THE PLATINUM COLLECTION

As an early fan of progressive music, I looked out for things like this. I tried to get the big collections that would give the largest scope on the classic bands, so I got In a Word by Yes, Best of by Emerson Lake & Palmer, and this. At the time I had little idea that Collins-era Genesis wasn't prog rock (I know, it's incredible), and I had an odd feeling that this wasn't what the band was all chocked up to be. As I maneuvered my way around the 3 discs of the collection, I eventually got to the third disk, which had fewer, longer tracks and a different singer (again at the time I did not know of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis). I was captivated by this newfound music, and with further research I got the whole scope of Genesis' transition from prog to pop and now look where I am, the owner of all the 70s records and the possessor of a quiet animosity towards post-1981 Genesis. This collection, while overall pretty pointless, did that for me and gave me a large scope of the band's musical imprint.

As a compilation, all the music has already been heard by countless people and has been reviewed by hundreds and hundreds of people, so me reviewing the tracks here as well would be wonderfully arbitrary. What I can say is that this is easily the most inclusive collection the band has released yet, reviewing every studio the band has released excluding the band's debut. The album shows the degeneration of a progressive rock classic in reverse order, either to build suspense for the best part (disc 3 - Peter Gabriel's material) or to appeal to the pop fans and put the good stuff at the end to hope they don't notice. Overall, however, the pop does overshadow the prog, with a solid 31 tracks on discs 1 and 2 (mainly the pop era except the few tracks tributing Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering) to 9 tracks on disc 3 (understandably, seeing as nearly all the songs are 8+ minutes). Sadly none of the standard PA ratings definitions apply here. I'll say this: this is good for someone who wants an all inclusive view of Genesis without getting any of the studio albums preliminarily. 2- stars.

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