Genesis- Duke 45th Anniversary- Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins
If you read album reviews of Duke by Genesis from March 1980, many respected music writers then right up to the present day still assume that because singing drummer Phil Collins’ solo career took off during the same period, and because any band’s singer automatically must be that band’s leader, that the other members of Genesis, guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks, unwittingly if not unwillingly followed Collins into the pop mainstream. Phil remains adamant that is not true.
“We never had a direction,” insists Phil Collins. “We wrote songs. Some of the songs were ten minutes, some were fifteen, some were twenty, some were three. And if they sounded better, if an idea sounded better in a three or four minute format, then we would leave it like that.”
Mike Rutherford reminded us of the best reason for not handcuffing Genesis into any self-imposed musical restrictions. “Singles get so much visibility with (radio) airplay, MTV videos, etc. that people end up thinking ‘That’s what it’s all about.’…’Pop songs’ is a term people use as an ugly term, yet The Beatles are my all-time favorites and wrote the most wonderful pop songs. I’ve tried to and it’s not easy. What we used to do is actually a wonderful cop out. You do these long songs by taking a short piece of music, maybe one or two minutes, and then segue into something else. You haven’t had to develop it into a song, which is actually much harder.”
The demarcation line of the second Genesis band era was clearly in focus with the March 1980 release of Duke, and then the subsequent Abacab eighteen months later. The veteran English band’s Duke studio album nevertheless was the first Genesis album to graze the American Top Ten album sales on Billboard, and surprisingly the first Genesis million seller. Yet after the exits of storied lead singer/performance artist Peter Gabriel and lead guitarist Steve Hackett, it is no minor miracle that my guests Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Tony Banks finally could make it to the Progressive Rock promised land. -Redbeard
