Guilty Pleasures Revised: Genesis Edition

Updated the Guilty Pleasures page of the Pop Kulcher website. This time around I've added Genesis' 1980 mainstream-breakthrough Duke, my favorite album of the post-Gabriel era. (I suppose I like 1976's Trick of the Tail nearly as much, but that was a far less dramatic break from the early prog sound than the polished, radio-friendly Duke.)

It's always hard to say exactly what constitutes a guilty pleasure. I mean, we're not talking the Archies (or even Abba) here. Duke sold a veritable shitload of copies, and by any measure it's a pretty decent album (if one overlooks some of those ballads, at least). Still, for those of us who thrive on the artsy prog of the Gabriel years -- and I'm a diehard fan of those albums (particularly 1973's Selling England By The Pound, but the others as well, even the underrated Trespass) -- confessing to an appreciation of the Collins era (particularly after the first 2-3 albums) is a bit anathema. Hell, I even like the still-poppier follow-up Abacab, though after that I called it a day.

Of course, I remain loyal to the Gabriel era, and I'm counting the days 'til my pre-ordered copy of the 1970-1975 box set arrives in the mail. Probably the third or fourth time I've bought some of these, but (despite some highly negative reviews of the remastering job done on the Collins-era reissues) I'm hopeful for some sonic improvement (particularly on Trespass, my copy of which sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel) and excited about some of the bonus tracks and video extras.

If you've got the time, here's some live Duke:


And here's the real stuff ("Nursery Cryme"):