Don't wait for the stations, click on this link to get out of here NOW. Calling All Crackdealers Overall Album Score: 4.0 out of 10 Oh maaaaaaan! I wanted to like this album ... I really did ... but CRAP, man! When your album is 70 minutes long and has about 10 minutes worth of ideas, it's a little bit hard! ... I am at an absolute loss for words about this! Genesis NEVER sucked this badly before! ... ARRGH!!!! I don't even want to say anything else here! Michael Rutherford and Tony Banks ... listening to this album doesn't hinder my opinion that they had talent. But, as was something that I almost always suspected of Banks, they don't have much taste! I never even thought that Phil Collins had much taste ... but he is truly missed here! Oh ... if you hadn't heard, Collins quit Genesis for good after releasing the commercially successful We Can't Dance ... and, instead of Banks and Rutherford releasing a few boring solo albums, they decided to convene in 1997 to release this piece of doodoo. There are a few nice ideas here ... a few good synth sequences ... a nice chorus or two ... but it lacked a person with sensibilities to guide them. Banks and Rutherford simply had a hard time telling right from wrong ... when too much is too much and what works and what doesn't. Calling All Station is almost an anarchic free-for-all ... and they fill this album full of lush noises in overlong songs that have so little substance and are so unimaginative that I doubt that you could even find a more effective waste of time. Overall Album Score: 4.0 out of 10 (Yes ... this is a pretty terrible album. The principle problem of it doesn't necessarily even rely on the poor quality of the songs. Most of them had well enough intentions. Its principle flaw lies in its extreme length at nearly 70 minutes. It could easily have been reduced to 40 minutes, it wouldn't have been so excruciating to have to sit through, and so it would have been less painful to listen to.) Average Song Score: 4.9 (On the bright side, I found these songs only to be dismally boring as opposed to CRAP CRAP CRAP boring.) Album Tilt: 3.0 (OOOOOOOOOH MAN! I think reason I invented this category is just to belittle those albums that totally waste your time like Calling All Stations. Some of the songs might be listenable, but it is sure as hell TOO long.) Artist Rating: 4.0 (I still have to give Genesis a little credit ... but not a lot. They're still getting penalized in the artistic realm ... but I'd definitely prefer echoey synth stuff of Phil Collins-less Genesis to the cardboard pop of The Backstreet Boys.) Track Reviews Calling All Stations 6.5/10 This sounds more like an 80s song than a 90s song! Other than that, this song has exactly what you might expect ... A lot of Banks-synths! (And it's not really too awful.) But there's also quite a bit of hard-edge Michael Rutherford guitar in here. ... Really, there's not enough of it. I really don't think this song is so awful. It does have a melody, and bits of that are intriguing. Overall, though, it is really overcooked, too lengthy, not-all-too-exciting, and it lacks imagination, but I like it a bit more than I hate it. Congo 8/10 There's a bit of creativity at the beginning of this one. I like the tribal beat and the sort of muffled chanting. This one strikes me as something that might have made it on We Can't Dance. (Heck ... listening to this, I'd a never have thought that Phil Collins left the band, actually!) After that, it turns into a more regular pop-rock song. I like the chorus, one of the instrumental interludes, and I also think that Banks made a few cool decisions with his synth powerhouse. Shipwrecked 7/10 This needs a TEENY bit more energy to it ... and some better taste in the arranging. (It's as if I'm finally beginning to realize how cool Phil Collins was!) The melody is pretty good, and I like the riff thing. But ... really ... this song is kinda boring. Sadly enough, this is one of the album's highlights! Alien Afternoon 4/10 Yeah ... The synths on the beginning of this sound like bad music that you would hear in a planetarium presentation! ... That says all I need to about the lack of imagination the guys had! Furthermore, the melody and instrumentation are ... Errffffffgggggghhhhh ... AND WHY DO I HAVE TO SIT THROUGH 8 MINUTES OF THIS???!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! Not About Us 6/10 This one might be utterly boring, but at least the melody and instrumentation seems to want to be sweet and thoughtful. Even though it's at a much shorter and nearly tolerable length (four and a half minutes), it still manages to suck quite a lot. If That's What You Need 5/10 It is clear that a lot of thought went into most of these songs ... this one has pretty nice instrumentation and whatever, but *HECK* it gets so BORING that ... arrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!! Yep ... before they went on with this, they really needed to get Phil Collins back. He's even a 2993 times better singer than WHOEVER THIS PERSON IS WITH THEIR ANNOYING SANDPAPER VOICE. The Dividing Line 3/10 This one honestly doesn't start out like it's going to be awful ... but it quickly gets boring ... AND IT'S 8 MINUTES LONG, TOO!!!!!! Please excuse me while I get married and raise a couple of kids. I'll be back. Uncertain Weather 3.5/10 Okay, on second thought, getting married and raising a couple of kids probably wasn't a good idea. My wife of 8 minutes just told me that I was "suffocating her" (I told her I would remove the pillow from her mouth, but she said that wasn't enough) and Justin, my eldest, just got back from the prom and told me that he was thinking of becoming an insurance salesman. I was thinking about dropping out of society, but before I do that, I haven't forgotten that I was in the middle of reviewing Calling All Stations by Genesis. And that brings me back here ... in front of my PC ... listening to this overlong, poo album. IS THIS EVER GOING TO END???? ... This song doesn't even have an interesting groove or riff to listen to! THIS IS JUST TERRIBLE! MY BRAIN HURTS!!!! (The fact that the chorus is loud ... a good thing ... is principally what's keeping me from giving this a zero.) It's also way too long, but at least it isn't 8 minutes. Small Talk 6/10 Whew! Well, at least this one has a nice'n'funky synth groove. After listening to about 20 minutes of some extreme excruciating crap, I have a harder time appreciating it! ... And, in all honesty, there's not a whole heck of a lot to appreciate. Personally, I'm glad that it doesn't make me want to rip my eyeballs out ... too much. There Must Be Some Other Way 2/10 Would this freaking album end already? ... This song is as tepid and boring and EIGHT MINUTES LONG as any of them. One Man's Fool 4/10 And ... as if Genesis decided that they needed to top themselves, they give us this near-9-minute CRAP FEST that I'M SO SICK OF LISTENING TO THIS CRAPHEAD ALBUM THAT I'M GOING TO GO INSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!!!!!!! I want to do something else, please!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!! NO! YOU HAVE TO SIT HERE FOR NINE MINUTES AND LISTEN TO THIS STUPID SONGGGGG!!!! I'M GOING TO KILL SOMEBODY! Calling all readers to leave a comment about this album here.

All reviews are copyrighted by Michael Lawrence. He hears bells. Don't you?