People have been clamoring for a reunion of the \u201cclassic\u201d lineup of Genesis\u2014Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins\u2014for almost as long as I\u2019ve been aware of the band\u2019s existence, having come of age musically during the group\u2019s 1976-79 post-Gabriel transitional period.<\/p>\n
And now they have it\u2014sort of. Because in truth, as a Genesis reunion vehicle, the recent BBC documentary Sum Of The Parts<\/i> is about as satisfying as spending half a concert in the bathroom with a sick friend.<\/p>\n
Genesis is a band I\u2019ve gone around and around about, inasmuch as I grew up with the Phil Collins-fronted editions of band and have only experienced the Gabriel era retrospectively. Several friends whose musical tastes I respect swear by the Gabriel-voiced band\u2019s achievements, the long, winding, distinctly British tunes veering wildly between the pastoral and the absurd, full of artsy oddness and artful melodicism. Between that and the fondness of one of my favorite modern prog bands for early Genesis (the magnificent Big Big Train<\/a>), I\u2019ve made repeated efforts to come to grips with the full range of the group\u2019s astonishingly varied output.<\/p>\n One might expect that this documentary\u2014intended as a career-spanning retrospective highlighted by an in-studio group interview with the classic lineup\u2014would assist in that process. On that count, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the documentary offers the most comprehensive overview of Genesis as a live band that I\u2019m aware of, featuring rare concert footage from early days all the way up through the Banks-Rutherford-Collins trio\u2019s 2007 reunion tour.<\/p>\n The bad news is, in terms of insight into the band\u2019s creative process and the tremendous evolution of their sound, from their sometimes inscrutably progressive early work to their often blatantly poppy latter-day output, this film is basically a washout. It\u2019s pure flash and spectacle, with precious little in the way of actual investigation of what made the band tick artistically and how and why their multiple musical evolutions took place. It\u2019s pretty much the opposite of the approach that an interviewer like Anil Prasad<\/a> would take.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most insightful comment in the film comes late in the game from someone outside the band, British comedian Al Murray: \u201cI think the secret to Genesis\u2019 longevity is that they are the progressive rock band who progressed. Progressive rock bands, according to their fans, are supposed to stop, about two albums into progressing, and progress no more. And that\u2019s why they\u2019ve survived.\u201d<\/p>\n For this viewer\u2019s tastes, being much more familiar with the group\u2019s later output, the early part of the film is the most interesting. It\u2019s fascinating hearing the one real point of consensus among Gabriel, Banks and Rutherford\u2014that fellow founding member and original guitarist Anthony (Ant) Phillips was the most musically talented of the original lineup, the \u201cdriving force\u201d of the early band, and that the band could easily have fallen apart when he left.<\/p>\n Interestingly, the film cuts from talk of Phillips\u2019 1970 departure directly to Banks et al raining well-deserved praises down on Phil Collins for the way his entrance strengthened the band musically, given his prodigious talents behind the drum kit and superb voice. Except that, Collins didn\u2019t replace Phillips; he replaced previous drummer John Mayhew, already the band\u2019s third in its brief existence, none of whom are mentioned by name in the film. (Short-lived latter-day frontman Ray Wilson is similarly ignored.) Hackett joined soon afterwards, assuming the lead guitar slot, and the classic lineup was complete.<\/p>\n The tensions within the band are well and frankly documented. Hackett characterizes them as \u201ca very competitive band\u2014very gifted, but with those gifts, there\u2019s a certain price.\u201d Collins describes \u201calways beating each other into submission\u2014but it was fun, I was in a thinking band.\u201d And then, there\u2019s old frenemies Gabriel and Banks: \u201cPeter and I used to fight a lot,\u201d says Banks. \u201cVery close friends, but we used to argue about silly little things.\u201d Counters Gabriel, laughing: \u201cHe was an awful bastard, but we loved each other, too. It was a real bond.\u201d<\/p>\n From there the film digs\u2014a little bit, anyway\u2014into the origins of the band\u2019s famous theatricality, talking about Bowie\u2019s influence on their costuming, and Gabriel\u2019s self-imposed imperative to entertain. Much is made of the first time Gabriel indulged in his notorious shtick of singing with a mask on, donning a fox\u2019s head and his wife\u2019s dress mid-song during a concert in Dublin. Gabriel claims he just wanted to entertain the audience; the rest of the band are less sanguine about Gabriel\u2019s attention-grabbing shenanigans. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t particularly at ease with an audience until he became someone else,\u201d says Collins, ever the diplomat. \u201cHe hadn\u2019t told us about it,\u201d fumes Banks, still twitchy at the memory, \u201cwhich is just as well, because we would never have let him do it.\u201d<\/p>\n The film goes on from there to chronicle the departures of first Gabriel and then Hackett, and the band\u2019s explosion in popularity after the remaining trio turned toward more melodic, syncopated pop-rock, and Collins discovered his famously deep-throated \u201cgated\u201d drum sound, a foundation of the band\u2019s slicker 1980s oeuvre. Precious little is said about the origins of the evolution in the band\u2019s sound, other than the one time Banks\u2019 normal reserve slips and he admits \u201cI loved it. It\u2019s great to have hits.\u201d (Indeed, Asia<\/a> would agree.) The coverage of Gabriel, Collins, Banks and Rutherford\u2019s 1980s solo careers feels overly generous, but was probably necessary to the existence of this project.<\/p>\n Indeed, for all the surface chumminess of the quintet when initially assembled for their group interview, it\u2019s evident that the old tensions still exist, with the rivalry and frustration between Banks and Gabriel\u2014always the seeming crux of the 1975 split\u2014ever present, and Hackett\u2019s dissatisfaction with the others\u2019 treatment of him resurfacing in the media after these interviews were filmed. All of which helps to explain why the \u201cclassic\u201d lineup is willing to promote its brand by parading in front of the cameras, but loathe still to actually make music together.<\/p>\n In the end, flaws aside, Sum Of The Parts<\/i> did achieve the desired effect. Which is to say, after watching it, I immediately went out and re-bought several Genesis albums that I used to own. <\/p>\n Well played, gentlemen. Well played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5883],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-44011","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-genesis","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52028,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44011\/revisions\/52028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44011"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44011"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}