Your favorite tracks on ... "We Can't Dance"

  • On most of these polls, I have a hard time limiting myself to just 3 favorites. On this one, it's quite the opposite....I had a very hard time finding 3 to pick. In the end, I went with No Son of Mine, Jesus He Knows Me and Dreaming While You Sleep. Not trying to be difficult, but I just can't get into this album at all.

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    On most of these polls, I have a hard time limiting myself to just 3 favorites. On this one, it's quite the opposite....I had a very hard time finding 3 to pick. In the end, I went with No Son of Mine, Jesus He Knows Me and Dreaming While You Sleep. Not trying to be difficult, but I just can't get into this album at all.

    That seems to be a common theme among the fan base; that they’re split on this album. Some look at it as a rousing triumph, while others look at it as the wheels starting to fall off. I think that the album does suffer a little from CD bloat. They put everything on it, whereas if this album was released 4 or 5 years earlier on vinyl, some of those songs would have been cut or relegated to b sides. I do think they should have put On the Shoreline on the album and maybe cut a couple other tracks. Overall, it’s a solid effort from a band we all love.

  • ok, maybe rousing triumph is a little bit of an overstatement, let’s say really solid effort instead.

    I really struggle to see it as a solid effort, it's imo a quite tired, uneven, rather self complacent, end and middle of road album which is OK, considering, as someone pointed out that it was their 14th studio record. It's unlikely that an artist or a band with a 3 decade spanning career will produce their best effort at the end of their long run. I look at the ranking and the first three songs are arguably the best ones, the others have no particular relevance in the Genesis songbook, some of them are IMO. quite weak.

  • Anybody here go to the We Can’t Dance tour?How would you say it ranked say compared to the IT tour or the tour in ‘07?

    Wow, you're just going right at it there. That's a question that could raise a lot of hackles.


    I only know the IT tour (and earlier) from the videos, so I won't speak to them. For me personally though? I'd take the '07 tour over the '92 WCD Tour any day.


    I don't have any issue with the way Darryl plays the FoF solo. I actually really like his interpretation from the '92 tour and '07. Some of the earlier tours where he played it, it was too jazzy for me. And while not the way Steve plays it, Darryl does a great job with that solo. Besides, Phil, Mike, and Tony seem to be okay with how he plays it, and that's a good enough endorsement for me.


    But the whole middle section of that medley where they played 8 bars of this and 8 bars of that; that just didn't work for me. I think that sort of medley was great for the Mama and IT Tours, where it was short bits of other bands' songs. And I love the idea of hiding little bits, like they do with Stagnation. Or the instrumental medleys they've done on other tours. But the way they put in bits of their own songs that year; not my thing.


    While in general, I do like We Can't Dance as an album, I'm not a fan of either Jesus He Knows Me or Dreaming While You Sleep, so those were songs that I thought could have been replaced in the set. I know other people do like those songs though, so I'm glad they got to hear them. They played I Can't Dance on both of those tours, and again, that could could have been replaced in the sets (or removed from their catalog all together, as far as I'm concerned).


    Fading Lights was a great song to hear in '92, and while I wish they had played it again in '07, I understand not doing it. Instead, they made that the music playing as everyone left the stadium / arena, so we still got to hear it, which was nice.


    Home By The Sea they played on both tours, but at least in the recordings I've heard, they played Part 2 much faster in '92, and slowed it down again in '07. I much prefer the slower pace they took with it. I felt like it gave more weight to it. The visuals were pretty cool too, with the red lights coming up from behind the screen, leading into the guitar solo at the end. I've always felt like they could repeat that solo phrase one more time, and really take the roof off.


    In the Cage, Afterglow, Ripples, Los Endos, parts of the Duke Suite, Carpet Crawlers ... yeah, for me, it's the '07 tour over the '92 tour, and it's not even close.

  • If you swapped out Never a Time, Hold on my Heart, Way of the World and Since I lost You for On the Shoreline I think it would make for a more concise, tighter album.


    Three favourite tracks:


    Dreaming while you Sleep

    Fading Lights

    Driving the Last Spike

  • I agree with you about Never a Time, Hold on my Heart and Since I Lost You. I think they are a bit too samey (and not my speed). It does make the album feel a bit padded. I'd probably keep one for balance, Since I Lost you maybe. And I might be on of the very few that doesn't think On The Shoreline is great. It's all right, I can see why they left it off. I've seen many people say it should have been on the album but I think there are much stronger tracks on the album.


    I do love Way of the World though.

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    Since most of their albums have six, seven songs tops, which are longer and more complex, it’s going to make the album seemed more unnecessarily padded, now having 12 songs that are mostly pop. That seems to be the consensus among fans—cut three or four songs and replace them with On the Shoreline. Make the album more concise.

  • I seem to like a lot of the tracks nobody really likes on this album! I always loved Never a Time, I just think it has a beautiful melody and sound. I'm pretty fond of Way of the World and Tell Me Why too. It's really the hit singles I don't like that much. No Son of Mine is a bit stodgy and worthy. Jesus He Knows Me is a bit gimmicky. I Can't Dance is just embarrassing.


    Also never really rated Dreaming While You Sleep. Boring and gloomy. Most of the rest of the songs I love though (last spike, living forever, fading lights, hold on my heart)