Siseneg For Hire
Overall Album Score: 8.5 out of 10 As if Phil Collins decided that he needed to emerge the band out of the muck that was And Then There Were Three and Duke, he led the band into doing the more pop-oriented Abacab. And Abacab was such a success for Phil & Company that they immediately decided to put out another Abacab-like album, that is their eponymous Genesis. Now, why this band (since 1969) waited until 1983 to name an album after themselves is totally beyond me. They must have run out of cool names, like "Abacab" to whet their whistles with. So, when deciding on what to call this album, Phil stood up before the band, removed half of his clothing, and said "Oi! Why don't we just call this album Genesis?" And then Tony Banks responded "That's okay by me. But that's a strange name to call a rock album, isn't it?" And then Michael Rutherford said "I don't really think it's strange. That's what we're called, isn't it?" And Tony Banks responded "What, do people call us strange?" And then Michael Rutherford said "No. People call us Genesis." And then Tony Banks said "They do? Why do people call us that?" And then Phil Collins said "They call us Genesis because that's actually what we call ourselves." And then Tony Banks responded "Oi! I don't call myself Genesis. My name is Tony Banks!" And then Michael Rutherford said "Tony. I thought you knew. You are in a rock band called Genesis." And then Tony Banks said "I'm in a rock band?" Alright, I'm going to end that right there, because it seems to be going nowhere ... now where was I? Oh yeah ... Genesis decided to give this album their own moniker. And, heavens to Bernie, they actually made their eponymous album a good one. It's much more enjoyable than Abacab was by a long shot with better tunes, and not nearly so much semi-failed experimentation. Yep. Genesis is one of those rare pop albums to come out of the 80s that can actually be called "good." How neat. Overall Album Score: 8.5 out of 10 (This is a pretty danged solid 80s pop vehicle. The melodies are catchy enough, the production is snappy enough, and the arranging is quirky enough to make this one memorable.) Average Song Score: 8.6 (Whoah ... these are good songs. Quel la surprise.) Album Tilt: 8.5 (Pop-incarnation Genesis really outdid themselves here! They can barely hold a candle to Lamb-era Genesis, but no one hardly can!) Artist Rating: 8.5 (There are plenty of interesting sounds and moments in here to make this one a success on the artistic front. I'd never diss Philly boy, Tony man, and Mike dude and their abilities in arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.) Track Reviews Mama 8/10 Well, this track doesn't start out very promising. It's just some drum machines going off for the first three minutes and Phil Collins sings something to it that's not completely inspired or uplifting. Although, it does have some mild-enough pop hooks to keep it from getting dull. The final three minutes of this thing, however, does get more interesting as Collins gets a bit more dynamic with his singing. So... "Mama" is pretty good. I suppose. That's All 10/10 Neat! This is probably the ever-loving epitome of Genesis' pop excursions. It's a nice, catchy little ditty with some unrelenting pop hooks. The chords that we hear from the piano are very nice ... Oh yes ... "That's All" is classic. (That weird, quiet use of the electric guitar keeps this one rather interesting, too.) Home By the Sea 9/10 This one's pretty neat. It's a good old reg'lar pop song with some nicely-chosen synthesizers going off in the background to keep it all going nice. (The synthesizer-led instrumental interludes are entertaining ones, too.) There are plenty of pop-hooks that keep it from growing banal ... Yep. It ain't groundbreaking, but it's very good. Second Home By the Sea 9/10 Hmmm... Is this a sequel, I wonder? They should have called it "Home In the Sea" ... Global warming, you know ... From the beginning of this one, we can see that "Second Home By the Sea" is a quick and loud synthesizer-led tune that has a pretty entertaining robot groove to it. Oh man ... to those who barely remember the 80s, us guys'll probably recognize this as a typical old 80s theme. It's actually pretty fun to listen to ... even though it's over six minutes long ... Illegal Alien 8/10 Weird, wild and quirky! It's also clean and crisp! ... To that I say: Whoaaaah. Unfortunately, though, the general songwriting is a bit feebler when you compare it to many of the other songs on here. Oh well. Just because it's fun and quirky, that doesn't mean that it's great. I still like it. (Oh man ... some of these melody lines are as catchy as hell, though!) Taking it All Too Hard 8/10 Oh man! Genesis haven't been getting such consistently good song scores since ... since, well, the Triassic, I guess! This is another fine pop number with a neat melody ... nice instrumentation ... It could have been more dynamic, but who's really complaining? Just a Job to Do 8/10 Seriously ... why did Phil Collins ever decide to pursue a solo career? He does much cooler songs with pop-era Genesis than he was ever able to do by himself! (Although, he did win an Academy Award...) "Just a Job to Do" is another entirely pleasant, if unremarkable, pop excursion! Madonna was probably jealous of this one. Silver Rainbow 8.5/10 Mmm... I almost have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it's a bolder song and generally more well-done than many of the other tracks that appeared before this ... on the other hand, I don't find it to be quite as enjoyable. ...If it's not one thing, it's something else... It's Gonna Get Better 8.5/10 It's gonna get better? Well, this is the end of the album, isn't it, so if it's gonna get better, then isn't it already too late? Hmph! This is another entirely decent synth-led number. This one's more smooth and cool ... and not really that exciting. Although, I kinda like this one. It actually sounds sincere to me ... if you can believe that. I really think you should think up some comments about this album, and then e-mail me about them here. slb23@shaw.ca (Simon B.) received Sept. 10, 2004 I think this is my second favourite Phil Collins era pop
Genesis album. Here they do a little experimenting with different sounds
and textures: ie. the odd-timed drum pattern at the begining of "Mama",
the synth-horns on "Just a Job to Do" and the backwards synth-strings
on "It's Gonna Get Better".
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All reviews are copyrighted by Michael Lawrence. He doesn't flatulate. Never once.
