ARCHIVE 1967-1975

Genesis Archive 1967-1975 is an interesting set. We get a (relatively) complete live rendition of the Lamb, as well as outakes from the first album sessions. Finally, we also receive the missing Supper's Ready (from the original Live album), other live bits with Peter, as well as the few B-sides Twighlight Alehouse and Happy the Man and the short version on the Italian compilation Rock Theatre of Watcher of the Skies.

The bad news with this is that Gabriel and Hackett didn't care for some of their work on the live Lamb set, so they re-recorded their parts, partly because Peter's vocals could not be heard because of some of the costumes he wore (can you say Slipperman?) or due to injury (Steve's broken hand). I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but I am disappointed, because what we have is not authentic. On top of that, they used a version of It from the studio instead of the one from the concert.

Even though I have all of Genesis's recordings, i have never cared for their first album, so CD 4 is just a loss for me - not there aren't some interesting moments (there are a few) but the rest is too tedious for me to listen to to get there.

SO...what do we have altogether? Disc one and two are live (mostly) but manipulated. Disc three is live and rare tracks, and disc four is outtakes from the first album. The set, for me, gets only three stars, and the majority of that is for disc three alone.