From Genesis To Revelation
by Genesis

Genesis' debut album will sound familiar to anyone listening to pop music in and around 1969. I'm sure my father had it - certainly I listened to it a few times around the turn of the decade and found it acceptable, and one track, "In The Beginning" - was on the sampler album Wowie Zowie! World of Progessive Music, which either I had or my dad did. From Genesis... is pop music of a style sometimes referred to as baroque or psychedelic. Albums from a range of artists in a similar style include Forever Changes (1967), Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (1968), Shine On Brightly (1968), The Book of Taliesyn (1968), The Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968), Nazz (1968), Head (1968), The Soft Machine (1968), Odessey and Oracle (1968), and Wee Tam and the Big Huge (1968). A particular influence on the album, through the insistence of the band's manager and producer, Jonathan King, was the Bee Gees, whose Ideas album came out in 1968, and Odessa album in March 1969, the same month as From Genesis.... Also a considered influence on the band was the Moody Blues whose In Search of the Lost Chord came out in July 1968.

Compared with some of those albums the Genesis debut may appear a little light and whimsical, though it has a naïve charm which carries it along and makes it listenable enough. It's not a great album, it's not an interesting album, and it doesn't sound like the debut of a group who would go on to become one of the world's most popular, but I quite like it. Most other commentators are fairly dismissive.

The Great Debut for Genesis a mix of Beat and Prog.

A weird and whimsical record, with little resemblance to the band who strode Colossus-like through the '70's. Personally I think it's really nice, has some earnest if hardly original songs, sounds like Christian Folk Rock music! However "Am I Very Wrong?" is a little gem of a song, unloved and crushed by the huge weight of negative opinion this album has received over the years. Worth hearing if you can keep your mind open and expectations low.

From paladisiac TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/15/2011 23:13 | #33060 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

They start out sounding way too much like contemporaries of the late 60s time period, a bit of a beatles knock-off, nothing distinctive about the genesis themselves that they'd later become.

Genesis's first album, and it is very rough, sounding almost nothing like the prog monster that came a year later. Fortunately they got much better! (Edited)