Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Mama
2. That's All
3. Home By The Sea
4. Second Home By The Sea
5. Illegal Alien
6. Taking It All Too Hard
7. Just A Job To Do
8. Silver Rainbow
9. It's Gonna Get Better
10. Mama
11. That's All
12. Home By The Sea
13. Second Home By The Sea
14. Illegal Alien
15. Taking It All Too Hard
16. Just A Job To Do
17. Silver Rainbow
18. It's Gonna Get Better

Disc 2:

1. Mama
2. That's All
3. Home By The Sea
4. Second Home By The Sea
5. Illegal Alien
6. Taking It All Too Hard
7. Just A Job To Do
8. Silver Rainbow
9. It's Gonna Get Better
10. Mama
11. That's All
12. Home By The Sea
13. Second Home By The Sea
14. Illegal Alien
15. Taking It All Too Hard
16. Just A Job To Do
17. Silver Rainbow
18. It's Gonna Get Better
19. Mama
20. That's All
21. Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea
22. Illegal Alien
23. Genesis Reissues Interview 2007
24. Mama Tour Rehearsal 1983

Disc 3:

1. Invisible Touch
2. Tonight Tonight Tonight
3. Land Of Confusion
4. In Too Deep
5. Anything She Does
6. Domino
7. Throwing It All Away
8. Brazilian
9. Invisible Touch
10. Tonight Tonight Tonight
11. Land Of Confusion
12. In Too Deep
13. Anything She Does
14. Domino
15. Throwing It All Away
16. Brazilian

Disc 4:

1. Invisible Touch
2. Tonight Tonight Tonight
3. Land Of Confusion
4. In Too Deep
5. Anything She Does
6. Domino
7. Throwing It All Away
8. Brazilian
9. Invisible Touch
10. Tonight Tonight Tonight
11. Land Of Confusion
12. In Too Deep
13. Anything She Does
14. Domino
15. Throwing It All Away
16. Brazilian
17. Invisible Touch
18. Tonight Tonight Tonight
19. Land Of Confusion
20. In Too Deep
21. Anything She Does
22. Invisible Touch Reissues Interview 2007
23. Tour Documentary (Visible Touch) 1986
24. Behind The Scenes Land Of Confusion
25. OGWT Rock Around The Clock 1986

Disc 5:

1. No Son Of Mine
2. Jesus He Knows Me
3. Driving The Last Spike
4. I Can't Dance
5. Never A Time
6. Dreaming While You Sleep
7. Tell Me Why
8. Living Forever
9. Hold On My Heart
10. Way Of The World
11. Since I Lost You
12. Fading Lights
13. No Son Of Mine
14. Jesus He Knows Me
15. Driving The Last Spike
16. I Can't Dance
17. Never A Time
18. Dreaming While You Sleep
19. Tell Me Why
20. Living Forever
21. Hold On My Heart
22. Way Of The World
23. Since I Lost You
24. Fading Lights

Disc 6:

1. No Son Of Mine
2. Jesus He Knows Me
3. Driving The Last Spike (1)
4. I Can't Dance
5. Never A Time
6. Dreaming While You Sleep
7. Tell Me Why
8. Living Forever
9. Hold On My Heart
10. Way Of The World
11. Since I Lost You
12. Fading Lights
13. No Son Of Mine
14. Jesus He Knows Me
15. Driving The Last Spike
16. I Can't Dance
17. Never A Time
18. Dreaming While You Sleep
19. Tell Me Why
20. Living Forever
21. Hold On My Heart
22. Way Of The World
23. Since I Lost You
24. Fading Lights
25. No Son Of Mine
26. Jesus He Knows Me
27. I Can't Dance
28. Tell Me Why
29. Hold On My Heart
30. We Can't Dance Interview
31. No Admittance

Disc 7:

1. Calling All Stations
2. Congo
3. Shipwrecked
4. Alien Afternoon
5. Not About Us
6. If That's What You Need
7. Dividing Line
8. Uncertain Weather
9. Small Talk
10. There Must Be Some Other Way
11. One Man's Fool
12. Calling All Stations
13. Congo
14. Shipwrecked
15. Alien Afternoon
16. Not About Us
17. If That's What You Need
18. Dividing Line
19. Uncertain Weather
20. Small Talk
21. There Must Be Some Other Way
22. One Man's Fool

Disc 8:

