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keith a wrote: I'm sure he's probably a nice guy and sure he's a talented drummer who's played on some interesting records. I even liked some of the early post-Gabriel material like the Spot The Pigeon ep at the time. And - confession time! - I even bought the In The Tonight single at a time when I was more into the long mac brigade acts. And yes, he came across pretty well in that recent article.
BUT...
That doesn't alter the fact that he's made some of the most dreadful music of the past 30 years or excuse his dancing with Philip Bailey or mean that he hasn't given off a whiff of unbearable naffness for way too long.
If he'd stuck at what he's best at - hitting some large tubs - then a lot of us would think better of him. On the other hand, he wouldn't have quite so many millions. You can't have it all ways!
You're not wrong. No one can have it both ways.
I was a huge Genesis fan in my early teens (right up there in the Art Rock stakes with Bowie and Roxy and Yes) but the records of theirs I play the most are the three studio albums and the live record from when PC first took over as front man. It's just unassailably great melodic Prog without too much of the clever-clever ELP type stuff. There is nothing at all look-at-me about it. For me in that period they fulfilled what the likes of Caravan and Camel and the Moody Blues and Rod Argent and the Fairports had started in terms of producing a distinctively English song-oriented ensemble rock music that was detatched from Blues Rock and R&B.
Ditto the first three Brand X albums. They are incredibly focused records. Unlike most Jazz Rock. And yes they also sound strangely un-American. It all stems from the drum stool I think. And the absence of much that sounds like it comes from the Blues. They shoulda been on ECM really.
And his first solo album has an awful lot going for it.
So even if we want credit Gabriel and Hackett with all the good early Genesis records, PC was directly responsible (and de facto leader) on six really good / borderline great albums from a time when making traditional rock music of any worth was no easy thing.
Yes he has made a lot of terrible records but there were a lot of artists who made their name pre Punk who cashed in their chips in an undignified fashion in the 80s pandering to MTV in the worst way - Winwood, Palmer, Clapton for three. I would put Bowie in that category too. And Rod.
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