THE VIDEO SHOW

I don't think it's a good idea for prog bands / artists to make a video clip. I usually only purchase the live version DVD only. But for Genesis? Why not - at least for documentary purposes. Especially, with great songs that have become my all-time favorites like "Ripples", "A Trick of The Tail". This video contains almost all Phil Collins era video and some Ray Wilson's era plus one Gabriel era "Carpet Crawlers". Another good one also is "Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea".

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

A fine and amusing collection of mostly their commercial stuff, but theres still good prog moments for example Ripples, Duchess, Robbery Assault & Battery. It covers the Collins era onwards. Before this I had two VHS compilations which don't come close to the variety on this DVD. I would give it 4/5 for Collins Genesis fans, but will bow down to sense and give it 3/5 overall.

The chamber of 32 videos

OK, since this is an excellent collection, let's get the downsides out of the way first. Those downsides primarily relate to the lack of Gabriel era material, and the inclusion of a few too many of the Collins era ballads. The other minor drawback is that the live footage is overdubbed with studio versions of the tracks.

Now that is out of the way, we can focus on the positives, of which there are many. "Genesis - The Video show" is a DVD presentation of no fewer than 32 Genesis videos, covering the period from "A trick of the tail" through to "Calling all stations". The sequence of the tracks is not chronological, with the most commercially successful songs being given prime position and the older material appearing towards the end.

Thus we start with several tracks from the "I can't dance" album, the superb "No son of mine" leading things off. If ever a video served to portray the full meaning of a song, it is this one. Not only does it emphasise the passionate lyrics, but it also serves to accentuate the contributions of Banks and Rutherford, whose efforts can otherwise be overlooked.

One thing the videos here serve to do well is to demonstrate that Genesis were a band with a sense of humour. From the spoof TV evangelists of "Jesus he knows me" to the Spitting Image puppetry of "Land of Confusion" and a wonderful appearance by the late comedian Benny Hill, there are humorous elements to many of the videos.

It is when we get to the older material though that this collection finds its real purpose. "Home by the sea/Second home by the sea" is the first of the classics. Played in full here, the video for this 11 minute epic is a live stage show. As mentioned earlier the sound is not live, but taken from the album recording. This works superbly, the video serving to demonstrate how under-appreciated Tony Bank's contribution to this song is. "Ripples" is similarly effective, with Steve Hackett's guitar work being the main benefactor.

Ironically, it is the most recent, Ray Wilson era songs which have the least effective visual accompaniments. The videos here are just too arty, doing nothing to enhance the overall experience.

The collection closes with "The carpet crawlers 1999", a re-recording of the song from "The lamb lies down on Broadway". This is a close as we get to seeing Peter Gabriel, but unfortunately he is lost in the dream like effects. The song itself is an enjoyable update on this classic piece, but whether it is an improvement is highly doubtful.

The DVD comes in tasteful packaging, and each video has an information page with images of the artwork and full credits. In short, a superb presentation which will appeal to those who enjoy the Collins era material.

Whoops I wasted money on this non essential collection. Nothing much to say except really only get it if you are a fan of 80s Genesis. There are three videos from Trick of the Tail, which for the time are surprisingly entertaining, especially Robber Assault and Battery. In most of the videos Phil Collins adds a lot of humour to the videos, there is a video remix of Carpet Crawlers, but I think its pretty dreaful, it sounds as if they wanted played in nightclubs or something. There is alsao videos from the Ray Wilson period, pretty comprhesive but nothing for the Gabrial fan, except for that aforementioned tragic remix of Carpet Crawllers. Only three videos from the Trick of the Tail for the prog, all the rest is from their pop period, some songs arn't that bad In my opinion, such as Home by the Sea and Turn it on Again, but these videos are also very bittersweet moments for me because they had such potential I imagine how amazing they would have been if Steve Hackett had been in the band. There is also some fun videos such as Land of Confusion with the Spitting Image puppets, and I Can't Dance where Phil Collins laughs at himself. But other than these few minor redeeming features the DVD still only gets two stars, because again its only really for the fans of pop radio friendly Genesis or anyone really curious about the Trick of the Tail music videos.

