GENESIS

Call me a fool, but I actually bought this set (at a firmly reduced price, of course) because I wanted the best tunes from the 1980s/1990s Phil Collins era. As a great admirer (since 1975!) of Gabriel-era Genesis, I never used to listen to the radio and only occasionally saw a clip or two on MTV, but of course some of those Collins-led tunes are inescapable, and I have to admit I even like a couple. So let's forget about Bret Easton Ellis, I ended up with this PLATINUM COLLECTION, what did I make of it?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, some of the tunes were as good as I'd hoped for and perhaps (when you don't hear them pouring out of a speaker in a noisy bar) even better. Songs like 'No Son Of Mine', 'Abacab' and 'Turn It On Again' can only be described as superior pop. 'Jesus He Knows Me' is as delightful as anything Peter Gabriel ever did, and 'Mama' actually starts out like one of PG's early solo tracks - what a shame it had to end on a 'screaming skull shrieking' fest. Yes, I'll admit that right from the start I had problems with Mr. Collins' insistent emoting, but that doesn't mean he can't sound deeply affecting as well: tracks like 'Many Too Many' and 'Undertow' actually bring a tear to my eye. And much to my surprise, 'That's All' strongly reminds me of the Dutch prog band Kayak, and of Genesis anno 1971 ('Harold the Barrel', to be precise).

Alas, I also found that discs 1 and 2 contain a number of tunes I didn't enjoy at all ('In Too Deep' for example, and that horrible little thing from CALLING ALL STATIONS), while one or two of Genesis' earworm songs (like 'Invisible Touch' and 'Tonight Tonight Tonight') proved deeply irritating. When the second disc reached WIND AND WUTHERING and A TRICK OF THE TAIL, I was disappointed that the most ambitious songs from those albums ('One For The Vine' and 'Robbery, Assault and Battery', for example) were nowhere to be found. Instead, I got offered relatively bland fare such as 'Afterglow' (I just can't stand Phil Collins singing falsetto) and (Lord help us) 'Your Own Special Way'. Couldn't they have picked 'Blood on the Rooftops' instead? It's at least twenty times better... Anything to avoid giving Steve Hackett his due, I suppose... Well, at least the compilers had the guts to include both 'In That Quiet Earth' and 'Los Endos', which are the closest Genesis ever got to 'progressive jazz rock' à la Brand X.

With Disc 3 we enter a different universe, and the great news is that the best track is included from each of Genesis' classic 1970s albums. (I would also have loved to see 'Dancing With The Moonlit Knight' instead of 'I Know What I Like', but I guess you can't have everything.) As soon as the disc begins, we hear a new voice which has the kind of dignity Phil Collins - for all his virtues - never possessed. I wonder how that third disc will go down with unsuspecting non-proggers if they pick up this collection in a thrift store, just like me...

While I do understand that this Genesis is not a past Genesis, that's not why I think that Abacab lacked a lot of quality compositions, or consistency for that matter. After the outstanding Duke, there is a drop-off, but it's not the worst album ever. One big difference is the solo works, which this time are limited to one by each; that turns out to be a good thing. Tony Banks' "Me and Sarah Jane" is a rather uneven piece, with some great moments but some rather overdone ones. Meanwhile Phil Collins' "Man on the Corner" (a minor hit), and Mike Rutherford's "Like it or Not" seem routine and somewhat boring, let alone generic; the former two pieces also further Collins' obsession with drum machines.

The rest of the album? The title track is a great composition, but Banks tends to overdo the synths and drown out everything else, a sign of what you'll hear for the entire album. "No Reply at All" is one of the couple gems here, a pop radio staple augmented by the same horn section from Earth, Wind & Fire and great bass work by Rutherford. "Keep it Dark" is not a bad song, but again I fault Banks for being too heavy with the keys. "Dodo/Lurker," the other long track here, is the other truly good piece; it likely has the best lyrics on the entire album, and Rutherford gets a chance to shine some on the six-string. I don't need to comment on one of the worst Genesis pieces ever, "Who Dunnit?" for every other review echoes my comments on that song. "Another Record" closes, which is somewhat bland, but at least Banks' piano is near its best for this album.

The eponymous follow-up would be a nice rebound for me (if that proves that my problems aren't because of Genesis' identity), but I found Abacab to seem rather run-of-the-mill and not easy to get into.

