GENESIS

The way Gabriel's mellow vocals in the intro of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" transcend into Hackett's energetic ripping guitar licks from get things off to a phenomenal start and they never dull from that moment on. The rest of the first track is full of inspiring eclectic snyth melodies from Banks

"I Know What I Like (I Your Wardrobe) is easily the most accessible track on the album with its warming, poppy qualities. It oozes pure summer sunshine and provides a contextual cue for the innocence of childhood. Additionally, fabulous vocal melody.

"Firth of Fifth" demonstrates Banks' incredible piano and synth skills, played with ever alternating time signatures forming a rhythmically complex piece. When fused with Gabriel's flute and an incredible guitar solo from Hackett, this song has to be considered a milestone in symphonic rock.

"More Fool Me" for me is the weakest song on the album for a few reasons. Firstly, Collins takes lead vocals, not Gabriel. Although it does break up the album nicely, I do find it myself skipping it every other time I listen.

"The Battle of Epping Forest" is nothing other than a piece of art. The lyrics and vocal performance are extraordinary. You generally feel like you get to know the various characters described in the battle. The music is extremely beautiful, in particular the acoustic section with the lyrics "they called me the reverend..." The bass and synths are the real stars of the show in this as they layer over each other into a stunning musical fabric.

"After the Ordeal" demonstrates effective use of a nylon stringed guitar played with impeccable finger picking technique combine with piano. Hackett produces a resoundingly smooth electric guitar solo in the second half of the track.

"The Cinema Show" is utterly immense. "Na na na" vocals and beautifully melodic and bending guitars are absolutely sublime, Just listen to it.

"Aisle of Plenty" could not be a better way to round of this unbelievable recording. Incredible lyrical references to British culture which begin in the opening track are continued. "Take the safeway home" and "Thankful for her fine fair discount, Tess cooperates" are genius.

Overall, this album captures everything I love about progressive rock in 53 minutes. Unbeatable.

Recorded before 'Selling England', this live album sees Genesis play their (to that point) best tunes on stage (excepting Suppers Ready, but that would appear on a later live album), and do a good job at them. The arrangements stick pretty closely to the studio versions, although the solos deviate slightly (mostly on "The Knife"). The performances are good, and the sound quality is decent (for the time, though not nearly as good as live albums these days), making this a worthy document of the early Genesis live on stage. They play pieces "Get 'em Out By Friday" and "Giant Hogweed" with gusto. And I like the live versions here of both "The Musical Box" and "The Knife" slightly better than the studio album versions. On the whole, a good 'greatest hits live' album. But nothing necessarily spectacular or sufficiently different or special that would make this an 'essential' album. I give it 8.2 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 4 PA stars.

No doubt about it, this is their most musical album. The album is brilliant. Genesis had learned from their earlier travails how to stitch together quite different passages, and they apply that perfectly on this album. It flows so beautifully, and although it changes direction and feel very often, those transitions seem totally natural here. Every track works very well. Even the short Phil Collins acoustic number, "More Fool Me", the clear outlier (musically and otherwise) seems to fit naturally into this order. The Selling England theme - a guitar-based theme that first appears on the opener "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" and closes the album at the end of "Cinema Show/Aisle of Plenty" - seems to hold the album together emotionally and musically. This album contains some of Genesis best compositions, including the aformentioned "Dancing..", the quirky but very musical single "I know What I like", the wonderful "Firth of Fourth" (with lovely flute and then guitar solos), and "The Battle of Epping Forest" which sees Gabriel once again take up a number of different character roles in an English tale of a priest and warring gangs. Those are all amazing, and they showcase each member of Genesis (Tony Banks' wonderful piano solo at the beginning of Firth of Fourth, and brilliant playing in "Battle..", Steve Hackett's awesome fast guitar picking, etc). But the closer goes one step further. Not only is "The Cinema Show" a great song, but this was the tune that cemented the reputation of Phil Collins as a brilliant drummer. That Genesis (and particularly Collins) could play such beautiful music so effortlessly over such complex difficult time signatures (without most lay people ever noticing how complex and difficult they were) instantly woke up any musicians listening to this album. One of the early musical wonders of the world. I could go on here, but I think the other reviewers have probably said everything else there is to say. I give this album 9.7 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which (of course) translates to 5 PA stars. Absolutely essential.

This album gets very high reviews, and as a Genesis fan, I am glad about that. However, I don't put this album in the same league as Selling England or Foxtrot. Nursery Cryme is a natural evolution from Trespass, which although it has two great tracks, saw Genesis stretching to find their voice, and in the process making a number of the compositions sound forced. Nursery Cryme is better than Trespass, good enough to garner four stars, but just enough. Like Trespass I find some of the transitions (between themes within the same song) still under-worked out and awkward (and thus, less musical), including the shifts from quiet to loud, which can be quite jarring. This is most notable on "The Musical Box". Even though it is a decent song, with some great passages, the transitions and some of the lyrics seem immature and the way the different sections are knitted together is not so musical (unlike "Suppers Ready" on Foxtrot, which manages the flow wonderfully). For me there are really (just like Trespass) two great tracks here: "Fountain of Salmacis" and the amazing "Return of the Giant Hogweed". These are the two compositions for which the music flows most naturally, and which push this album into four-star territory. There are a few other shorter pieces here too, which are mostly forgettable ("Harold the Barrel" is the best of those, a short burst of fun). On balance, I give this album 7.9 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which is the minimum required to achieve a 4 PA star rating. So, low 4 stars.