The cover art is better than the content itself and gives some false expectations; e.g. there's nothing from the 'old days' even though Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot are represented in the cover design. When one is viewing this DVD, (s)he should be totally prepared to deal with COLLINS-Genesis. Still it's a bit sad that 'Carpet Crawlers 99' doesn't show the occasionally reunited band at all - instead the main actor is clearly supposed to be Rael. Not a bad video - or new version of the song - anyway. Ironically, the similar high artistic level of videos, I must admit, is on the Ray Wilson -featured tracks (that album Calling All Stations maybe isn't a total disgrace after all, but it's Genesis by name only!)

I was glad to get this DVD from my library. Frankly, if I had bought this even at a very low price, I probably would have sold it away. My viewing experience was sort of divided into three sections: first, numerous tracks from We Can't Dance and Invisible Touch (no less than one third of the whole package). Some videos are good but I was anxious to get into earlier material.

But videos from 'That's All' to 'Ripples' have extremely little variation in style. So many live in the studio or otherwise unimaginary videos that there's no much use to have another look. Only 'Keep It Dark' of them has a notable visual profile. Outdoor scenes remind me of 'Strawberry Fields'! 'Robbery, Assauls and Battery' is an acted video but rather clumsy.

Finally the aforementioned Calling All Stations -stuff and a brief return to the best tracks: e.g. 'Home by the Sea/ Second Home by the Sea' and 'No Son of Mine', which is the emotionally strongest one. On the whole I was quite disappointed. The main menu design is fine, playing the percussion/synth riff of 'Mama'.

Good aspects to this:

1) Lots of music/videos (32 total) spread across two DVD's 2) Quite a bit of variety as far as Collins-era songs go 3) Decent packaging

Bad aspects to this:

1) Essentially no Gabriel-era material, unless you count the redone "Carpet Crawlers" (I don't) 2) Barely any prog. material here. It is basically limited to several songs from Trick of the Tail and And Then There Were Three, and the song Second Home By the Sea 3) Poppiness and lameness of some 80's material really gets offensive when placed under the "Genesis" band name. I mean, can we really say songs like "Illegal Alien" and "In Too Deep" are really by the same band that produced "Watcher of the Skies" and "Return of the Giant Hogweed"??

Although it's great to have all the videos collected in one place, it would have been better to have gathered up Gabriel-era material and put that on one DVD, and edited the better Collins-era songs to put on the other DVD.

This DVD looks nice in a collection, with its attractive cover and all that jazz. But, on in the inside, it's purely the Phil Collins era (and post-Collins era), which doesn't show the golden age of this band. The videos themselves aren't very entertaining...Sometimes, the clip is off time with the footage, and it's overly cheesy, but pulls a laugh from time to time. Trick of the Tail clips were great, but too scarce. I was disapointed, and although I've tried, I don't think I'll ever really get into this DVD.

An excellent summary of GENESIS' latter years, featuring some excellent and creative videos. Some are relatively conventional, featuring GENESIS playing their instruments; others are conceptual, with the video reflecting the song's theme.

I'm at a loss to understand why reviewers complain about the lack of GABRIEL-era videos. There simply aren't enough early GENESIS videos of acceptable quality. The conceptual videos are well-executed, while the 'performance' videos leave something to be desired, as they are generally mimed to the studio track.

The highlights, for me, are the earlier videos, particularly from 'A Trick Of The Tail', which have not had the exposure of later videos; though the later videos are better, I'm familiar with them.

One can't argue with either the value or the quality of this DVD. Nor, in my opinion, is the selection open to question. A good way to enjoy good, and sometimes excellent, music.

