When I bought the re-mixed albums recently, I stopped at Dance Into The Light and consequently never heard what Nick Davis did with Testify. Maybe it's time I gave the album another go?
YES, YOU SHOULD!
High Flying Angel alone is reason enough to get Testify's 2CDs version.
I wonder why it was not included in the album's original version.
Anyway, Testify is a good album.
Sure...next up Noel Gallagher having the same revelation?
I think the boggard goblin in question always had a psycho-sexual crush on Mr Collins, apart from envying PC for having two eyebrows while the boggard just one.
I have been comparing various Genesis compilations lately. It might be a bit nerdy but I actually like to muse about song selections and track orders. Also, Genesis is the only band I became a collector of compilations of, probably due to the fact I have long been familiar with all of their material and there's no new albums going to be made.
Sorry Schrottrocker, but you forgot to mention the Australian compilation from 1990 The Vertigo Years.
It has the same cover as Turn It On Again: Best of '81-'83 (in fact it was the other way round as Turn It On Again: Best of '81-'83 took it from The Vertigo Years) and its tracklist includes all the songs from Genesis/Shapes album (but featuring Mama and Illegal Alien in their single versions) combined with three from Abacab (the opening track that gave its name to the album, Man on the Corner and Another Record), B-Side Open Door and the live version of Misunderstanding that would also appear in the next year in Turn It On Again'81-'83.
In other words, it can be considered as Genesis/Shapes with bonus tracks, in fact this is the CD that I play when I want to listen to Genesis/Shapes, just because I prefer Illegal Alien in its integrity.
I used the term 'highbrow' meaning snob.
I could also have written 'arty-farty'.
And yes, The Spectator is nothing more than a brochure by a bunch of cultural (and functional) illiterate chattering toffs who (out of an inferiority complex) despise Middle England (or all).
Last November highbrow magazine The Spectator featured the article "Against All Odds, I've Started to Like Phil Collins".
Another Phil Collins-bashing piece of writing.
Against All Odds, I’ve Started to Like Phil Collins
(Source: The Spectator)
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
In Too Deep
Domino (both parts)
Me and Sarah Jane
Man On the Corner
Like It or Not (a quite underrated song)
Band:
'76 Concert Film stand-alone release
Match of the Day music video
Whole Lyceum'80
Whole Three Sides Live
Marquee'82
Whole Mama Tour Live
Hanover'87
Whole Wembley'87
We Can't Dance 2
Knebworth'92 official release
Collins:
Thro' These Walls music video official DVD release (one of his best videos)
Perkins'82 official DVD release
...But Seriously, The Videos official DVD release
Both Sides of the World Tour
MTV Unplugged
Whole Live and Loose
Wake Up Call music video official release
3rd Divorce album
Other Sides CD release
Remixed Sides CD release
Or Iron Maiden for whom Genesis are one of their biggest influences.
As I said previously I do not want my aim to impose my ideas on others, just to share them. I have held for a time the intuition that We Can't Dance has a connection with the Fatherhood topic and finding that We Can't Dance was going to be called at first Father+Son had left me amused.
I said We Can't Dance is the best album ever, because it is so and I do not miss any occasion to vindicate it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tony write the lyrics to Fading Lights?
I have found this:
According to Phil, in an interview with the late Geoff Parkyn for the Genesis fanclub magazine, We Can't Dance was the first album for which he had written the vocal lines for all the songs, not just the ones he wrote.
(Source: "Phil: I’m Open to Genesis Reunion With Son on Drums -- Rolling Stone Article" Thread Comment by StillCan'tDance on 19th Aug 2018)
During the bridge section of Illegal Alien (every fan's favourite song), amongst the trumpet and the car horns, Phil can be heard improvising various bits of dialogue. I've never known what he's saying, though.
He is saying some sentences in Spanish.
From what I gathered:
"Y ahora nos vamos a ir hacia América" Trans: "And now we are going to go to America"
"Y por qué nos ibamos a ir a Australia?" Trans: "And why should we have gone to Australia?"
"Nos vamos a América" Trans: "We are going to America"
English interjection: "Fuck"
"Quiero ir a los "USA"" Trans: "I want to go to the USA"
"Qué sí! Qué sí!" Trans: "YES, indeed! YES, indeed!"
Then turning back to English:
"If we are going to America, what the FUCK! Fuck! Fuck!"
I know the link is far stronger in We Can Dance than Shapes
I was just carrying on with a kind of brainstorm on some of my ideas. I am not aiming to impose my opinion on others. They were only hypotheses that I wanted to share. As I said previously I have for a long time the belief that We Can't Dance (best album ever) is about Fatherhood and Shapes is about Motherhood (in other words some kind of concept albums) and finding in this thread the other day that We Can't Dance's working title was Father+Son made a bell rung with me and got me thinking that maybe I was not the only one. That's All.
And could I forget Blood on the Rooftops?
"We always watch the Queen on Christmas Day
Won't you stay?"
Sorry I had realised later that only Genesis songs could be included.
For example I like how you've interpreted the theme of this thread and rearranged the meaning of two albums. Well done!
Thank you!
Display MoreRegarding "Shapes":
1. Mama (needless to say more).
2. Apart from Shapes, Genesis' 1983 album is also informally known as Mama or The Mama Album.
3. The soothing of It's Gonna Get Better seems to me like a return to the comfort and/or protection of a Mother. Besides there are mentions of a Sister and a Brother.
There are more connections, but I think they are quite brains-racking.
And
4. Shapes' corresponding was called The Mama Tour. But I think this was for Mama being Genesis' most successful single in England.
5. At first, Tony Smith was a bit hesitant towards Mama as he thought it was about abortion.
6. I think both Mama and It's Gonna Get Better deal with different parts of the same story with the same character as both songs warn about the dangers of "the city".
That said, people refer to bad dancing as "dad dancing" so there's another possible one for I Can't Dance...
That was another connection that I had not written yesterday (I thought I was putting too much).
Therefore:
8. Regarding I Can't Dance, there is the slang term 'Dad Dancing' for not dancing very well.
Snowbound, obviously.
And maybe Another Day in Paradise.
