GENESIS

As readers of my Genesis LP reviews will know, I am generally quite sympathetic to Collins era Genesis, and I have given five stars to some, especially Duke which I still think is a masterpiece. However, I can honestly only award two stars to this, my least favourite Genesis album, and it pains me to do so.

Banks once said that the second side was the band's weakest moment, and he is absolutely right, because if I were reviewing the first side only, I would award five stars without any hesitation.

Mama is a great single, with some genuinely dark moments backed by menacing keyboards and a thundering drum intro to the beginning of the final sequence. It has obvious Exorcist connotations, and continued the fine sequence of progressive pop singles the band were making.

Home by the Sea, and the Second.... are simply stunning prog pieces. The atmosphere created by Banks' swirling keyboards and then his main solo in the middle backed by Rutherford playing tightly with Collins huge drum machine sequence are a joy to listen to. There is not a dull moment on this first side, and listening to it for the first time, I was convinced that we had a major progressive landmark in the still relatively new decade.

Then they spoiled it by recording side two, quite the worst listening experience of my life.

I don't mind commercial music, as long as it's good commercial music, but Illegal Alien is absolutely dreadful, almost as bad as Whodunnit on the previous LP. It deserves the removal of two stars in itself, a pointless piece of whimsey dressed up as social comment - it was neither, of course.

The rest of the side, I find just rather bland. Silver Rainbow has some very pleasant moments with progressive elements, and It's gonna Get Better is a good pop song, if rather unremarkable. The damage, however, had been well and truly done by the time you got to this stage. I don't think I have listened to the second side for about ten years before putting it on tonight ahead of this review - it will be at least another ten years before I bother again.

They undoubtedly alienated many people with this LP. I am rather surprised that it gains more stars than its predecessor in the reviews thus far.

They had a lot of ground to make up with the next one.