This is definitely not the best Genesis-dvd, to start with. For one reason or another it doesnot work to watch 32 videos clips at one time, especially not when some of the songs are below par for a band like Genesis (Man on the corner, Keep it dark, Illegan alien). But having said that I have to admit that the positive sides of this dvd are far greater than the negative sides. Because you can learn about the many sides of Genesis during the Collins era. There are very serious videos (No son of mine, Many to many, Mama, Tonight, tonight, tonight) with good artistic filming, great atmospheres and a good balance between the lyrics and the video itself, rather dull videos showing the band mimicing the songs in studios (In too deep, Home by the sea/Second home by the sea) and quite a few hilarious ones. And the last ones are the gem of this collection. Watch again 'I can't dance' (by far not their best song but what a good video!), 'Anything she does' (even Banks and Rutherford can act in a comedy...) and, above all, 'Jesus he knows me'. It is one of my all time favourites when it comes down to videos, it is absolutely great!! And then listening to songs like 'Follow me, follow you', 'Misunderstanding' and 'Congo' isn't that bad anymore. So actually I find this a very good compilation but I will not wacth it again in one time....

I resisted to buy these videos when they were available in two VHS videocassettes in the `90s. I saw some of them broadcasted on TV and I even recorded some of them from those TV broadcasts in the late `80s and early `90s. Some of them were included in the "The Way We Walk - In Concert " double LaserDisc, so I wasn`t very interested to buy them. But recently I saw this DVD, and I finally bought it, more for the curiosity to see the videoclips which I never have seen before. It was a good buy. I finally have these videoclips from GENESIS with very good images, and most of all, with excellent audio quality in most of them, even with new sound mixings! I never bought agian some of their albums in the CD format because they are not among my favourite albums from them (the "Abacab", "Genesis" and "Invisible Touch" albums), but in this DVD the sound in the songs taken from those albums is very good (without really influencing me to buy those albums in the CD format!).

Yes, it is a good collection of videoclips, mainly done during their most commercial albums in the eighties-nineties. But my main interest was to see the very old videoclips from the "A Trick of the Tail" , "...and then there were three..." and "Duke" album songs. I wasn`t disappointed!

This DVD starts with five videoclips done for the "We Can`t Dance" album singles. With the exception of the "Tell Me Why" videoclip, I have the other four included in the "The Way We Walk-In Concert" LaserDisc. The videos for "No Son of Mine" and "Tell Me Why" are part of the "serious songs" of the band. Both are very good, but the video for "Tell Me Why" has images of people living in mysery and hunger. I think that one of Phil Collins`influences to the band was/is his interest in social problems. He was/is also a very good actor / comedian, a funny character who also works well in serious roles like he does in "No Son of Mine", but his funny side as an actor appears very well in the "I Can`t Dance" and "Jesus He Knows Me" videos. I think that he and the band were more mature by 1992-93 to treat social problems in the right way. But in the video done for "Illegal Alien", while their intentions could have been to treat an international social problem in a funny way, I really could say that it was their biggest mistake , musically and lyrically, and the video for this song doesn`t help it very much to be seen less offensive as the song without images sounds for me and maybe for other people. But by 1991-92 it seems that they were much better informed and really concerned about social problems, so "Illegal Alien" was an exercise in bad taste.

There is not much variety in the content of the videoclips. Many of them are based in showing them just doing playback to the pre-recorded music. The real "Star" in most of the videos is Collins, because Rutherford and Banks look more comfortable leaving Collins do his antics.

