ARCHIVE #2 1976-1992

This one's a very mixed bag indeed. Covering the Phil Collins- era of the band on three CD's and collecting only tracks not included on the albums, it consists of three kinds of tracks: 1) live recordings not included on Seconds Out, Three Sides Live or The Way We Walk, 2) studio outtakes from album sessions (some have appeared as B-sides or otherwise, which sadly isn't indicated in the info), 3) maxi-single versions of hits such as 'Land of Confusion' or 'I Can't Dance'. Fortunately the latter department is not big. But with these principles it's clear that this set is designed for fans of the Collins-era Genesis.

The essays are very informative about the band history during the time, with several well- known prog musicians passing by. It just annoyed me how they seem to take commercial success as proof of artistic success as well. For example: Invisible Touch is great because it had so many hits. Ouch! Another annoying thing is the total lack of logic in the running order, except that the second disc is completely live recordings. It would have been nicer to have a chronological order, for the studio material at least.

I have never been a fan for live recordings. If I have the song as the studio version, I usually don't much care about getting a live version of it. In the case of Genesis that's exactly so (but of course Seconds out is interesting for including Gabriel-era music with new lead vocalist! In this box however there are no tracks pre-dating Gabriel's departure). That's not to say these live selections wouldn't be OK, and naturally in many cases they make better listening than B- sid or left-out tracks. No surprise that I enjoyed 'Entangled' and 'Ripples' the most in the live department. Sadly the Hackett-era (76-77) offered quite a little to be collected here, studio or live.

My curiosity was mainly on the tracks I hadn't heard before. Perhaps surprisingly the most interesting ones are fusion-like instrumentals dating around Abacab (1981). 70's tracks originally appeared on Spot The Pigeon EP were not all as good as I hoped. All in all, this is a clear case of "Collectors/fans only". To those preferring Collins-era to Gabriel-era.