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Shipwrecked Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 12 May 2007 02:44 (A review of Calling All Stations)

"Shipwrecked" is a song by British band Genesis, appearing on their 1997 album Calling All Stations. The lyrics were written by Mike Rutherford.

The song can be classified as a break-up song. The song talks about someone who has recently broken up with their significant other, and now feels "shipwrecked", hopeless, and alone.

The album it appears on, Calling All Stations, was not very well received critically and its sales resulted in Genesis losing some worldwide commercial standing (especially in the United States, where the album was considered a failure). Consequently, Shipwrecked did not have a significant impact when released as a single. A video, however, was made for the song.

Some single versions featured acoustic versions of No Son of Mine, Lover's Leap, and Turn It On Again as b-sides.



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Congo Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 12 May 2007 02:43 (A review of Calling All Stations)

"Congo" was the debut single from the Genesis album Calling All Stations.

The song is not about the African country, but rather about two people who cannot get along with each other, leaving them to want to be rid of each other and as distant as possible. Musically, the song opens with a Caribbean drum beat while an African-style tribe is heard chanting "Congo the Congo", before the song launches into a darker guitar-driven melody. The album version features an alternative synthesizer ending that fades out, while the single version has an earlier fade-out that excludes the ending. The lyrics were penned by Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks.

The music video, directed by Howard Greenhalgh, features industrialized imagery, with the band playing in a heavily-guarded shipyard manned with slave labour. Massive water cannons are used to control uprisings, and the band is doused with water quite often throughout the video.


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Calling All Stations Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 12 May 2007 02:37 (A review of Calling All Stations)

Calling All Stations is the fifteenth (and latest) album by veteran progressive rock/pop band Genesis and was released in 1997. Recorded following Phil Collins' departure from the band in 1996, it was an attempt by bandmates Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks to continue the Genesis moniker while returning, to a certain degree, to Genesis' roots as an album-oriented band.

Vocalist Ray Wilson, who had fronted a brief but popular grunge-influenced outfit called Stiltskin, was brought on board after a lengthy auditioning period. Wilson's darker vocals were more reminiscent of Peter Gabriel than Collins. Because Wilson was not a drummer, both Nir Zidkyahu and Nick D'Virgilio (Spock's Beard) were called in to supply the necessary percussion work.

But while Calling All Stations sold well throughout Europe, it failed to find an audience in the United States, despite an elaborate publicity launch at, of all places, Cape Canaveral in Florida. Critics were derisive, and while Calling All Stations was notable for attempting to bring Genesis' progressive rock roots more to the forefront, many found the results somber and lacking the dynamics of their 1970s work, let alone the fact pop and hip hop were in vogue at the time—genres far removed from progressive rock. As a result of the slim North American sales, the American leg of the tour was canceled. Although a European tour was undertaken in 1998, Banks and Rutherford ultimately decided to relieve Wilson of his vocal duties and put Genesis on an extended hiatus, leaving Calling All Stations as Genesis' last studio release to date.

Since the album's release there has been, among some Genesis fans, a belated appreciation for Wilson's contribution to the band's history. There is agreement even among many fans who dislike this album that Wilson was a strong vocalist. Bootleg recordings of the 1998 European tour have been sought-after downloads on peer-to-peer networks, if only for the opportunity to hear Wilson's rendition of older Genesis songs like "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," "The Carpet Crawlers," and "Lover's Leap" (the opening section of "Supper's Ready").

Of the three singles excerpted from the album, only "Congo" met with a limited measure of success.

Music videos were made for "Congo", "Shipwrecked" and "Not About Us." Congo was a favourite among MTV UK, however, it had been played on America's MTV once.

The music videos "Congo" and "Shipwrecked" featured Wilson and also Rutherford, Banks and Zidkyahu playing their respective insturments. "Not About Us," however featured just Banks, Rutherford and Wilson. Unlike Congo and Shipwrecked, Banks and Rutherford were without the instruments.

Calling All Stations, which reached #2 in the UK, remains the only Genesis album to have been deleted in North America, having only reached #54 in the US in a brief chart stay.

A SACD / DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and Stereo mixes) is planned for release in September 2007.

A total of seven previously unreleased songs were included on the single releases as B-sides. Fans have noted that the B-sides were probably the strongest songs recorded with Wilson and some fans have suggested that Calling All Stations could have been made into a well put double album set. One other song recorded at the time, "Nowhere Else to Turn", was never officially released anywhere.




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Hold On My Heart Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:22 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"Hold On My Heart" is a 1992 single by rock band Genesis. It was released as the third single from their 1991 album We Can't Dance. The song proved to be very successful in both the UK and the U.S. reaching number 16 on the official UK Top 75 singes chart and number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The music video shows the band playing at an empty night club.



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Dreaming While You Sleep Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:21 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"Dreaming While You Sleep" is a song by the pop rock band Genesis. It is the sixth track on their album We Can't Dance, their last with Phil Collins.

The lyrics of the song were written by bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford. They are about someone who was driving on a rainy night and was falling asleep, and ran over a woman that was crossing the street because he couldn't see her. The driver didn't stop to see what he had done, and after the notice was heard on the radio and appeared on TV, the thought of what he had done began haunting him.