"Anything She Does" was a videoclip that I only saw once on TV, and I couldn`t remembe nothing about it. It has the special appearance of British comedian Benny Hill (whose TV shows were broadcasted here on TV in the early ninenties). It is a funny video with his appearance. "Land of Confusion" has a vey good and funny videoclip done with puppets. Among the puppets shown there are some done for Ronald Reagan and wife, Michael Jackson and the members of GENESIS` themselves. I also saw on TV once the videoclip for "Mama" . It is really a good sinister videoclip done with an edited version of the song. It seems that for the "Genesis" album they recorded the videoclips for the songs before the album was released, because in the inner sleeve of that album some images of these videos appear. The videoclip for "Home by the Sea / Second Home by the Sea" is really a playback of the studio track while the band pretends to be playing the song in concert. "Paperlate" is another playback of the audio of the song during an appearance of the band in a TV show with audience in May 1982.

The videoclip for "Misunderstanding" was filmed in one city of the U.S. (Los Angeles, I think), with the band appearing on the streets, with Collins`singing while driving a car and the other two members of the band playing their instruments on the street or in another car. They use some old cars and shirts which look from THE BEACH BOYS`s days in the 60s!

The videos which in my opinion have the best audio quality, with very good improvements are:

"Follow You Folow Me": in this video, the band appear as a trio "playing" the song on stage. Collins´lead vocals are more clear in this sound mixing.

"Many Too Many": I remember that there was another version of this video which was briefly shown in the "Genesis- A History" VHS videocassette, with the band filmed "playing" as a trio at the 1978 Knebworth Festival`s stage (I think) without audience. This DVD version is maybe a different take done in the same day.

The videoclip for the "A Trick of the Tail" single is also funny, with Collins showing since then that he really was a very good frontman for the band, and that Peter Gabriel`s departure really didn`t represent the end of the band. In this videoclip, the sound mixing is also very good, bringing to the front Steve Hackett`s guitar.

The most interesting videoclip for me in this DVD is for "Ripples", with a very good playback peformance by the band, "playing" the whole song, and again with a very good sound mixing which again brings to the front Hackett`s very good lead guitar parts.

The videoclip for "Robbery, Assault & Battery" again shows Collins`s skills as an actor, while the other members of the band play the roles of policemen trying to capture Collins` thief character. One interesting thing in this videoclip is the showing of Tony Banks` hands while he plays the keyboard solos of this song. It shows why he is considered as a very good keyboard player.

The videclip for "The Carpet Crawlers 1999"is not very interesting for me, being done with an edited version of the song.

Finally, the videoclips done for the "Calling All Stations" album singles are the less interesting for me. They are "dark", "artsy", and they obviously lack Phil Collins`presence. Without him, the band became a "dark" band without sense of humour. Ray Wilson is a good singer, but as as I wrote in my review for that album, I think that he wasn`t the right choice of lead singer for the band after Collins left. Also, these videoclips were more done with the aim to capture the attention of the young people of the late nineties, so, in my opinion, they are similar in image as the image that MARILLION has for some of their album covers since Steve Hogarth became their lead singer.

In conclusion, this is a good collection of videos, most of them of good quality, more for the GENESIS ` long time fans.

Where's Peter Gabriel?

Well, where is he?

Surely we could have some material or didnt they film Genesis back in the 70s?

The great man was sorely missing from this swag of genesisology. What we have instead is the most mainstream Genesis material ever put to film. Apart form the excellent Turn it on Again, A Trick of the Tail, Ripples, Carpet Crawlers, and Home by the Sea/ Second Home by the Sea, there is little to recommend the prog rock fan.

If you love Genesis you will no doubt get a kick out of these videos that are mainly studio based and Phil Collins is the star. Some of the clips are edgey and well produced such as Jesus He Knows Me, Land of Confusion and Duchess. But you have seen it all before on MTV reruns and there was not enough rare material for my tastes.

Even one addition from 'Foxtrot' or 'Nursery Cryme' would have been enough for me. But instead we have the non prog Genesis that we abhore from 'We cant dance' and 'Invisible Touch' featuring heavily. This is not the Genesis DVD to get if you are into prog rock, instead get hold of 'When in Rome' which buries this for sheer quality and prog excellence.

3 stars for the prog clips mentioned earlier otherwise steer clear of this.

