Virgin, 1986
also by Genesis:
see also... Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, Jethro Tull
This was a culmination of ten years of gradually becoming poppier and poppier. With Phil Collins firmly at the centre, this feels more like a compilation of chart singles, which it turned out to be. It's not particularly bad or annoying pop music, it's just middle-of-the-road and has little personality, especially those anodyne ballads. "Tonight Tonight Tonight" is the song whose quality stands out the most amid the blandness. It's in the same tortured, mechanistic mood as "Mama" but not nearly as exciting. "Land of Confusion" also has a fair bounce to it, and the continuous pair of "Domino" songs makes energetically enjoyable entertainment for ten minutes. The short instrumental "The Brazilian" is a light tinge of pomp-rock to distract us from the chart stuff, but it's nothing special.
August 4, 2004