1. Calling All Stations
2. Congo
3. Shipwrecked
4. Alien Afternoon
5. Not About Us
6. If That's What You Need
7. Dividing Line
8. Uncertain Weather
9. Small Talk
10. There Must Be Some Other Way
11. One Man's Fool
12. Calling All Stations
13. Congo
14. Shipwrecked
15. Alien Afternoon
16. Not About Us
17. If That's What You Need
18. Dividing Line
19. Uncertain Weather
20. Small Talk
21. There Must Be Some Other Way
22. One Man's Fool
23. Congo
24. Shipwrecked
25. Not About Us
26. Calling All Stations
27. Calling All Stations EPK 1998
28. Calling All Stations
29. Polish Television 1998

Disc 9:

1. On The Shoreline
2. Hearts On Fire
3. Do The Neurotic
4. Feeding The Fire
5. I'd Rather Be You
6. Anything Now
7. Sign Your Life Away
8. Out Of Time
9. On The Shoreline
10. Hearts On Fire
11. Do The Neurotic
12. Feeding The Fire
13. I'd Rather Be You
14. Anything Now
15. Sign Your Life Away
16. Run Out Of Time

Disc 10:

1. On The Shoreline
2. Hearts On Fire
3. Do The Neurotic
4. Feeding The Fire
5. I'd Rather Be You
6. Anything Now
7. Sign Your Life Away
8. Run Out Of Time
9. On The Shoreline (1)
10. Hearts On Fire
11. Do The Neurotic
12. Feeding The Fire
13. I'd Rather Be You
14. Anything Now
15. Sign Your Life Away
16. Run Out Of Time
17. Reissues Interview 2007
18. Archive 1976 - 1992
19. Knebworth 1993
20. MMF Awards Ceremony 2000

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11050 in Music
• Released on: 2007-10-01
• Number of discs: 10
• Formats: Hybrid SACD, Box set
• Dimensions: 2.04 pounds

Customer Reviews

Good base product, but incomplete contents and disappointing extras
- THE NEW MIXES -

I think the new 5.1 DTS mixes sound pretty good. Actually, most of those I've heard a pretty close in sound to old mixes, which I think is a good thing. I haven't heard them all yet, though. There are some changes - you'll notice things in the backing tracks which you didn't hear before, Anything Now seems to have some new effects on the intro, there even seems to be a slightly different vocal-line in 5 seconds towards the end of Since I Lost You. For some reason, there's a quite annoying high-frequent tone during the keyboard-parts of Dividing Line which is almost painful to my ear. Mike talks very warmly about the new mix of Illegal Alien which he thinks sounds amazing, but frankly, to me the song is still crap.

There's been a lot of talk about the stereo mixes being overly compressed (someone put it like this: The loud parts sound LOUD!, and the silent parts sound LOUD!). I think this, to some extent, is also true for the 5.1 mixes. They are not completely off, as someone has said, but they could have done with less also.


- BONUS DISC CONTENT -

One of my main gripes with the box-set is that it's very incomplete in the B-sides section on the bonus disc. So what, you may ask, but here's the deal: Back in 1999-2000, the band released the Archives boxsets, where they excluded a couple of B-sides from the Phil Collins Era. Fans around the world made major complaints about this, because when you're a hardcore fan and purchase a £ 50 (or as here: £ 90!) box-set, you want to have *everything* - and if the band feals that a couple of songs are below par - well, let us decide for usself.

Well, the band made up for that by including ALL the B-sides from the appropriate era on the first 5.1 Boxset, including these two tracks. One would think they had learned the lesson. But no! - this time around they exclude no less than FIVE tracks from the CAS-era, which the band has mixed fealings about. These include 4 B-sides (Banjo Man, Papa He Said, Phret and 7/8) which might not be the best they ever did, but as explained above, that's besides the point, and then one planned-to-be-A-side but unreleased track Nowhere Else To Turn. The latter is an extremely enjoyable track leaked to fans as mp3 through informal ways, and this would be the obvious opportunity to finally get this wonderful song properly released - but no, that should not be. For that, alone, I deduct one star in the rating of the box-set.


- SPECIAL EDITION BOOKLET -

The liner notes of the booklet are written by Jim Yukich. Jim who, you might say? The guy who's responsible for all the band videos from 1983-1992. But those videos are horrible?, you might say. And yes indeed, almost each and every one of these videos span the range from embarassing to boring (ok, Jesus He Knows Me was kind of humerous), so why they chose him is beyond me (ok, I have a guess, as written below, but that's just me).

Anyway, I could accept him writing the notes if he had something intelligent to say, but frankly, what he wrote mostly just *beep* me off, sorry for the language. One thing is not liking CAS, but the guy is downright hateful towards Ray and just goes on and on and ON about how poor he thinks his voice and singing capabilities are and how much better it would have been had Phil sung these songs. Give me a break! If you don't like it, just shut up please. That they actually chose this crap as liner notes for the album is a direct slap in the face of Ray, as I see it. As for the rest of it - what the hell can I use the fact that he finds Silver Rainbow to be below par to, when I just happen to love the song? And why does he go on and on and on about those damn videos - as if I cared? This is not the Video Show release, you know ...