Visible touch

This nicely packaged DVD collection contains no less than 32 music videos of varying quality and interest. Despite the cover art containing characters from the sleeves of Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, none of the videos are as old as those albums. The oldest footage here is from the A Trick Of The Tale-era, so the purists who loathe anything from the post- Peter Gabriel era need not bother with this DVD. The explanation for this "bias" is, of course, quite natural and justified in this case as the art of making music videos really didn't take off until the late 70's/early 80's. However, they could perhaps have included some live footage from the Gabriel-era to represent such early hits as I Know What I like (In Your Wardrobe) and some others.

The videos are presented in (roughly) backwards-chronological order with the videos from We Can't Dance coming in first, followed by those from Invisible Touch, then the self-titled album, Abacab, Duke, And Then There Were Three and A Trick Of The Tale (sadly nothing at all from Wind And Wuthering). Strangely, the three videos from Calling All Stations (the most recent Genesis album to date with Ray Wilson replacing Phil Collins on vocals) followed by the 1999 re-make of Carpet Crawlers comes in last of all. The latter is the sole inclusion that involves Peter Gabriel. Once again this running order is quite natural and justified due to the much higher production values of the more recent videos. They clearly wanted to present the viewer with the best (production-wise) first. You could perhaps even say that the further back in time you get the worse the videos get (but the better the music!). However, there are plenty of exceptions to that general rule.

The first five videos, No Son Of Mine, I Can't Dance, Hold On My Heart, Jesus He Knows Me and Tell Me Why, are taken from the We Can't Dance album. Of these No Son Of Mine is the best one both musically and visually. This is a very moving and emotional song and the video fits the song well. Jesus He Knows Me and I Can't Dance show the more humorous side of the band and the former is particularly funny. Many people who have not seen the video (or Phil's introduction to the song in live performance) can easily be led to think that it is a religious song. However, as the video makes very clear, it is actually a sarcastic take on the phenomenon of TV-evangelists. The criticism is biting! Many of the videos here actually show Genesis in a humorous and often sarcastic mode. They often make fun of themselves too, and it is very clear that they didn't take themselves very seriously a lot of the time, at least not as far as the visual element goes - they are simply having fun! However, there are also very "serious" videos. Songs like Hold On My Heart are rather boring and the visual doesn't help at all.

The Invisible Touch album is represented with no less than six videos! The only two songs from that album for which no videos were made are the two-part Domino and the instrumental The Brazilian (ironically perhaps these are the two songs from that album that hold the most interest for the Prog fan!). This heavy emphasis on the Invisible Touch album is one of the weakest aspects of this DVD. But this is perhaps understandable since some of these songs are the band's most widely know songs.

Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea is the first video that is of genuine interest from a progressive point of view. I really like this two-part song and it can probably be said to be one of the very few songs from the 80's that is up to par with what the band did in the 70's. From this point onwards (i.e. from the early 80's and backwards in time) the videos tend to consist mostly of live footage or footage of the band performing "live" in a studio or a regular room. But this is, of course, true of most bands that bothered to do music videos in the 70's and early 80's (Queen is a good case in point). There are some exceptions here, though, with a few videos actually having "scripts" as such. Misunderstanding and Robbery, Assault And Battery being notable cases in point.

Paperlate is "interesting" as it is not featured on any studio album (but otherwise available on archive releases), but the song is sadly dispensable. The songs from Abacab are mostly quite weak (like the album in general), but I do have a soft spot for the title track! For Prog fans, the real interest (with the exception of Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea) begins with the Duke material on this DVD. Duchess is the best track musically speaking, but Misunderstanding is better as far as the video goes. Follow You Follow Me and Many Too Many represent the And Then There Were Three album and, as most people on this site will know, these were the least progressive and most commercial songs from that otherwise strong album.