3.0

This album is perfect from start to finish. A perfect, extremely melodic opening, with zany lyrics that reflect the current state of England in the early 1970s, where America was just beginning to make a killing with its economic siren. From lines like "There's a fat old lady outside the saloon" that guide you through imaginary passages where you truly feel the reality of the lyrics. It's not Collins' best drumming. It might have been his best on ATOTT or LLDOB. But with Hackett at his best, Rutherford bringing the soul he always gave to Genesis, Banks perfectly crafting the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard, and Gabriel at his most creative. Surpassing Foxtrot was only possible with this album. It continues the socioeconomic narrative but leaves a bit of a gap, or rather the religious theme that hadn't been fully addressed since the first album. For me, In the Court is only better for what it means to the history of rock in general, but this album is the most divine delicacy the genre has ever created. If I had to choose just one album to save, it would surely be this one. A beautiful cover, referencing the second track, which is super progressive in its lyrics, although it had pop and radio leanings, but it encouraged young people to do something that's still being done 50 years later: Doing what you love.

{Note this was Google translated and then edited for accuracy by admin. Only reviews in English are allowed.}

''Spot the Pigeon'' is the most famous Genesis EP for a good reason.It contains three ''Wind & Wuthering'' leftovers, which the band made public in May 1977 through this edition, practically seeing back and forth.And that's because the short cuts ''Match of the Day'' and ''Pigeon'' are closer to Pop/Art Rock with commercial leanings, heavy on acoustic guitar and dreamy on keys with some sort of BEATLES-esque atmosphere, while the longer ''Inside and Out'' is more of the lyrical/theatrical Prog Rock of the band, maybe a bit too soft, but with some epic vocal sections, great keyboard work after the middle (Moog synth runs) and a nice acoustic prelude.Later in that same year it was announced that Steve Hackett would no more be a member of the band. 4.0, these are three great pop tunes that in my opinion deserved to be on wind and Wuthering.

This album was originally planned to have a long song cycle on one side and some shorter songs on the other side. The song cycle would be made up of "Behind the lines", "Duchess", "Guide vocal", "Turn it on again", "Duke's travels" and "Duke's end". It wasn't to be, but during the tour that followed the band did play the song cycle as they had originally intended it. It was the absolute highlight of the Duke live shows and the album would have been a lot better had it included the songs this way.

The album opens like the song cycle opens with the excellent "Behind the lines" with its two minute intro leading into the drum machines of the great ballad "Duchess" with its coda "Guide vocal". Then we get three solo compositions with Mike Rutherford's "Man of our times", Phil Collins' "Misunderstanding" (the first song he wrote for Genesis, also the band's first US hit single) and Tony Banks' "Heathaze". Then comes the great "Turn it on again", as far as I know the only single ever with a 13/4 time signature. Then it goes again with "Alone tonight", "Cul de sac" and ". The album ends in a great way again with "Duke's travels" and "Duke's end". Had they left the medley as it originally was (and how it was again on tour), the medley have made it a great Genesis album. But this conversion of pop and prog made some fans lose interest l. This is one of the albums that made die hard Genesis fan to lose interest but I love it. 4.0

Probably the most polarising of the band releases up to that point, the album sees Genesis, now as a trio, trading some of their grandiose, complex ideas for increased pop sensibility. Maybe due to the fact that Collins and co. weren't exactly sure in which direction they want the music to go, ...And Then There Were Three... sits awkwardly in the canyon between progressive rock and pop rock, somehow being neither and both at the same time. While the fusion of the two genres was done better on the next album, Duke, this LP spawns a few very worthwhile tracks (Down and Out, Snowbound, The Lady Lies) in between filler and failed ideas. A classic transition-era album. 4.0 it Is forgotten about sadly.

After Gabriel had left the band, the remaining quartet developed in an incredible way and released two of their best albums. While A Trick of the Tail already was outstanding , Wind and Wuthering turned out to be one of their masterpieces after Peter Gabriel's exodus.

"One for the Vine" and "Blood on the Rooftops" are two epics belonging to the greatest prog songs ever, but all other tracks (maybe with the exception of the fairly nice, but very, very simple "Afterglow") follow quite close behind.

Master guitarist Steve Hackett left the band after this album. With "And Then There Were Three"(1978) Genesis managed to overplay this significant loss pretty sovereign, but thereafter it all started to go downhill in the prog point of view although they became more and more successful commercially.

I'm absolutely sure, that I will love this album as long as I live. Wonderful cover artwork, by the way. 5.0

Genesis' first album after the departure of Peter Gabriel . I actually like the close follow-up, Wind & Wuthering, even better, but I'm happy enough to admit that that's going to be a very personal preference. As with Wuthering, the main factor is the songwriting and melodic sense of Tony Banks, who is the only member of the band who gets writing credit on all eight tracks.

