CALLING ALL STATIONS

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.

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