinking of how to write a review to this too, so I waited for someone else who had similar opinions to me. Something about this album makes me think I won't listen to it again, even though I didn't really hate it...
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JeorgeMcStarkey
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I can't remember any melodies from the album except for the beginning to "Supper's Ready". I may need another listen or two.


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Kira
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Hate me, do it and do it again.
I've listened to this album a few times already, since I have it on CD, but I think it's not one of their strong progressive-era albums. I suppose the reason you didn't post The Lamb was because it's a double album and people wouldn't take the time, but that's a much more strong and interesting album than Foxtrot. It has it's moment, "Supper's Ready" remains one of the new epics I can sit through each time I hear it. I suppose if we're going by this rating scale, I'd give the album a 6.5/10, it's not one of Genesis' stronger points.
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Conducting Sexual Congress
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Fuck the poeleece!
Oh yeah, forgot a score. 3/10.
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