- GENESIS EXTRA MATERIAL -

Apart from the Re-issue interviews, which are generally all extremely interesting, although a couple of them might have been a bit more specific on more songs on the albums, this disc includes the only really worthy bit of extra material in the whole boxset, which is the Mama Tour Rehearsal footage. Before anybody gets too excited, I should say that the footage is mono-cam filmed from a distance (but with pretty good picture) and that sound is like an audience recording, albeit a very good one. There are no close-ups, and light-show is a scraped-down version of what was used on the tour, but it's still quite nice. Songs included Dodo/Lurker - Carpet Crawlers - Mama - Illegal Alien - Eleventh Earl Of Mar / Ripples / Squonk / Firth Of Fifth - Man On The Corner - Who Dunnit?, totalling an hours' worth of footage. The most exciting part, obviously, is the Old Medley, here present in the rather rare form only performed once or twice on the tour featuring two verses of Eleventh Earl Of Mar and Ripples! Plus, Phil does an absolutely spine chilling vocal at the end of Firth Of Fifth. Collector value: 4/5. Btw. this footage is taken from Jim Yukich's private collection - I wonder whether it was the delivery of this, that earned him the spot for writing the liner notes?

Apart from this, there are the videos once again and the tour programmes, which are btw. not very easy to make out in detail. No sign anywhere of the Mama tour footage, however, which once again raises the demand for a live boxset! Also not included are the extended mixes of the songs Mama and It's Gonna Get Better which were released as B-side to the Mama single - obvious choices for extra material, but nowhere in sight.


- INVISIBLE TOUCH EXTRA MATERIAL -

The extra material on this disc is decidedly more mediocre. Again, the Tour Documentary makes the highlight (collector value 3/5), mostly worth seeing for the tantalizing snippets of In The Cage and Supper's Ready from the 86 tour! Yes, there IS video footage of this performance, and no, they did NOT include it in its entirety. The OGWT "Rock Around The Clock" is an interview with the band from this time (collector value 2/5) - nothing much new in this, apart from the partial video clip of a Tony Banks solo song called This Is Love. I guess you have to be more die-hard than I am to be really excited about this. Also, there's a tantalizing 2-minute or so clip of the band performing The Lady Lies at Knebworth 78, which is very nice to view - but again, we don't get the whole thing.

Then we get a behind-the-scenes feature of the Land Of Confusion video - hasn't bothered to whach yet, so will not say anything about that - and of course the videos from the area. Trie not to feel too embarassed when you watch Invisible Touch video (about which Jim Yukich proudly writes that he intended to show how much fun the guys had with each other - yuck!!!) and Anything She Does, or fall asleep of boredom when you watch Tonight, Tonight Tonight or In Too Deep video.


- WE CAN'T DANCE EXTRA MATERIAL -

Here things start to get really scanty. Apart from the mandatory videos and the nice re-issue interviews, what we get is only the No Admittance feature, which follows the band during the work on the album. Actually, the feature does have a couple of interview parts that are pretty interesting - we get some more specific oppinions on individual tracks, which is not mentioned in the new interviews - but apart from that, it's hardly groundbreaking. I wonder how many times I'll watch this ... (collector value 2/5).


- CALLING ALL STATIONS BONUS MATERIAL -

I guess the greatest boon here is the footage from Polish Television (collector value 2/5). Picture quality is very nice, although there is written POLIZCHA TELEVIZIONA or something like that across the bottom of the picture during the whole thing. The footage itself is not too rare, but nice to have it from official hand. I would have wished them to include more songs, though - Congo would have been nice, as I always liked the live arrangement a lot, and we know footage of the whole show exists. The performance of Calling All Stations from Rock Im Park is decidedly uninspired, and I don't quite understand why they didn't take the track from the polish broadcast instead.

The Re-issue interivews feature parts with Ray Wilson and Nir Zidkyahu also, which I think is a nice touch. The interviews are surprisingly frank, and it's kind of funny to compare some of the statements between the EPK from back then and the new interviews ... nough said.


- BONUS DISC EXTRA MATERIAL -

The bonus disc this time around holds some extra material as opposed to the first box-set, where the only included material was the Paperlate video besides the interviews. What we get is a selection from Knebworth 92 - not mindblowing or particularly rare, but well, it's appreciated. The Old Medley is always nice, whereas the inclusion of Home By The Sea without Second Home By The Sea is puzzling to say the least - the song simply unceremoneously cuts off about 5 seconds into the drum part of SHBTS! I actually got the impression that this was a blunder from editing, but I'm not sure, as the booklet only mentions Home By The Sea, and no Second Home. We also get Domino, which is always appreciated. The sound struck me as being not mind-blowing on this feature.

