It is hard to believe due to the quality on display here, but Wendy & Bonnie were 17 and 13 respectively when they released this album. Gary McFarland, who was primarily known for arranging jazz, produced this entire album and enlisted various musicians from L.A. to help out. Genesis features invaluable contributions from Mike Lang and Mike Melvoin on the keyboards, Larry Carlton on guitar, Randy Cierly on bass and kalimba, and Jim Keltner on the drums. In short, it can be described as a psychedelic pop album with some slight influences from Brazilian music that was also being released at the time. One thing that stands out in the initial listens, besides the fact that the sisters' voices are drop-dead gorgeous, is definitely the guitar playing. Carlton and Bonnie really do a great job throughout the album - a great example of this being the second half of “You Keep Hanging Up on My Mind”. The guitar playing on this album, whether it is done by Carlton or Bonnie, is mostly very clean, with the occasional appearance of an electric solo.
People coming into this album expecting a 60s psychedelic-rock freak out are probably going to be very disappointed, but the guitar playing works perfectly with the content and the voices of the sisters here. Generally, the instrumentation of Genesis is fantastic. For example, the keyboards on “Let Yourself Go Another Time” and the catchy bass line on “I Realized You”. The drums admittedly have a more subdued part than the other instruments throughout most of the album and are often played very softly or kept low in the mix, but play big roles on songs like “It’s What’s Really Happening”. The effects used on some of the instruments, specifically the guitar and the keyboards, give the album a very psychedelic, 60s feel.
Wendy & Bonnie were sisters, so it is really no surprise how well their voices harmonize together. The lead vocals are mainly sung by Wendy, while Bonnie is mostly in support. The well-known sixties band The Mamas & The Papas works as a good reference point from the type of vocal style on display throughout Genisis. This is not to say that they are exactly like The Mamas & The Papas in terms of instrumentation here, in fact, their styles are quite different overall, but one could draw some vocal similarities between Wendy & Bonnie and Cass Elliot and Michelle Phillips. Wendy & Bonnie’s extremely young and soft voices really give this album an innocent feel, but at times the instrumentation can bring a relatively dark vibe to some of the tracks. A great example of this is “The Paisley Windowpane”, one of the duo's best songs.
In regards to lyrics, Wendy & Bonnie handled the bulk of the songwriting here. The lyrics, similarly to the way the voices work with the instrumentation of the tracks, seemingly deal with very innocent things, like love or loss. This innocence is often met with a tinge of melancholy, which can be heard in “By The Sea”. Whether it presents with slower, acoustic guitar-based songs like “Five O’Clock In The Morning” or faster, electric guitar solos like in the lyrically repetitive “The Winter Is Cold”, Genesis is very well done throughout. Unfortunately, this is Wendy & Bonnie's only record. Genesis is a somewhat forgotten LP that is a must for fans of pop music from the sixties.
