GENESIS

Thanks to Spotify I can now finally listen to all these late-Genesis albums without having to buy them. The first post-Wind And Wuthering pick for me was the self-titled 1983 release basically because I've already heard both Mama and Home By The Sea and considered them to be great Genesis tunes. Still, nothing could prepare me for the journey in front of me!

The two (or three, depending on how you count it) tracks I did know already didn't disappoint me. Mama was actually just as good as the live performances that I've heard up to this point, while Home By The Sea was good but not on par with the live versions. Unfortunately it was pretty much a downhill slide from here on since I found many of the remaining tracks quite hideous.

I've previous seen the Illegal Alien video and although the combination of terrible video and music actually makes it so bad that it's good, the audio-only version doesn't work at all! I have previously been warned that the second part of this album is no where near the first and that was a very true statement. The only track that I managed to enjoy there was Silver Rainbow, but even that track takes quite some time to get going.

I have no idea why the band decided to release a self-titled album this far into their career since it was far from a reboot of any sort. Well at least I'm only paying my Spotify-premium fee and don't have to shell out hard earned cash on this mediocre release.

***** star songs: Mama (7:25)

**** star songs: That's All (4:23) Home By The Sea (4:52) Second Home By The Sea (6:20) Silver Rainbow (4:28)

*** star songs: Taking It All Too Hard (3:55) It's Gonna Get Better (6:25)

** star songs: Just A Job To Do (4:45)

* star songs: Illegal Alien (5:13)