Looking to make a quick buck when Genesis reunited for a hugely profitable tour in 2007, Atlantic slapped together a two-disc edition of 1999\u2019s superb Turn It On Again<\/i> collection, with remastered sound and an altered running order. Problem is, not only was this unnecessary, it proves to be a puzzling listen to casual fans and an infuriating one for longtime fans. <\/p>\n
The original Turn It On Again <\/i>was one disc that simply collected all of the big Genesis hits from 1979-1991, the years that the band was a trio led by Phil Collins, the years that resulted in the band going pop and racking up huge sales and hits left and right. It was a radical departure from the Peter Gabriel-led art-rock days, but despite the synthesizers and what seemed to be simplification of approach, the three remaining guys retained their songwriting ability and arty outer edges and achieved the success they deserved. <\/p>\n
So, the new fans who came on board around the time of Duke <\/i>wanted one disc with all the huge hits (\u201cMisunderstanding,\u201d \u201cTurn It On Again,\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s All,\u201d \u201cInvisible Touch,\u201d \u201cLand Of Confusion,\u201d \u201cNo Son Of Mine,\u201d \u201cI Can\u2019t Dance,\u201d \u201cTonight Tonight Tonight,\u201d \u201cThrowing It All Away,\u201d and so forth), and that\u2019s what Turn It On Again <\/i>delivers. Moreover, when the band reunited to tour in 2007, it was a given they would play pretty much all of those songs anyway, making a \u201ctour edition\u201d of the album unnecessary save for upgraded sound and, perhaps, whatever surprise songs were tossed into the mix.<\/p>\n
That is not <\/i>what this is, though. Disc 1 of this collection is pretty much the original Turn It On Again<\/i>, but made worse by getting rid of \u201cFollow You, Follow Me,\u201d \u201cMisunderstanding,\u201d the Collins-less \u201cCongo\u201d and the Gabriel-era oddity \u201cI Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)\u201d and moving them to Disc 2. In their place are the truly awful \u201cIllegal Alien,\u201d surely the second-worst Genesis song of all time, and \u201cTell Me Why,\u201d a solid song from We Can\u2019t Dance<\/i>. \u201cTonight Tonight Tonight\u201d is thankfully presented in its full-length version instead of the more popular single edit, although \u201cAbacab\u201d remains in edited form, not that many people will care.<\/p>\n
The second disc has those aforementioned songs plus \u201cDuchess\u201d and \u201cAfterglow,\u201d which were played on the tour and are necessary to tell the story of this era of the band. But then\u2026it gets weird. To round out the collection, Atlantic evidently decided to round up every old Genesis single and then have a blindfolded intern pick a bunch of songs from the band\u2019s back catalog. Oh, and they forget to add \u201cRipples,\u201d which was <\/i>played on the tour and is one of the best Collins-era songs ever.<\/p>\n
You may think I\u2019m joking. Consider: The second disc includes \u201cKeep It Dark\u201d and \u201cMan On The Corner\u201d from Abacab<\/i>. The latter one could understand, but \u201cKeep It Dark\u201d does not need anthologizing in any capacity. \u201cPaperlate\u201d from the 3×3 <\/i>EP is here too. \u201cMany Too Many\u201d makes an appearance from \u2026and then there were three<\/i>, and don\u2019t ask me why. I could see why \u201cYour Own Special Way\u201d from Wind And Wuthering <\/i>is here, but why \u201cA Trick Of The Tail\u201d from the album of the same name over \u201cRipples\u201d or \u201cEntangled?\u201d <\/p>\n
Oh, it gets better. Two songs from the three-song 1977 Spot The Pigeon <\/i>EP show up, the moody story-song \u201cInside and Out\u201d and the very goofy, very British \u201cPigeons,\u201d songs that only true fans know about from purchasing box sets or following the band back in the late \u201870s. To close the disc, two Gabriel-era singles are included, \u201cCounting Out Time\u201d (from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway<\/i>) and \u201cHappy The Man\u201d (from the Nursery Cryme <\/i>sessions, never released on an album). In keeping with the theme of ineptitude, \u201cIn The Cage\u201d from Lamb <\/i>is not here, even though Collins sings the hell out of it on the tour; it is one of the few Gabriel-era songs that survived, and rightly so. Foxtrot <\/i>and Nursery Cryme <\/i>are overlooked completely, but \u201cThe Knife\u201d (from 1970\u2019s Trespass<\/i>) is here as a reminder of the band\u2019s very early days on Trespass<\/i>, and it is so different and raw and cool from, say, \u201cIn Too Deep\u201d that casual listeners will think it\u2019s a completely different band.<\/p>\n
In a way, it was, but the far better triple-disc Platinum Collection <\/i>was much more evolved in telling a story (albeit in reverse order) and presenting the songs that all fans of the band could agree on, for the most part, as being representative. If you\u2019re looking for an overview of all Genesis, that\u2019s the place to start. If you only want the big radio hits from the Pop Years, stick with the original single-disc Turn It On Again<\/i>, and if you want the actual tour edition, locate Live Over Europe<\/i> or the When In Rome <\/i>DVD. <\/p>\n
Put simply, there is no need for a haphazard collection that appeals to nobody in the Genesis catalog. The wonderful original albums, the two Archive <\/i>box sets, and the aforementioned collections do the job nicely. This is just an attempt to cash in during a lucrative tour, and Atlantic should have known better than to treat a venerated catalog of music with such disdain\u2026and for thinking anybody ever needed to hear \u201cIllegal Alien\u201d again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5883],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-44587","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-genesis","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44587"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44587"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}