page_title: Duke (album)
section_title: Writing and recording
hierarchical_section_title: Duke (album) / Writing and recording
caption_attribution_description: English: David Hentschel producer 2012
context_page_description: Duke is the tenth studio album by English rock band Genesis, released in March 1980 on Charisma Records. The album followed a period of inactivity for the band in early 1979. Phil Collins moved to Vancouver, Canada, in an effort to salvage his failing first marriage, while Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford recorded solo albums. Collins returned to the UK after his marriage ended and wrote a significant amount of material, some of which was used for Duke and some was later reworked for his first solo album, Face Value. Duke contained a mix of individually-written songs and tracks that evolved from jam sessions in mid-1979, while recording took place at the end of the year. The break in activity rejuvenated the band, and they found the album an easy one to work on.
  Duke was positively received by music critics, who praised the album for bridging the band's progressive rock-oriented past, via experimental pieces such as the closing ten-minute "Duke's Travels"/"Duke's End" suite, with their more pop rock-oriented, commercially accessible direction, as displayed on the hit singles "Turn It On Again", "Duchess", and "Misunderstanding".
context_section_description: In autumn 1979, Banks and Rutherford moved in with Collins in Shalford to start rehearsals on Duke. Collins had written a large number of songs, but he felt many of them would not suit Genesis, while Banks and Rutherford were short of material having just recorded their solo albums. The three decided each member should contribute two of their own songs for the band to work on. Banks put forward "Heathaze" and "Cul-de-Sac", Rutherford used "Man of Our Times" and "Alone Tonight", and Collins had "Misunderstanding" and "Please Don't Ask". The remainder of the songs were written together in rehearsals. Banks later regretted not choosing Collins' "In the Air Tonight" for the album. His track "Cul-de-Sac" became a problem for Collins to get into as its overall style and lyrical content no longer interested him, and realised that he should have kept the song for his solo output.
  The group found the writing process easier and more enjoyable than ...And Then There Were Three..., which was primarily songs written in advance individually by the members. Rutherford summarised his time writing songs for Duke as "getting back to the basic stage of ideas being worked on jointly". Banks reasoned much of the band's refreshed attitude was "down to not having worked together in a while", which resulted in "good ideas" being put forward, something that he said had not "happened for some time". Collins felt the band interacted "as a group much better ... there's definitely a side to us coming out which wasn't on the last album; the playing side". Rutherford would later describe the writing process for the album, alongside the one for Abacab, as a "rethink" of Genesis' approach, refocusing their output to group writing and improvisation. In contrast to earlier Genesis albums, most tracks were short with the exception of the ten-minute "Duke's Travels"/"Duke's End" suite that closed the album.
  "Behind the Lines" was the first song arranged for the album and "Duchess" came about from rhythms that Collins had played on his set of drum pads. In its original form, "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn It On Again", "Duke's Travels", and "Duke's End" were one 30-minute track that told a story of a fictional character named Albert which had a working title of "Duke". The group chose this name because the fanfare melodies on "Behind the Lines" and "Duke's End" conjured an image of royalty. The band decided against sequencing the tracks this way on the album, partly to avoid comparisons to their 23-minute track "Supper's Ready" from Foxtrot, but also to have certain segments of the suite, such as "Duchess" and "Turn It On Again", released as singles. The six tracks were performed live on the album's supporting tour with Collins introducing it as "The Story of Albert". "Turn It On Again" was originally a short connecting piece in the middle of this medley, but the band enjoyed playing it so much, they decided to double its length and make it more of a standout track. It came from a piece that Rutherford discarded from Smallcreep's Day and a separate piece from Banks that they joined together. The group considered placing the band-written songs on side one and the individually written tracks on the other, but this was rejected. Rutherford described the final running order as "a very balanced album".
  The group went to Polar Studios to record the album, starting on 12 November 1979, and recording up to the end of the year. As with several earlier albums, production duties were shared by the band and regular co-producer David Hentschel. Collins used the Roland CR-78 drum machine for "Duchess"; the first time he used one on a Genesis song.
  The cover art was drawn by French illustrator Lionel Koechlin and taken from his book L'Alphabet d'Albert, published in 1979. The band liked his work and decided to use it as the cover, but Collins maintained the character depicted is neither the album's titular character nor related to any song on it.
caption: Duke was the last Genesis album to be co-produced by David Hentschel.
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