I think Phil Collins' voice does more justice to Banks' melodies than Gabriel's rougher-edged tones would have. My favorite here is 'Mad Man Moon', credited solely to Banks. Collins' vocals are nice to say the least one can also hear Collins' more straightforward, less prog-like, songwriting sense coming through in 'Ripples., which foreshadows the direction Genesis would take in years after. 5.0 My genesis to Genesis.

Having been listening to Genesis for over 50 years I suppose one could legitimately propose that I am a fan. And indeed I am. But not only am I a fan of Genesis, I also quite like many other artistes that have unleashed the results of their talents upon the world. So it is with the benefit of my exposure to many things musical over the past half century (with a bit more than another dozen years added to the half century) that I put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard actually) about Calling All Stations, the final studio album by Genesis.

I acquired the album not long after its release in 1997 and I have to say that the lack of a Gabriel or a Collins on vocals was something of a curiosity (although at that stage I was very well used to the lack of a Gabriel). Ray Wilson, whom I'd never heard of (the name Stiltskin was familiar), was now the Vocalist in Chief in the band. I played the CD many times over the following months and I also saw this incarnation of the band live in March 1998. It certainly wasn't the Genesis that I'd seen and heard in the past but naggingly, some of the same Genesis sound, as well as some of the same Genesis personnel, were actually still to be seen and heard. Imagine that! So, the more I put this album into my CD player, the more I grew to like it. I began to hear little vignettes that I hadn't noticed previously (example - the really exciting sound of the ride cymbal in the latter part of One Man's Fool). So it got to the stage that the more I played Calling All Stations, the more I liked it. Nowadays, in the year 2025, I just have to say that really like this album. I like it a lot. And now that I have it on vinyl, as well as cd, it has opened up even more for me and it seems to be a different kind of a listening experience when I put the record onto my turntable.

However (there's always a "however", isn't there...), I feel that it must be said that the album is just too long as a project. It should have been shorter, in my opinion, by exactly four songs. If Calling All Stations had been more concise, it would have been a massive seller, all across the world. In the USA, I've no doubt that a shorter album would have hit high in the album charts and all the Genesis live shows would have been sold out.

So, in my opinion a problem lies in the fact that the album was produced by the band themselves. There was no input from an experienced, talented producer who could and no doubt would have, reined the band in where necessary and also have pushed them on where necessary. A strong willed independent producer would not have allowed this album, with a new singer, to exceed 45 to 50 minutes.

So what songs should have been culled from the album? Here they are - "Shipwrecked", "Small Talk", "If That's What You Need" and "Not About Us". If these songs had been left off then we'd have had a 48 minute album. That would have been a perfect length at that time in 1997. It would have been a really darkly attractive album which would have had a lot more appeal for a lot more people.

Anyway, I've given the entire album a lot of time over the last 28 years and while I know that not everybody gets it, I like it. I think that its excellent Prog. So for me I'm giving it four stars.

Well its time for me to rate my favorite Genesis album and one of my favorite doubles album of all time along with All things Must Pass - George Harrison.

Given all the obscure literary references of Selling England by the Pound, along with their taste for epic suites such as "Supper's Ready," it was only a matter of time before Genesis attempted a full-fledged concept album, and 1974's The "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" was a massive rock opera: the winding, wielding story of a Puerto Rican hustler name Rael making his way in New York City. Peter Gabriel made some tentative moves toward developing this story into a movie with William Friedkin but it never took off, perhaps it's just as well; even with the lengthy libretto included with the album, the story never makes sense. But just because the story is rather impenetrable doesn't mean that the album is as well, because it is a forceful, imaginative piece of work that showcases the original Genesis lineup at a peak. Even if the story is rather hard to piece together, the album is set up in a remarkable fashion, with the first LP being devoted to pop-oriented rock songs and the second being largely devoted to instrumentals. This means that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway contains both Genesis' most immediate music to date and its most elliptical. Depending on a listener's taste, they may gravitate toward the first LP with its tight collection of ten rock songs, or the nightmarish landscapes of the second, where Rael descends into darkness and ultimately redemption (or so it would seem), but there's little question that the first album is far more direct than the second and it contains a number of masterpieces, from the opening fanfare of the title song to the surging "In the Cage," from the frightening "Back in NYC" to the soothing conclusion "The Carpet Crawlers." In retrospect, this first LP plays a bit more like the first Gabriel solo album than the final Genesis album, but there's also little question that the band helps form and shape this music (with Brian Eno adding extra coloring on occasion), while Genesis shines as a group shines on the impressionistic second half. In every way, it's a considerable, lasting achievement and it's little wonder that Peter Gabriel had to leave the band after this record: they had gone as far as they could go together, and could never top this extraordinary album. 5.0 Get this album Genesis lovers