Disclaimer: Those looking for a brief description of the album will find what their looking for in the "Review Body" section. The section titled "Track Reviews" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review is not written in the point of view of a Genesis fan.)

Overall Score: 3.5/5
Best song: “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet”
Worst song: “The Conquerer” ... although that's hard to pick

Review Body:

Once upon a time, Phil Collins was not a member of Genesis. Historians don't know what he was up to in 1969—my guess he spent that year standing in front of great big mirror admiring his full head of hair while it lasted. Instead, the drummer that can be heard most predominately on here is John Silver (Chris Stewart was the original drummer, and he can be heard on “Silent Sun”). Also, there was no Steve Hackett; there was a guy named Anthony Phillips. You might know Anthony Phillips from his solo career that began in the late '70s. Or you might not, since he's not very well known. Rest assured, however, Peter Gabriel, Michael Rutherford, and Tony Banks are present. They were teenagers, and they were dorks.

The weirdest thing about From Genesis to Revelation is the type of music on it. It has not even a trace of progressive rock—this is a pop album chiefly inspired by The Bee Gees. (THE BEE GEES!!!!) These songs generally last around three to four minutes, they all have corny string arrangements, and Peter Gabriel sings with a lot of reverb! Yeah, so you can pretty immediately tell that Genesis wasn't doing anything revolutionary whatsoever for the late '60s. And these lyrics are some of the most ridiculously pretentious that I've ever come across. This is a concept album, of sorts, about the God creating the universe. That's an ambitious goal for a quintet of teenagers, but excuse me while I walk to the nearest corner and laugh my head off.

Even though I'd imagine even the most faithful Genesis fan would probably finds this album to be pretty hilarious and dismiss it, it's worthy of a second glance. There is a surprising amount of good stuff on here. The lyrics might be bizarre and pretentious, but as I was reading through them, I discovered that I liked them. I thought they were pretty well-written for the most part. Even better was the ultra-dramatic way this teenaged Peter Gabriel sings them.

Here are the opening two stanzas of “The Serpent,” which talks about the creation of the universe and man: (“Dark night, planets are set / Creator prepares for the dawn of man / You're waking up, the day of incarnation / Said you're waking up to life / Images he made to love / Images of gods in flesh / Man is wonderful, very wonderful / Look at him / Beware the future.”) I'm not much of a lyrics kinda guy, but call me crazy—these are kinda good. They're nothing too revolutionary, but they're thought provoking and don't resort to obvious cliches. Even if you don't agree with me, you should be able to at least concede that they're not nearly as embarrassing as they could have been.

Though, as I said, I'm not really a lyrics man, and I listened to From Genesis to Revelation paying mind to the instrumentation and melodies. Obviously, these guys had a long way to go before their instrumentation would be perfected; they don't come off as anything other than a bunch of teenagers who want to play some corny pop music. Phillips strums his acoustic guitar pretty much the same way in all these songs, and Tony Banks' piano solos mostly consist of boring patterns. But I'd say they did alright considering their imitations. The melodies, however, are surprisingly strong. For my money, “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet” is the best of them, starting out with a West Side Story-style jazz groove and then progressing to a rather warm pop song with a sweet melody. I also have to mention that these guys seem to know a thing or two about chord progressions. They're not only surprisingly very ably written, but sometimes fairly complicated. I guess it was no surprise that they would quickly turn into disciples of King Crimson, then!

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, a big reason these guys wrote a bunch of Bee Gees clones is that they wanted to please their original producer, Jonathan King. Unfortunately that producer wasn't too good, and these songs sound pretty dang atrocious as a result. The strings are oftentimes quite intrusive, the guitars don't sound crisp enough, and while the cheesy reverb on Gabriel's vocals are cute at first, it gets old pretty quickly. This album also gets pretty boring by the end. As I was scoring the track reviews, I got a little tired of how all these songs seemed to sound alike. Not even The Bee Gees had this much of a saminess problems. So, anyway, this would be the last album they would produce with King, and the last album they would release with the Decca label. Ah, Decca. If only they could have known what mega-stars these guys would become!

Track Reviews:

In the Beginning A
Hey, that weird industrial buzzy sound that opens this track reminds me of Genesis. But then a quick and strummy acoustic guitar starts to play, and some reverb-ridden Peter Gabriel comes in singing a dramatic although catchy melody. Even though these guys were youngins, it's amazing how much drama they were able to conjure in a pop song! This might not be Selling England By the Pound, but I start to know where that came from!

Fireside Song B+
Tony Banks opens this up with a brief piano solo. It's nice to sit through, and very dramatic, although a little bit dull. It only lasts 45 seconds, which is just about right. After that, the corniest string track in the world pipes up, and that strummy acoustic guitar comes back. This sounds more like The Bee Gees than even the previous track did, and I almost like it for that! (I listen to Odessa quite often! Although that album was far more mature than this Genesis creation.) What's getting me here are the nice melodies, although this one isn't quite as striking as the previous track. So, this is a bit boring to me.

The Serpent B
I like how they come up with weird introductions to these songs that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song. “Fireside Song” had the piano solo, and this one has a really weird and disjointed rhythm and some rambly guitars. I think they were trying to create a creepy atmosphere, but it just comes off as weird. ...Anyway, that quickly fades out and the main song pops up with a nice and confident rhythm guitar part. This is a terribly dramatic song, and Peter Gabriel goes off on some dramatic words about creation of man! I like listening to this, but this seems to go on for a bit too long, and the melody isn't so great.

