 Genesis Like the mindless automaton that Phil Collins thinks I am, I hopped down to my local record store gleefully to purchase Turn It On Again – The Hits, at the somewhat reasonable price of $12.99. My CD burner has been misbehaving more and more these days, and I felt it would be a hell of a lot easier just to plop the $13 down than waste 4 hours, 5 blank CDs, and 567 TrackWriter/Buffer Errors to create my own superior compilation. Upon first glance at The Hits, I questioned my authenticity as a Genesis fan, since I had lost touch with what Phil considers to be a great song about 5-6 years ago. There were many notable omissions, which led me to wonder if there would be a Joni Mitchell-styled follow up, Turn It Off Again – The Misses coming down their prostituted pop pipeline. Despite the absence of many of my favorite AOR radio-friendly songs (like "No Reply At All," "Man on the Corner," "Home By The Sea," "Paperlate," "Illegal Alien," "Just A Job To Do," "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway") or their equally great lesser-known great songs (like "Dodo/Lurker," "Your Own Special Way," "In The Cage," "Cinema Show," "It," "Watcher of the Skies," "The Musical Box," "Dance On A Volcano," "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight," "Firth of Fifth," "Driving the Last Spike" … sorry, fan overload), the album is still mildly listenable. One credit you have to bestow upon the occasionally dysfunctional Genesis family, is their unusual (or in their later years, quite usual) pop sensibility, and it definitely runs through this collection. A reasonable number of songs here, like "Invisible Touch" and "Land of Confusion," reflexively make me nauseous, mainly because of radio's inevitable willingness to embrace their razor-sharp hooks. And for the record, the Collins dentist office background music like "Hold On My Heart" and "In Too Deep" might make me want more anesthesia, but great songs still produce their nitrous joy. "Turn It On Again" is a fantastic song, except if you're trying to figure out the "I … I … I …" part, which is an absolute pain to teach your garage band. "Mama" actually scared me the first time I saw the video on MTV, but its soundscape is still a cool place to revisit. "I Can't Dance" makes me wish I could, so I could get out of the house and find out what it's like away from my computer, listening to songs I don't love. "Follow You, Follow Me" is a phenomenal nostalgia trip back to late 70s radio … riding around for groceries with mom, and hoping McCartney's "With A Little Luck" would be on next. An absolutely wonderful pop song top to bottom. An interesting twist was the inclusion of the "disappearing band member" version of "Abacab," drawn from the single edit (which bypasses the cool jungle jam that ends the song on most album rock stations) for a tidy 4:12 conclusion. "I Know What I Like," the oldest song included oon the compilation, hearkens to a creatively bright era when Peter Gabriel was still too cool to record a piece of crap like "Steam." "No Son of Mine," which I recall not liking too much in its first go-round, actually charms me during its appearance here, for whatever reason. Next up is the "Michelob® Presents Genesis™" performing "Tonight Tonight Tonight" … unfortunately, I hit the skip button faster than you can say "Be Gone Be Gone Be Gone," because this song was hateable "Yesterday Yesterday Yesterday" and will continue to be "Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow." I nominate this one for an improbably Fox Network reality special addressing the serious issue "When Album Filler Tracks Become Hits!" Genesis's last (or is it current?) lead singer Ray Wilson makes his lone appearance on "Congo," which isn't bad, despite some Sammy Hagar-influenced lyrics that could have (and should have) been better written by a grade school music class, or the Kids of Widney High. "Jesus He Knows Me" made me cringe the first time I heard it, and like the aforementioned "Congo" would really kick ass with better lyrical subject matter. "That's All" is a great song that everyone in America but me is probably sick of. What really stands out, in this song we all take for granted, is the incredible engineering on Geneses recordings. The bass drum sound of "That's All" is fabulously crisp, rare for Collins, whose trademark drum sound is so heavily gated that it usually sounds like he's playing in a well. "Misunderstanding" is another great Genesis standard, which despite its overexposure shows some clever hitmaking prowess. "Throwing It All Away" brings the old material to a close, and it's not dreadful, but it's about as fresh sounding as someone saying "Gag Me With A Spoon." Hm…maybe that would be fresh these days, actually. Last up is the true shining moment of the compilation, "The Carpet Crawlers 1999," which violates every traditional greatest hits philosophy, leaving us hoping for a reunion of Genesis's classic 5-piece lineup. Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, and Tony Banks miraculously held their football stadium-sized egos in check long enough to remake an already good song from Lamb Lies Down, with the equally egotistical Trevor Horn producing. Somehow, someway, it all clicks, and kicks an enormous amount of ass, making an old song sound new, fresh, and exciting. Considering all of their respective solo careers have long sucked pterodactyl eggs, I see a lightbulb flashing above the greedy corporate heads of Atlantic Records … and in this case I'm 100% with them. Of course it will never happen. But at least the triumphant encore of Turn It On Again – The Hits is a strong testament, suggesting that it's time to reopen the dusty old book that is Genesis, despite their Methuselah-like age.
Review by Casey Blick |