Posts by Micklemus

  • Phil Collins - Going Back (album)

    Very similar here. Got it, listened to a couple of tracks and I appreciated the care that had been taken to recreate the Motown sound. However, nobody was going to match the originals, not even Phil, and his voice wasn't suited to many of the songs even if he loved them.


    It might just be me though. With the band and most of the individual members my interest in new material diminished after certain points in time. In Phil's case "Going Back" was beyond the event horizon for me.

  • The Genesis Museum: A book about collecting Genesis stuff and collectors

    Mine’s just arrived, so I’ve not read it yet. First impressions from flicking through: it’s made to last and has many pictures that I haven’t seen before in the well-known releases. However it’s about collectors and rarities, so if you’re looking for more from the band members then don’t fork out for this one. Definitely for collectors, as the title suggests.

  • TotW 09/04/2023 - 09/10/2023: GENESIS - Squonk

    Quote from thewatcher

    So I was wondering about that. I don't think I've ever had what I'd consider good hi-fi. The best quality listening I have is a pair of Sennheiser headphones but the source is digital (streaming from YouTube music, not Tidal or the other high quality sources).


    However, I just treated myself to a decent-ish turntable. Nothing crazy, a project carbon EVO. I have a serviceable pair of Elac bookshelf speakers and an integrated amp I bought when I had delusions of a home theater system (with 3 kids 10 and under 😆😆 wtf was I thinking...).


    I haven't set it up yet, but one of my first orders of business will be to stick Seconds Out on, crank it up and see if there's a big thundering bass that's been inapparent any time I've listened to date. I'm not an audiophile of any sort, I just love music and decided to invest a bit on a set up where I could sit and enjoy it, so I am skeptical that my regular ears will hear a difference. We'll see. Squonk will be the test case 😃

    it does make a difference. I have some nice Monitor Audio floorstanding speakers with lots of dynamic range but also 2 big Rel subs which pick up the deep bass that most speakers miss. Those Moog Taurus bass pedals are definitely there in the mix, eg the guitar crescendo on Firth, various bits of Suppers Ready or best of all the final part of Los Endos. On Squonk as well come to that. I would however agree that there’s a dynamic range difference between David Henschel and the remixes, but David got more sweetness to the midrange.

  • TotW 09/04/2023 - 09/10/2023: GENESIS - Squonk

    Quote from Schrottrocker

    Fascinating how different fans' perspectives can be. I always found all of side 1 of SO superior to the studio versions, the only thing missing the additional synth lines in Robbery. Also I prefer the version of The Lamb a hell of a lot to its studio version.

    Same here, in fact the whole album for me. Sides 3 and 4 are epic.


    As for the dynamics people have mentioned, perhaps I'm just lucky to have good hifi but it's all there when I listen to SO.

  • The GENESIS single "Mama" was released 40 years ago

    Quote from foxfeeder

    No, you're not talking nonsense. I bought the single, liked it and the B-side, then bought the album, and discovered that what I already owned was "The Best of Shapes"! Everything else on there is poor, some of it turgid lazy pap like That's All and Taking It All Too Hard, which paved the way for further junk like "Throwing It All Away" which would have fitted on Shapes perfectly, then there's Home By the Sea 1+2, which try to be prog, but fail by being over-simplistic, guitar-free (if only they'd had access to a decent guitarist!) and over-reliant on Tony being able to come up with something interesting on keyboards, which he kills by using typical 80's keyboard sounds, just like everyone else. Illegal Alien was the only other promising bit, but the dumb vocal delivery ruined that.


    It was the last Genesis album I bought, I taped IT off a friends copy, and discovered it was more or less Shapes again. More dull songs, more failed prog, and not even a Mama or a Gonna Get Better to lift it.


    "They did alright out of it though" Yeah, cos a recording of Phil farting would've charted at the time, which explains much of the success post-Mama!

    Loved that! So on the same page

  • TotW 08/21/2023 - 08/27/2023: GENESIS - Throwing It All Away

    Nice, pleasant pop song with nice, heartfelt feel. Destroyed live by Phil's annoying and embarrassing "dee da laaaaayyy" stuff.


    PS - I notice three of us have different interpretations of what Phil was singing when doing his Freddie Mercury moment. I think he sometimes strayed into "Zeee da laaaaaayy" as well. Whatever, it still makes my toes curl and I preferred the studio version as a result.

  • The GENESIS single "Mama" was released 40 years ago

    Their best song as a three piece as far as I am concerned, certainly in terms of single material. I bought the album, not the single, and had mixed feelings at the time. Mama was/is the best track by far, but the rest didn't do much for me except Second Home. That's All was pithy, Home By The Sea just droned on for too long and side 2 was B Grade material which promised more than it delivered. It was almost like they put everything into Mama and then were scratching around for ideas.


    Genius song though. If there was more of that level of creativity during the three piece period, I would have been happier. It's not that they didn't produce good material, they absolutely did, but Mama was one of the few standout moments which equalled those as a 4 and 5 piece.

  • In The Air Tonight ('88 Remix)

    It was daft to remix that song; it detracts from the original instead of offering something fresh and exciting. However this is from back in the day when clumsy remixing efforts of tracks which didn't lend themselves to it were de jour. Land of Confusion was another.

  • TotW 08/07/2023 - 08/13/2023: GENESIS - Undertow

    I love that song. It has feeling, it has the classic rise and fall of Genesis at their best and it's served up in a very compact package. If Hackett was still in the band he could have added something extra and it would have benefited from backing singers instead of multitracking Phil's voice so for those reasons it's a 14 from me. However I think it's easily the best track on ATTWT.

  • Once partial to a bit of Magnum.

    Blimey, there's a blast from the past. Somewhere in the loft I have a tape of them at the Birmingham NEC in the mid 80s, which I recorded off Radio 1. How times have changed; Radio 1 would never go near live rock shows now.


    They were briefly an interesting curio for me. Close but no cigar. They tried hard and had a few good moments but on the whole I found them a clumsy mix of Europe with goblins.