GENESIS

An old (very old) friend recently gave me his vinyl collection, which included all the Genesis albums, so I took the opportunity to listen to all those albums after Wind and Wuthering which I don't own. Looking at the reviews on here, I wasn't expecting perfection, but hey - this is Genesis, the band that made a run of 7 albums from Trespass onwards which are all at least very good and, in some cases truly excellent. And 3 of the 5 core members who made most of those albums are still there. And they self-titled it, which you wouldn't think of doing if the album was a turkey, would you? So I didn't expect it to be that bad. Well it is that bad. In fact, it's pretty dreadful. Mama is a nasty discordant mess, with Phil Collins doing his angry shouty style of vocals - indeed he does this on most tracks and it's wearing. That's All is just twee and completely forgettable. The whole second side is just awful: there's not a track which I can remember much about or would bother to listen to again; Illegal Alien may have been a big hit but it's just irritating. The last track is ironic - It's Going To Get Better: well it did indeed; the album ended and that the run out groove is probably the best bit. The drum sound throughout is horrible sounding synthesised The only redeeming features are Home by the Sea and Second Home by the Sea, which give just an inkling as to what Genesis were once capable of, being more extended, more interesting and far more carefully composed than the rest. Those 2 tracks save it from the ignominy of getting the 1 star the rest of the album deserves. That this went multi-platinum and hit no1 on the UK charts when their earlier masterpieces didn't is baffling. Avoid like the plague.