LAND OF CONFUSION

Hat-trick

The third UK single from the "Invisible touch" album was a pretty decent song. Having infiltrated the top 20 with both the previous tracks, they achieved their first hat-trick from the same album with this release. "Land of confusion" did at least have some character to it, with a melodic chorus and a punchy rhythm. It managed to avoid most of the soul and funk influences which plagued the band around this time too, with only some unnecessary "woah-ohs" to remind you that this was written with chart success in mind.

The B side was another non-album track called "Feeding the fire". This song has (in relative terms for this era of Genesis) something of a structure to it, with a passing resemblance to tracks like "Driving the last spike" from "We can't dance". Collins actually gives a creditable vocal performance here, the track having an underlying power sadly lacking from their work around this time. Tony Banks even manages to slip in a decent if brief instrumental passage.

The 12" single release included an extended version of the title track.

I brought this single when it came out, at that time i was a big Genesis fan so i was buying everything from the band. Now at 33 years old, the music presented here has no meaning to me anymore, my taste in music as really evolved since then ;)

For me, Genesis is Trespass to Duke, after that, the only songs i like is "Abacab", the two parts "Home by the Sea" and "Domino" all live, not the studio version, in the good, but not perfect, "Live at Wembley" DVD.

So, if your big fan of Genesis, your taste in music is very, very wide and you don't have any problem with the album "Invisible Touch", you might like the extra track but IMO this single is poor, only for completionists.

"Land of Confusion" is a good Rock Pop song with good lyrics which criticize Politicians. It also has again some good keyboard sounds played by Tony Banks, an interesting bass guitar and synth bass arrangement, and good electronic drums by Phil Collins. It was maybe a better choice than "In Too Deep" as a good song for a single. The promotional video for this song is very good, one of the best they did, with "guest appearances" of Ronald Reagan and wife in the main roles as puppets. "Land of Confusion" is also one of the best songs from the "Invisible Touch" album.

A pretty decent Post Gabriel single, but like most Collins era Genesis its a disappointment to me. the B-side is throw away. Not to my taste really the promo video was pretty good but like this song sounds really dated now. Has Phil and the rest of our generation put things right ? No we are to busy being rich. Millionaires doing social commentary !

Land of Confusion was better than the other singles Genesis released from the Invisible Touch album, but like most of their material from this period, it lacks anything closely resembling progressive rock. It's basically a fast-paced pop rock song. The B side contains an interesting song called Feeding the Fire, which seems slightly similar to The Last Domino in its lyrical and instrumental darkness. Banks performs a nice keyboard solo during the instrumental section of this song, but somehow it seems uninspiring compared to his earlier efforts.

I'm going to give this two stars, mostly for the B-side and also because the single isn't that distasteful. Feeding the Fire is currently available on the Archive 2 box set, so seeking this single out should only be done by collectors/fans of the group. Two stars.