SECONDS OUT

It's unusual that my favorite album by a specific band would be a live album, but Seconds Out is an unusual album. Many have said this before, but what we have here is (most of) the best Gabriel/Hackett-era compositions sung by Phil Collins, with Chester Thompson replacing Collins on the drums. o state it negatively: pre-1976/1977 live performances were weaker, while post-1977 Genesis material was also weaker. To state it positively: this is the band's "sweet spot." To state it positively: this is the band's "sweet spot."

The studio albums on which these songs originated were very good - - take Foxtrot or A Trick of the Tail, for example. But almost every song on Seconds Out is better than its studio original, and none is worse. The song selection is also excellent. While I would've liked to have had "Entangled" on Seconds Out, I can't tell you what I'd remove to make room for it. And yeah, a triple album would've been been great.

Seconds Out does have some imperfections, and most are in the postproduction. The charge that's been leveled against the album from the start is that Hackett's guitar parts are too low in the mix. A couple of thoughts on this: first, the guitar parts are low in the mix, but not substantially lower than on some soundboard bootlegs from the same tour. Second, they're quite audible; their volume relative to, say, the synthesizers and other keyboards doesn't reduce the quality of the listening experience, at least for me. However, I totally get it: Hackett leaves the band during the mixing of Seconds Out, and guess whose parts wind up low in the mix?

For me, the bigger postproduction issue is the "fixed" vocal harmonies. Maybe it shouldn't, but it bugs me when I think I'm hearing two or three Phil Collinses singing at once on a "live" album. It makes me wonder what other parts were re-recorded. But compared to the overdubs on some live albums, these are mild annoyances.

In addition to some of Phil Collins's best singing (in the stead of Peter Gabriel), Seconds Out contains phenomenal drumming by Chester Thompson as the touring replacement for Collins. Collins is a very good drummer, and kudos to him for hiring an even better drummer for Genesis's live shows. Finally, I'll say that Seconds Out contains the seminal versions of two important Genesis songs: "I Know What I Like," and the band's magnum opus, "Supper's Ready."

Bottom line: as live albums go, this is a classic which I'd recommend to any fan of the genre, even those who generally dislike Phil Collins. Easily a five-star album.