"Dreaming While You Sleep" was performed live during the 1992 "The Way We Walk" tour. A live version of the song can be found on the second disc of the boxed set Genesis Archive 2: 1976-1992. The performance was recorded in early November 1992, at one of the six sold out shows the band had at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre.



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I Can't Dance Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:20 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"I Can't Dance" is the fourth track from the Genesis album We Can't Dance and was the second single from the album (No Son of Mine being the first). The song peaked at #7 in both the US and the UK. The video to this song is a humorous one, creating the "I Can't Dance dance" (a series of stiff, stylized motions) and illustrating the artifice and fake glamour of television commercials.

Phil Collins himself said that the video was designed to make fun of the models in jeans commercials, and each verse refers to the things that the models in these commercials do. Speaking about the models, he specifically said, "...they can't dance."

The single's B-side, "On the Shoreline", was included on the boxed set Genesis Archive 2: 1976-1992, released in 2000.

Single releases contained an extended remix entitled the "Sex Mix". This was later released on the Genesis Archive 2: 1976-1992 box set retitled as the "12" Mix". The remixers were brothers Howard Gray and Trevor Gray of Apollo 440.

The B-side, "On the Shoreline", was also included on Genesis Archive 2: 1976-1992. The song samples the guitar of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" and from another track from We Can't Dance, "No Son of Mine", on the introduction.




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Driving The Last Spike Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:17 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"Driving The Last Spike" is the third track on the Genesis album We Can't Dance. The song is about the railroad workers of the 1800s, many of whom died making Britain's railways. The song narrates the thoughts and feelings of an unnamed railroad worker in the form of a soliloquy or internal monologue. The title is a phrase meaning the completion of a major railroad project - placing the 'last spike' is often a momentous occasion.

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Jesus He Knows Me Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:16 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"Jesus He Knows Me" is the second track from Genesis album We Can't Dance.

The song is a protest against televangelism, released in a period when several televangelists such as Robert Tilton were under investigation for promising financial success to their listeners, provided they sent money to them. The video features Phil Collins as an unscrupulous televangelist who lives like a millionaire thanks to donations from his followers. The satirical/comedic video also features fellow band members Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford as fellow evangelists.

As a footnote, Collins's character in this video bears some resemblance to his role of Phil Mayhew, a low-brow con artist eventually dabbling in televangelism from the 1985 Miami Vice episode, Phil the Shill.

Some versions of the single included a Ben Liebrand remix of "I Can't Dance".

In the music video (before the second chorus, at 2:38) you can see people holding a sign reading "Genesis 3:25", referring not to the Bible but to the fact that the band had three members, and the band had been together for twenty-five years (the band formed in 1967, the video was filmed in 1992 -- although only Banks and Rutherford had been in the band since the beginning.) Some observers, not understanding this reference, believed the sign to be an error, as the third chapter of the book of Genesis only has 24 verses.



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No Son Of Mine Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:13 (A review of We Can't Dance)

"No Son of Mine" is the first single by the British rock group Genesis from their 1991 album We Can't Dance, which reached #6 in the UK and #12 in the US.

The song's lyrics tell the story of a boy who runs away from home, and -- after some reconsideration -- attempts to return, only to be rebuked by his father. The video for this song was particularly dreary, illustrating the scene in black and white.

The radio edit fades out the song's extended outro about a minute earlier; however, the music video uses the unedited album version regardless.

The single included the 8th track from We Can't Dance, "Living Forever", as the B-side.


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We Can't Dance Review:

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 10 May 2007 07:12 (A review of We Can't Dance)

We Can't Dance is the fourteenth studio album by Genesis, recorded and released in 1991. It was their last studio album featuring vocalist/drummer Phil Collins, who would leave Genesis amicably in 1996 to concentrate on his solo career.

We Can't Dance was Genesis' first studio album in five years, following the international success of Invisible Touch in 1986. We Can't Dance reached #1 in the UK and #4 in the US, selling several million copies (including 4 million in the US alone).

The album also spawned several hit singles, including "No Son of Mine" , "Hold on My Heart", "I Can't Dance" and "Jesus He Knows Me", the latter two supported by humorous videos.

Following the release of the album, Genesis would spend the majority of 1992 on the road, promoting We Can't Dance on a popular worldwide tour with sold out arenas and stadiums (where they mostly played on the US leg of the tour), providing fans a chance to see the band before Collins departed before the recording of Calling All Stations.

While there were nods to the band's creative past, this album is in many ways a 'kinder, gentler' version of Invisible Touch. By the time it was released, five years had elapsed from when Genesis' sound seemed to capture the feel of a crucial part of the late 80's. While a song like "Driving the Last Spike" does have some of the long-form feel of the older works, it certainly does so via an 'easy listening' production style, and while a song like "No Son of Mine" was a radio hit, it managed to sound much more like a Collins solo song. The only song which truly evokes Genesis' past is the long form "Fading Lights", a song which sounds more ethereal than 'easy listening' and finds room for the traditional Genesis keyboard solo. Elegiac yet dramatic, this song seems a farewell ode to Genesis' past.

A SACD / DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and Stereo mixes) is planned for release in June/July 2007.





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