All the videos up till this point have been from the three-man line-up of Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins. The DVD's last seven videos include other line-ups including Steve Hackett, Peter Gabriel and Ray Wilson. First out are three videos from A Trick Of The Tale including the title track, Ripples and Robbery, Assault And Battery. The music here is indeed of masterpiece quality (A Trick Of The Tale is one of my all time favourite albums), but the visuals are hardly masterpieces. But it is certainly great to finally hear (and see) Steve Hackett. These songs thus come as a relief after so many songs from the three-man-era of the band. Robbery, Assault And Battery is particularly "interesting" with the video setting the lyrics into film. The "acting" here is actually better than in many of the videos from the 80's with Phil playing the robber who shoots Mike and Steve appears as a police officer!

The three videos from the underrated Ray Wilson-era as well as the re-make of Carpet Crawlers are clearly the most expensive-looking ones standing head and shoulders over all the other videos in terms of production values. I actually enjoy the songs as well from the short-lived Ray Wilson-era. The Carpet Crawlers 1999 is probably the closest we will ever get to a reunion with Peter Gabriel, but this remix of this old classic from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is really not of much interest to fans of Gabriel-era Genesis (as its sounds so "1999"!).

Now, how should this collection be rated? Both the music and the visuals range from fantastic to rather shabby which makes rating a rather difficult matter. The videos from each album have recently been released on the bonus DVD's to the re-mastered versions of the individual albums, so if you have those CD+DVDs, this DVD collection will probably be of no interest to you. If you don't have the new re-masters, however, this DVD might indeed be of some interest to you, but really only if you are a fan and collector of the band. For someone wanting a visual representation of Genesis I would go for a live concert DVD first, like the excellent The Way We Walk DVD, for example, which features many of these same songs in better versions plus other, more progressive songs. Still, The Video Show is a fine addition to any serious Genesis fan's collection.

Having been reared on the second coming of Genesis, this is one of the most comprehensive video collections of its kind. Over 2½ hours of the Phil Collins era. Genesis fully embraced the video era, far exceeding any of their contemporaries. I simply wish this collection was in chronological order. I could have also done without the inclusion of the post-Phil Collins era. Albeit, of the three videos, "Congo" had a nice ring to it. If you are a fan of the commercial Genesis, then this collection is sure to please.

If you are a fan of Peter Gabriel, you will be sorely disappointed, since only one video (1999 version of Carpet Crawlers) had been included. I much prefer Gabriel's solo career anyhow!

Sometimes stuff sounds better 30 years on

It was a real nostalgia trip spending a Saturday night with three overpaid but well meaning lads from England. I can remember watching some of these clips in the 1980s with one of my oldest friends, a deep and complicated man I really miss. But back then we were simply party hounds into prog rock who spent many a night getting out of our minds, having long conversations, and rocking out to music and video of every stripe. Phil and the Charterhouse boys were ridiculed often then, but perhaps time can change perspective, as 30 years on some of this material feels pretty good to old ears. But back then we called most of these tracks utter crap as we sought more interesting fare.

This DVD collection uses an oddly successful tactic of going backwards chronologically rather than forwards. Almost like a concert, feed em the new stuff early when they're most pumped because the older material will have them eating from your hand anyway. I like live video much better than thematic promos, so stuff like "No Son of Mine" and "Land of Confusion" were painful. But I truly enjoyed many of the late 70s to early 80s tracks that showed the band performing the song, even if lip-synched. They were presented with decent sound quality and machine gun efficiency, no obnoxious banter or delay between the songs. So while a promos collection cannot take the place of getting a live Genesis DVD to enjoy, if you already have those and are wondering if you should add this one, I'd say why not? It is fun viewing despite not being the cream of the Charterhouse crop.

And cheers my old friend. I will miss those smoky nights till my last breath. You were such a character and you didn't play their game. You stared down this society and lived an absolute, unapologetic middle-finger response to it. Our own suburban Oscar Wilde.