CALLING ALL STATIONS

Pop rock. The most populated genre of them all. The music scene is overpopulated with pop rock bands. These days, it cost next to nothing to record and release a CD on an indiependent label. The lucky ones even get to play a pub or a club. Mostly working men clubs in England. A dying scene, that is with the introduction of the smoking law which means you have to go out in the bitterly cold rain to smoke cigarettes. That scene is dying and so is the chances for a band to shift out a run of 1000 album (minimum run of a CD). So when a band produce a run of 1000 CDs, they normally ends up with a surplus stock of 950 CDs. Believe me; that is a solid physical volume of unwanted stock which takes up too much space.

Why this disaster ? Most bands cannot write a good song which someone else likes. They believe their songs are great, but the great public avoids the albums like the plague itself. Ditto for the reviewers in the magazines and newspapers. The bands ships out the CDs, but does not get any reviews. The reason is that most reviewers could not be bothered to listen to and reviewing sub standard amateur pop rock albums. Even the pirate websites in Russia and everywhere else avoids these albums like the plague. It is safe to say that this is the least pirated scene in the music world.

All this relates to the final Genesis album Calling All Stations. This album is indeed a pop rock album bereft of any good songs or any decent melody lines. It sold and it sold well on the Genesis name alone. Mostly because the fans wanted to witness this train crash first hand.

The music here is generic pop rock with power ballads vocals from Ray Wilson. I have no issues with his vocals. He is just passenger on this crashed train. And it is a very ugly train crash too. There is nothing here an amateur pop rock could had done worse or better. This is an album all reviewer would had avoided as it was embalmed in putrid acid. The music is horrible, in short.

1 star