Ricmci, you have taste : ) Indeed very young Gabriel had fantastic voice perfectly fitted the music, and he soon would emerge as the perfect interpreter for symphonic progressive rock. Excellent songs, near all perfect pop tunes, and not a single dull moment really. Wonderful mix of pop and psych with a progressive touch, all the GENESIS musical aspects and character are already there, those soon would lead to the one of the very finest symphonic rock acts/prog bands performing on the planet.
Well, in fact, the lads were not excited about Jonathan King´s quite naive lush orchestral sound production. That first album is just his fantasy, not what the kids really wanted to sound. They were under 20, they wanted to play rock music for goodness sake !
The best thing is they did not copy anyone but already had the sound and the musical style of their very own, they were about to create something extraordinary.
And they did, FGtR is a fine pop album from the fantastic late 60´s.
The very first editions are too pricey for me, what later edition(s) would you recommend ?
And what exactly is their true first album for me, the wonderful Trespass. Now the sound is mature and dense, melancholic mostly but nothing light anymore, very fine in a pastoral way, yet very dynamic (proper stereo system required of course). Absolutely fantastic. And as unique as King Crimson´s sound on their incredible debut album just a year earlier. These bands created totally different rock music, nothing related to blues but rather in European classical music tradition.
GENESIS were young geniuses, but sadly Trespass is (prog) rock´s most underrated album.
