Genesis
Duke

If Battisti hadn't thought of it first, the ideal title for this album would have been "Io vorrei...non vorrei... ma se vuoi". In a certain sense, it's a masterpiece, yes, but of indecision, uncertainty, instability, an eccentric album like a March day, a continuous alternation of lights and shadows. But let's proceed according to the Battisti title.

IO VORREI... yes, I would still like to compose those beautiful suites like in the good old days, overflowing with melodic ideas up to the baroque, articulated and full of rhythm variations. I would like to, but I can no longer manage. I try with the symphonic start of "Behind The Lines", which promises such wonders and then gets bogged down on fairly flat motifs, I insist with "Duchess" but I have to surrender to the evidence of the misery of Phil Collins' "drum-machines", which, even together with Banks' rarefied keyboard touches in the introduction, suggest the idea of a mysterious and engaging atmosphere, but here too it all goes awry in the subsequent development. I try and try again, and in the end, I partly succeed: in the melancholic and finally inspired "Guide Vocal", which one wonders why it should fade out in just over a minute, and also in some parts of the final suite "Duke's Travels - Duke's End", which, as usual, makes a kind of summary of the most successful motifs of the album (and there are some), although it turns out to be a bit too long overall.

NON VORREI... I wouldn't want all these little songs to spontaneously be born, which, lively as flies in August, come to settle on the glorious Genesis label, to tease it and dirty it... And yet here too I have to surrender to the evidence: this is what comes out more easily, and the funny thing is that in some cases they are splendid, even if they are little songs. Phil Collins has taken the helm of the commercial turn, but it's Tony Banks, yes, Tony the shy, the complicated one, who in "Wind and Wuthering" was still capable of giving us 10-minute suites, who reveals himself as a master of pop songs, producing the beautiful and desperate "Heathaze", in addition to the already mentioned "Guide Vocal", while remaining at a more ordinary level in the convoluted and twisted "Cul-de-sac". Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford contribute to the pop song section with an excellent example each: Collins' sentimental "Please Don't Ask" and the romantic and poignant "Alone Tonight", probably the best Rutherford has given as a composer (but he has always given little or nothing). As a counterbalance, however, there is the insignificant "Misunderstanding" for the drummer, which also somewhat echoes "Hold The Line" by Toto, and the mechanical and boring "Man Of Our Times" for the guitarist. Again, lights and shadows.

MA SE VUOI... but if you want, dear Market, we Genesis are willing to take a tumble, a nice leap into the void, and offer you nothing less than "musica che batte". Here is a powerful rock-disco called "Turn It On Again", very simple, ideal for any easy-going DJ to play on the radio. After all, we've entered the '80s and we can't do otherwise... Indeed, the best is yet to come, and it will be called "Abacab".