Am I Very Wrong A
Wow! Well, this would have been a great song for The Bee Gees, which I guess means that Genesis had some real talent, after all! (Of course we all knew this already in hindsight, but here is the earliest proof!) Get a load of this sweet melody, and Peter Gabriel's longing delivery. As with everything here, this is ultra-serious and dramatic, but it's somehow able to draw me into it and I want to take it pretty seriously, too. The chord progression sounds very classy!

In the Wilderness B+
Ha, the beginning of this sounds like “Pachelbel's Cannon” to me! Hey, I think it's probably a requirement of any budding art-rock band to rip off good old Pachelbel at least once! This turns into what can be described as a “Hey Jude” like power chorus that gets repeated over and over. I know, ambitious intentions, right? But wha? It almost works! Oh, the repetitiveness of it gets on my nerves by the end, and I really don't care for Tony Banks' plain piano just playing the piano chorus some more. But this chorus is pretty catchy and gets caught in my head. The dramatics of it works for the most part. Maybe that slowly climbing string track could have been axed. But whatever. I'm nitpicking.

The Conqueror B-
At this point, I start to feel like too many of these songs are the same. The instrumentation, again, consists of a quickly strummed guitar and those Bee-Gees-like back-up vocals, and the overall mood of the song is very serious and dramatic. The melody isn't particularly great enough to save the overall experience from being dull, more or less. I still find it charming, though.

In Hiding B
This is a little more pleasant than the other songs, and Gabriel sounds awfully sweet singing it! (Isn't it nice hearing the guy sounding sweet for a change? Don't get used to it!) The melody is pretty nice, although not great. I wish they wouldn't put the same string track to all these songs. It just gets a bit annoying after awhile.

One Day A-
Guess what? This is a song with strummy guitar, string arrangements, and reverb ridden lead vocals from Peter Gabriel. I'm getting really tired of hearing the same thing all the time. But the reason this one gets an A- is because the melody is pretty nice. Again, I'm able to get caught up in its dramatics, and that sort of surprises me.

Window B-
I think I know why some people didn't like Tony Banks very much. (Oh, I'm sure I'll talk more about that topic in upcoming reviews!) That piano introduction is just so plain and boring. He should have taken the opportunity to play a neat texture, but I'm guessing he didn't have the ability to do that. ...Ah well! The actual song pops up after that, of course, and it's very pleasant but fairly dull. Gabriel's vocals are sweet, and his uber-pretentious lyrics are surprisingly charming. I like that french horn!

In Limbo B
Have I mentioned that I'm getting a tad bored with this album? This is a nice little song with a solid melody, and with a terribly well-done dramatic performance from Gabriel. There's a bit of a gospel flavor to this that I like, and helps make this one slightly more uplifting than the others. This is actually the end of the regular album; the rest are bonus tracks. This is a pretty appropriate concluding song.

Silent Sun B
Not the most explosive song, but it's alright. It's not distinctive at all from other things that bands were producing years earlier than this, and I suppose that its primary downfall. Although, I can get caught up in cheesy pop music as good as anyone, and this comes off as a bit melodically weak. It's a nice little song, but it's nothing I particularly care to listen to twice! ...Even though I have! (You can hear Genesis' first drummer, Chris Stewart, here!! ...If that sort of thing would turn you on.)

That's Me B
What is this, rock 'n' roll? Genesis! ...Weird. Somebody comes in with a rip-roaring electric guitar solo in the middle of this! ...OK, maybe “rip-roaring” isn't the right word for it. Maybe it's more “screwed-up.” But hey, screwed-up electric guitar solos are better than boring ones! Peter Gabriel tries to turn in a passionate rock 'n' roll performance, but his voice is way too pretty for this stuff. Yeah. Stick to the pop music, boys. Or don't.

Where the Sour Turns to Sweet A
What a pretty song! I know this is 100 percent removed from what Genesis would be known for later on, but I really enjoy this, anyway. It starts out with a bluesy piano and some snapping as though they were doing a production of West Side Story. Then, the piano starts to play a little more theatrically, and little boy Peter Gabriel comes in and sings a tuneful melody! The full strings accompany it as well as some cheesy string and horn instrumentation. ...It's really weird hearing Genesis do a song like this, but it's also kinda awesome. I love cheesy '60s pop music!

A Winter's Tale A-
Another deathly charming song. Technically a bonus track, so I guess it shouldn't have any say in what I give the album's main score! The chorus is pretty awesome, again, and it manages to pick up a little bit of steam even though the instrumentation seems a bit too muted at times in order for it to be the most effective. But they still do a pretty good job with what they had!

One Eyed Hound A-
Hey, this one's pretty good! It's a little bit folky, and it has a pretty cool melody! Once again, Gabriel's lyrics are quite good, and the way he sings them makes them seem very important. How does he always seem to be able to do this? There isn't anything particularly special about the arrangements. Just a strummy guitar, ya know.

Concluding Remarks:

Hey, everyone's got to start somewhere! Though this is a bit of a surprise; I don't think anybody would have expected Genesis to be Bee Gees wannabes!

Read More Genesis Reviews by Starcollector!

From Genesis to Revelation (1969) | Trespass (1970) | Nursery Cryme (1971) | Foxtrot (1972) | Genesis Live (1973) | Selling England By the Pound (1973) | The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) | A Trick of the Tail (1976) | Wind & Wuthering (1977) | Seconds Out (1977) | And Then There Were Three (1978) | Duke (1980) | Abacab (1981) | Three Sides Live (1982) | Genesis (1983) | Invisible Touch (1986) | We Can't Dance (1991) | The Way We Walk, Volume 1: The Shorts (1992) | The Way We Walk, Volume 2: The Longs (1993) | Calling All Stations (1997) | Genesis Archive 1967-75 (1998) | Genesis Archive 2: 1976-92 (2000)

Recommended: Yes