GENESIS

Its always hard when you love a band, know their material off by heart, and are personally invested to write an objective review of their material. Very few can do that, its either love (because its Genesis 'at' that time) or loathe, because they'd completely sold out. But how does it hang as an album in its own right? I remember when it was released, waiting in trepidation as I hated (and still do) Duke, and wasn't that keen on its follow up, Abacab, although rather bizarrely, as its widely disliked by Genesis fans, I preferred it to Duke. So, what did I think of this when it hit the turntable mat? If I'm honest, absolute rubbish. Cheesy poppy, synth playing, overuse of the boring drum machine, weedy 1980's recessed guitar work, and awful poptastic lyrics made it a tedious listen. It hasn't got better over time. Mama, the most beloved single of the coffee table set Genesis fans, sounds like an early Collins solo 'belter', lots of noise, not a lot of do. And it goes downhill from there.. Some people talk of a 'prog' edge. But where? There is stretching it, and then there's really stretching it to hear any even vaguely prog tinge to what is essentially classic 1980's pop. What's interesting is people's 'so what' if Genesis have gone overboard with the commercial aspect of the music. Interesting because they seem to casually forget what Genesis are capable of, and yet chose to serve up this, 'any band' 1980's dross. How can a band go from such majestic heights as Suppers Ready, Squonk, Afterglow, firth of fifth, cinema show, to turgid rubbish like 'that's all', 'Illegal Alien' ('shudder'..), 'just a job to do' and so on? Alas, this wasn't even the nadir, worse, in the form of 'Invisible Touch' and 'We can't dance' was yet to come.