We also get the footage from MMF awards 2000 where Tony Smith is celebrated. The band does a nice acoustic performance of Invisible Touch, Follow You, Follow Me, I Can't Dance and Turn It On Again which I think was not seen before (collector value 3/5). I was never that keen on acoustic things like this, but Phil's vocal is in top shape on I Can't Dance.


- OVERALL CONCLUSIONS -

Overall, the box does what it sets out to do, to present the new mixes of the albums. I don't dare to say whether the mixes could have sounded better, but I will say they sound very good - although perhaps the improvements in terms of sound quality are for the most tracks minor, as these albums are fairly new.

In terms of extra material, I think the box falls short - not that there isn't a lot of stuff included, but frankly, there are some VERY obvious picks that they KNOW we want to see, which they did not include. This includes ALL the B-sides from CAS era, unreleased track(s) from same era, In The Cage / In That Quiet Earth / Supper's Ready video footage from the Invisible Touch tour - there IS footage of at least parts of this, so give us what you have! - and ANY video footage from the Mama tour - either in terms of a DVD version of the old Mama Tour VHS or - drools - previously unreleased footage.

The lack of Live footage here once again raises demands of a LIVE Box Set including the major Live albums of the band - Genesis Live, Seconds Out, Three Sides Live and The Way We Walk - and then including a wide range of extra live footage in video and/or audio form to fill all the gaps.

Another box of ear fatigue...
I don't understand how these remixes are getting such good reviews. Nick Davis used to do such amazing recordings. What happened? When did he become such a fan of over EQing everything? Can't everyone hear how overly EQ'd these mixes are? They simply aren't enjoyable to listen to. They're harsh and thin with a boomy low end and hollowed out midrange and clearly have inferior musical balances than the originals. I guess it's a case where people buy into believing remastered always means better even without volume matched comparisons. Remember, louder doesn't mean better.

I can take about ten minutes of these discs before my ears just start ringing and I have to shut it off. They've lost a lot of the punch and power the original mixes had. The sound of the SSL console EQ Nick used has a distinct tone. They will ring when overused. You can hear it all over this set. It should be annoying even to those whose ears haven't been trained. There's a lot of poorly chosen EQ that adds a nasal quality to the instruments. The cymbals are harsh and Phil's vocals are nasally and sound like a they're coming through a megaphone. Things sound small and jammed together.

I won't even go into detail about how much better Hugh Padgham's mixes are. Hugh is obviously a better engineer as he made Genesis sound powerful and important. Nick Davis has made them sound like a small transistor radio, albeit a very loud transistor radio.

And what's with all the compression? These heavy mixes are ridiculously inappropriate for this beautiful, emotionally dynamic music. These songs used to have dynamics, loud and soft orchestrations that built the music. Now everything is LOUD! The LOUD! parts are LOUD! and the soft parts are LOUD! That's not detail you're hearing, it's just compression.

It makes me sick to my stomach that these loud, overly EQd, overly compressed remixes are going to replace the dynamic, fuller and more artful original mixes.

Welcome to the MP3 generation where sound quality just doesn't matter as long as it's loud. I guess I should get a cheap stereo that makes everything sound bad. That way these Genesis remixes won't upset me so much.

Genesis... the George Lucas of the music world. ICK!

Stereo listeners beware
Following the last review - only buy this set if you have an SACD 5.1 surround system.

The stereo mixes are very very compressed and bright sounding, compared to the previous CD releases.
Additionally, 'We Can't Dance' was mixed just about perfectly in it's original 1991 production, but here it is squashed flat and has much less energy than before, particularly in Collins's drums.
'Genesis' and 'Invisible Touch' are less 'brittle' sounding than before (an artefact on the original early digital recordings) but these gains are more than wiped out by the over-zealous compression. They are constantly very loud, with much less dynamic variation than before - much like a DAB or FM radio broadcast. You will not bring out the best in your fine audio gear with these CDs - but the recordings may sound fine in a car or other noisey environment where a constant level is more important than dynamics.

I must reiterate this is ONLY a review of the stereo mixes (which I understand are sub-mixed down from the 5.1 mixes). If the general response from listeners is anything like the previous box set, then most people will love the 5.1 mix, a few will hate the harshly compressed stereo mix, but most will probably still like the stereo mix too (many people favour this level of compression over having a more dynamic sound).

I am in the minority that doesn't like heavily compressed music, but that's just my opinion, hence the 1 star rating.