YOUR OWN SPECIAL WAY

As Steve Hackett's double album Genesis Revisited II (2013) got a lot of warm response among prog fans, let's take a brief look at what was on offer in the first revisitation nearly two decades ago. I own the 2-CD called Genesis Files that contains also material from some other Hackett albums, but for the most part it naturally recycled his new versions of the GENESIS classics.

This single includes the songs 'Your Own Special Way' and 'Fountain of Salmacis'. These songs - and their versions - are almost opposing each other; the other is a polished, sleeky, AOR-ish, serene ballad sung by Paul Garrack, who was in Mike Rutherford's pop group Mike + The Mechanics. Hackett chose this Wind & Wuthering song as a gesture of respect towards Rutherford, its writer, and so Garrack was a perfect choice. This is surely one of the most commercially accessible of all songs in the Genesis Revisited albums. And as well-done as it is in the chosen style, I don't believe any prog fan likes it very much.

And the other, the powerful mini-epic originating from Nursery Cryme, is given some extra twists in this modern arrangement, sung by Hackett himself. In my opinion the modernization slightly sticks to one's ears. But quite a magnificent song it is also as this version! It's perhaps questionable how wise it was to put these very different songs into the same single. Or then it was very clever. But anyway, this falls into the "good, but non-essential" rating.