Genesis - We Can't Dance

This was eventually to be Genesis's last album with Phil Collins, and I find it to be marginally more listenable than "Invisible Touch". It's relatively long, and has more strength and variety to its middle-of-the-road adult pop. Although those tedious Collins ballads are still dotted around liberally. My opinion on its massive hits is that "Jesus He Knows Me" is a strong bouncy pop tune, and its bland mocking of hypocritical TV preachers doesn't annoy. On the other hand I find "I Can't Dance" grating and repetitive, but then it usually irritates me when old rock stars try to be wittily self-deprecating about their uncoolness. And "Tell Me Why" and "Way of the World" show Collins still in his insipidly smug social-conscience mode.

But more significantly there are some robust tunes, like "No Son of Mine" and "Dreaming While You Sleep", that they sound like they've taken some care over. Both with pretty good lyrics, anguished in a soft, inoffensive sort of way. With a couple of ten-minute songs, the album shows they haven't forgotten how to compose more substantial pieces with space and dynamics. "Driving the Last Spike" tells its tale of Victorian industrial hardship sensitively. "Fading Lights" borrows a tune from their "Trick of the Tail" album to make, for a change, a ballad with a bit of power to it. Despite the big instrumental break, it's no prog rock, but good in its middle-of-the-road niche.

August 6, 2004

6 out of 10

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