Oh, but time's a healer and heaven knows I've been strong
Duke is the tenth studio album recorded by English Progressive Rock band Genesis. It was released through Atlantic Records on 24 March 1980 in the United States, and through Charisma Records on 28 March 1980 in the United Kingdom.
The newly-refreshed trio of Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford felt they were on the verge of a breakthrough with ...And Then There Were Three.... But not all was paradise. The new release put fresh pressure on Collins' marriage. His wife gave him a choice between their marriage and going on tour to promote the album.
He chose the album. She moved home to Vancouver, British Columbia, and filed for divorce. The band went on hiatus, with Collins following his wife to Canada to try to save their marriage, and Banks and Rutherford beginning work on solo albums.
When his efforts failed, Collins returned to the United Kingdom in the Spring of 1979, embittered by the experience. Collins then went to Sweden, joining Banks and Rutherford at Polar Studios in Stockholm, where both had recorded their solo albums. Back together, they got to work on the next Genesis album.
Six of its songs—"Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End"—began as a 30-minute mini-Concept Album titled "Duke". That title eventually became the title for the whole album, while the story of the six combined songs became known as "The Story of Albert".
The second movement of the Story, "Duchess", marked the first time Phil used a drum machine.
The album was their first to hit No. 1 on the U.K. Albums chart, starting a trend that would remain unbroken until ...Calling All Stations... 17 years later (and even then, that reached No. 2), and peaked at a band high of No. 11 on the Billboard 200 album chart; it went Platinum for the first time in the U.K., and also went Platinum in the U.S.
The album produced three singles: "Turn It On Again", "Duchess", and "Misunderstanding". While "Turn It On Again" hit #8 in the UK, "Misunderstanding" hit #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, reflecting the differing tastes on each side of the Atlantic for their sound.
The band would begin to dip their toes in the burgeoning world of music videos, with narrative videos for both "Duchess" and "Misunderstanding".
As for Collins and his divorce, Duke would not be the end of the story for him. He would continue to tell that when he returned to the studio to record his first solo album.
Tracklist
Side One- "Behind the Lines" (5:31)
- "Duchess" (6:40)
- "Guide Vocal" (1:18)
- "Man of Our Times" (5:35)
- "Misunderstanding" (3:11)
- "Heathaze" (5:00)
Side Two
- "Turn It On Again" (3:50)
- "Alone Tonight" (3:54)
- "Cul-de-sac" (5:02)
- "Please Don't Ask" (4:00)
- "Duke's Travels" (8:41)
- "Duke's End" (2:04)
Principal Members:
- Tony Banks – keyboards, 12-string guitar, backing vocals, "duck"
- Phil Collins – drums, lead vocals, percussion, drum machine, "duck"
- Mike Rutherford – guitars, bass guitars, bass pedals, backing vocals
I waited in the tropes for hours:
- Bizarre Instrument: Banks and Collins are listed with a "duck" among their instruments. This refers to a duck call used to automatically trigger certain sounds on their synthesizer.
- Book Ends: The album begins and ends in the same synthesizer lines.
- Concept Album: The album started with a mini-story, "The Story of Albert", that spanned six songs ("Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End") and 30 minutes. Other songs were inserted for the final album. Mike Rutherford for one felt the final run order was "very balanced".
- Concept Video: The music video for "Duchess" loosely adapts the portion of "The Story of Albert" that the song corresponds to (i.e. the Duchess' rise and fall as a famous performer), depicting it as a flashback by the reminiscing members of Genesis.
- Digital Destruction: Due to a mastering error, the original North American CD release swaps the stereo channels around. Additionally, streaming releases of the original mix disrupt the segue from "Behind the Lines" to "Duchess" by having the latter song start at a point in the transition considerably before where the former song ends.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: Something like the first seven minutes of "Duke's Travels" are instrumental.
- Epic Rocking: "Duke's Travels" approaches nine minutes, and "Duchess" approaches seven minutes. The album's first three songs, "Turn It On Again", and its final two songs were originally written as a continuous twenty-eight-minute suite of music and were still performed live in that configuration. The length of the songs also led to an unusually long running time on vinyl at 53 minutes, while most LPs top out at around 45 minutes.
- Fading into the Next Song: "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", and "Guide Vocal" all flow smoothly into one another, making for a thirteen-and-a-half-minute suite of music. Likewise "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End", which run for nearly eleven.
- Franchise Codifier: While ...And Then There Were Three... planted the seeds for Genesis' new pop direction, it was Duke that (sort of) solidified it, introducing a more Arena Rock-oriented sound that Genesis would further build upon for the rest of Phil Collins' time in the band. However, the album is also built around a twenty-eight-minute suite — they cut it into segments for the album, but they still performed it live, and the album's final two tracks in particular are still unapologetically Progressive Rock.
- Instrumental: "Duke's End".
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The narrator of "Please Don't Ask" still loves his partner but ultimately accepts that she has moved on.
- Limited Lyrics Song: "Duke's Travels" only has two verses, despite being nearly nine minutes long.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Either played straight or subverted: taken together, "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End" make up the final track of the album. Then again, "Behind the Lines"/"Duchess"/"Guide Vocal" is longer.
- Loony Fan: "Turn It On Again" depicts Albert, the protagonist of the album's mini story, glued to his television, obsessively watching it on a daily basis and growing unhealthily attached to the Duchess's programs thanks to his grief from their failed relationship.
- Miniscule Rocking: "Guide Vocal" isn't even eighty seconds long.
- New Sound Album: Genesis was already heading to a more radio-friendly direction with ...And Then There Were Three..., but by this point the Mellotron has given way to '80s synthesizers. They still maintained elements of their Progressive Rock roots but the pop-oriented direction had been established.
- Obsession Song: "Misunderstanding" is arguably about a Stalker with a Crush. It's also an attempt by Collins to make a The Beach Boys-type song.
- Performance Video: The video for "Turn It On Again" depicts the band playing the song on a foggy stage, featuring combined footage of Phil Collins at the mic and drum kit.
- Recurring Riff: "Duke's Travels" reprises "Guide Vocal" at the end, and "Duke's End" does the same for the opening riff of "Behind the Lines" and a riff from "Turn It On Again".
- Shout-Out: The artwork is similar to the illustrations in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The mini-story is also loosely inspired by the book.
- Siamese Twin Songs: "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End", both as a holdover of an original plan for a "Supper's Ready"-esque suite. Live, the whole suite was still performed in its original configuration throughout the entire tour.
- Stalker with a Crush: One possible interpretation of "Misunderstanding".
- Triumphant Reprise: "Guide Vocal" gets a much more intense reprise near the end of "Duke's Travels". It also contains an extra line that provides heretofore missing context: "You kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand."
- Uncommon Time: As one further demonstration that Genesis hasn't strayed from its progressive rock roots, "Turn It On Again" is composed in 13/8 time. When Genesis performed the song with Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett for the 1982 reunion concert "Six of the Best", Gabriel performed the drums in Phil Collins' stead, and when he learned what time signature the song was in, he bemusedly told Mike Rutherford that "this has more layers than I thought."
