TAKING IT ALL TOO HARD

I thought for a long time that "Taking It All Too Hard" was "the single that never was". I mean, a song which clearly was a very good choice to be released as a single but it never was released in that way. But I did not know that it was released as a single. But I never listened to it being played in the Radio, in comparison to two other singles released from their self-titled album from 1983 ("Mama" and "That`s All"), and I think that "Taking It All Too Hard" was not as successful as a single like those songs were.

"Taking It All Too Hard" is a ballad played with acoustic guitar, more related to Phil Collins`solo career than to Genesis`s music in style. But with the passing of time there were (and maybe still are) a lot of people who could not find differences among some songs released by Collins as a solo musician and some songs released by Genesis as a band. This song is more related in style to "In Too Deep" from their "Invisible Touch" album from 1986. Both songs also have some influences from Mike Rutherford`s guitar playing, so it is more easy to recognize this song as composed and recorded by Genesis than by Collins as soloist. It is among the best songs from their self-titled album (with "That`s All" and "It`s Gonna Get Better" being the other two) but still not being very kept in the memory of a listener like me, like most of the songs in that album. in fact, I can`t remember now if this song was released in any Hits compilation from the band. Anyway, this song was a better choice than "Illegal Alien" and "Mama", in my opinion, to be released as a single.

"Silver Rainbow", in the "B" side, is a song which also was taken from that 1983 album. It has a very good musical arrangement in the first verse of the song, with good keyboards atmospheres and some use of programmed percussion, but the rest of the song is not as interesting for my taste, having some electronic drums playing by Collins, an instrument which he used a lot in their "Invisible Touch" album.