GENESIS 1983-1998

A rather schizo collection, should I say? Here you have all Genesis releases after the Abacab album, except the live albums The Way We Walk part I - The Shorts & part II The Longs. It´s their most popular period (sales wise, of course) in one boxset, plus the one album recorded by the group having Ray Wilson on vocals. As a bonus, you have a whole CD of extras, rare b-sides or unreleased material of the same era.

If you like their pop period, but has maybe only the vinyl copies of them, this is a good buy. The odd CD out is the Ray Wilson one, Calling All Stations. Good or bad, it does sound too different and awkward together with the others. The best part is the extra disc with various curious and good songs (especially the instrumental ones). I´m not quite sure if they are b sides or just unreleased ones, since I never heard any of them, with the exception of On The Shoreline. But the tunes are mostly as good as (some even better than) the ones that made it to their albums and quite worth it to buy this one alone if you can find it.

If you´re in love with latter day Genesis and wants to buy them all in one punch this boxset is recommended. And you´ll get a worthy bonus, plus Ray Wilson´s only CD with them and a great booklet. Good, but hardly essential in any way.

I know this may seem like a diss on Genesis.

But i never cared much for Phil Collins. He wasn't as Progressive as Peter..and didnt wanna go into the weird tangents of music. I felt when Peter left genesis wasn't genesis it became a pop band. More radio friendly, more rocky and lost the glitter of Progressive rock

But then i bought the box set and i was blown away, by the non radio friendly songs that saturated the 80's i loved the non popular songs. Ripples and Squonk are a few of my favs. and then Listening to Calling all stations I was blown away by Ray wilson's voice it was like Peter and Phil had a kid...he had the progressive side and yet the pop rock side.

This Box set changed my mind about Phil collins i have alot more respect for him and understand him alot more on what he went through with musicians coming and going..he just wanted to keep the torch lit. and i respect that

Genesis 1983-1999 is an excellently remasted look at Genesis at their pop prime. Whereas many people are fighting about compression/loudness/B-sides left off, etc., I will discuss what we have, not wish we had.

I think the older albums -Genesis, Invisible Touch - are the most affected by the remastering process. The newer albums do seem to be a little louder, but I don't percieve any substantial differences in the mixes.

But on those two older albums, the differences were dramatic. Hearing them this way definately is like listening to a new album. All the instruments are clearer, more substantial, and mixed better than the originals. My only quibble is with Illegal Alien - this doesn't sound quite right to me, yet I can't put my finger on it. Everything else is phenomenal.

The extra material is quite nice, not quite as good as the 1976-1982 box set though. There is much less concert footage available in the new set, which is what I thought was great about the last set, and what they have is very choppy and a bit disappointing. The interviews are excellent with all the main participants contributing.

On the whole, If you are a Genesis fan, buy this set. If you are just a casual fan, just pick up the individual albums that you like in this format.

An encyclopedia of the longest, least fruitful and dreariest period in the band's history. The leading role of Tony Banks as composer and arranger was rapidly decreasing, the role of Phil Collins was rapidly growing. The band's music of this era sounds as if the musicians were bored with music. Or, at least, with prog music. While a few moments of the 1983 self-titled album (usually called Mama in daily use) still slightly remind the substance we call prog, Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance are rather anti-progressive. The best possible place for the music of this kind could be a sandy beach near Sochi or Tuapse, full of intensively relaxing carefree people. Calling All Stations is partially reconvalescent but was booed by the fans who could not (or at least thought they couldn't) reconcile themselves to the band's new vocalist and two guest drummers instead of Collins.

By convention, I speak of 'extra tracks' (disc 5) only. Like the 'extra' disc of the 1976-1982 box set, there's no surprise here, no previously unreleased and unknown songs. The disc 5 could be entitled 'The Tracks That Didn't Fit In'. Indeed, On The Shoreline and Hearts On Fire didn't fit in We Can't Dance, the next three tracks didn't fit in Invisible Touch, and the last three in Calling All Stations. And a couple of them could add something essential to a respective album; I think it's quite enough reason to give the box set 4 stars.

On The Shoreline was recorded during the We Can't Dance studio sessions and first released on the promo 12 inch maxi single I Can't Dance in 1991. Many of us agree that in 1991 Genesis released their worst studio album ever. But On The Shoreline could seriously pull it up if included. Yes its sound faintly differs from the sound of other album tracks, yes it's nothing but 'beach' poppy prog, or rather proggy pop. But it's much tastier, more distinctive and better done.

Hearts On Fire is another We Can't Dance studio outtake, it first appeared on the 1992 single Jesus He Knows Me. The track is done in the same antsy and fussy manner as Domino or (why bother to go too far?) Jesus He Knows Me just mentioned above.

Do The Neurotics and I'd Rather Be You were first released on the 1986 single In Too Deep, Feeding The Fire first appeared the same year on the single Land Of Confusion. While I'd Rather Be You and Feeding The Fire can be considered a sort of 'tissue matrix', something mediocre and unessential, Do The Neurotics could make Invisible Touch less commercial and even less poppy if included in the album.

And finally, the three Calling All Stations studio outtakes. Let's be clear: I like Calling All Stations. I think that it's overall a good album. I don't care about Phil Collins (though he is of no doubt one of the very best drummers on our Globe and an excellent vocalist) or Peter Gabriel (though he wrote very intricate lyrics). I even don't care too much about Steve Hackett (though the authorship of a number of beautiful Genesis tracks belongs to him). The two band members who really interest me as a dedicated listener are Michael Rutherford (less) and Anthony Banks (much more). To me, the question number one is always 'who wrote the music'. And voila - both Banks and Rutherford are here, most of the musical material was written by Banks, there's a lot of material from Rutherford as well - so, why people say this is not Genesis? Just because the singer's voice differs from what we used to hear, and the drums are operated by hired employees? Yes the difference is audible. But, on the other hand, don't you find that the overall music picture had changed to better as a result? Of course the band's last studio album is not a full recovery, not a true return to prog. But musically it's much closer to what we call 'genuine Genesis' than the two previous albums with Collins. I think the reason was restored musical leadership of Banks. Of course in 1997 he was not the same as in 1973 but remained Banks nevertheless.

Anything Now, Sign Your Life Away and Run Out Of Time were all first released officially on the 1998 maxi single Not About Us, but almost a year before all the three appeared on the unofficial (bootleg?) 'promo' CD issued in UK - it had a monstrously long title (I even don't remember it) and contained non-album songs and alternative (including acoustic) versions of some album tracks. Musically, I'd say Run Out Of Time has a number of attributes of instant Genesis style and could make an asset to the album if included, while Anything Now and Sign Your Life Away are quite primitive and faceless. But anyway I'd prefer to see all the three on side four of the vinyl version instead of etching...