For their second album, Genesis jettisoned the short songs, and started to compose symphonic rock songs. It was all very new and experimental, and Genesis was one of the first. And as the first to experiment in this field, they suffered some failures. This album is thus a mix of early successes and failures. First the successes. The opening track "Looking for Someone" is wonderful, a template for how to mix emotional heartfelt vocals with music that twists and turns, and which combined the best of classical and rock. This would influence the way they successfully shaped a number of their more tender and emotional compositions in the future. Meanwhile, the closer, "The Knife", shows how they can incorporate a harder edge, with fast tempos and complex time signatures into compelling extended epics. Those are the two great tunes. The rest of the album, I place in the category of failures, although I don't want to imply that there is nothing in them worth listening to. There are indeed some great passages amongst those tracks (in all of them, particularly 'Stagnation'). However, the transitions are often awkward and unsatisfying, and the songs move from musical to unmusical (and back) to often. Many of the tunes sound underdeveloped and immature compared to their later work (but of course, remember this is a Genesis album - underdeveloped early Genesis is generally better than most finished and mature mainstream rock!). Saying this, I don't think Genesis could have made their greats without first going through this period of experimentation, so I am still very happy they made this album. On balance, I give this album 6.8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to mid 3 PA stars.

Their first album sounds a lot different from the lengthy thundering epics Genesis would produce as early as their second album (Trespass). Here the songs are shorter and structured more like (then-) mainstream radio tunes. Genesis made this album when they were very young (just after writing their 'A' levels!) without having ever toured, often coming up with the songs in the studio. Their chops are not yet developed, and the songs are not in any way complex. However, they have a charm to them. Gabriel and Anthony Phillips are the members who stand out the most on this recording, as the main singers, guitar players (many of the songs are structured around acoustic guitars) and songwriters, although Rutherford and Banks also helped compose some of the tunes. I actually think this album is more successful (on its own terms) than Trespass. Even though that second album is a lot more ambitious, with more complex progressive compositions, there are also a number of sections on that album which are just not sufficiently musical. But on "Revelation" every song is quite pleasant and listenable, even if some of the songs are somewhat forgettable. But there are also a number of very memorable songs. I think the opener, "Where the Sour Turns to Sweet" is a fantastic song. It has so much potential as a song - I still come back to this song often. But the rest of the album contains a lot of great songs too, including "In the beginning", "Am I very wrong?", "Silent Sun", and the wonderful closer, "A Place to Call my Own". The album in imbued with a great vibe. It is not four-star material, though, but one can hear the song-writing talent bubbling under the surface here. I give this album 6.8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which is the same I give to Trespass, placing this in the mid 3 PA stars realm.

Genesis is one of those bands that we all love (I think) but that divide opinions between the Gabriel-era versus Collins-era. Most of all enjoy their studio albums, some of them are timeless, some others are memorable and some others just good, in my opinion there are no bad Genesis studio albums, but it is just a matter of tastes.

A couple of years ago this 3-cd compilation album was released and though it was not my intention to immediately get it, I was lucky to found it in a ver cheap price, so yeah, I decided to buy it. Since then, I've just opened and listened to it once and that was enough, because I will always prefer listening to full studio albums than hits or randomly chosen tracks. But I had a good time, that's for sure. CD one features some of their real greatest tunes (Gabriel-era, of course) such as "Supper's Ready", "The Musical Box" or "The Carpet Crawlers", to name a few, which are of course, a true delight. This first CD has "Ace of Wands" as last song, a surprise because it is the first non-Genesis track featured here, this is an amazing song taken from Steve Hackett's debut album. This CD covers from 1970 to 1975.

CD two offers a wider selection, covering from 1976 to 1975. The difference here is the addition of several solo-songs, such as Banks' "For a While", Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill", Collins' "In The Air Tonight" or "Silently Running" from Rutherford's side project Mike & The Mechanics. Nice hits that most of all know and even like to sing, despite no being the prog we were used to listen in the earlier Genesis. The other tracks in this album are the Genesis ones from the Collins-era, some of them you perfectly know them, love them or hate them, such as "Mama", "Easy Lover" or "Turn it On Again". Let me tell you that I enjoyed listening to every of the albums, but that was a experience I wanted to enjoy just once.

The third and final CD has songs from 1996 to 2012. Some Genesis songs here are "Invisible Touch", "Land of Confusion" and "I Can't Dance". The rest of the tracks were taken from the member's side or solo projects such as: "Over My Shoulder" from Mike & The Mechanics, "Signal to Noise" from Peter Gabriel, "Nomads" from Steve Hackett or "Siren" from Tony Banks. I liked it, but this was the CD I least enjoyed compared to the previous two.

Well, this is actually for collectors, I don't even consider this as a nice introduction to Genesis' music, not at all, which I would not really recommend it unless you want to increase your CD collection. If you get it, enjoy it!