I’d say that this is known as the post-Phil Collins album by Genesis, except for the fact that it’s barely known at all. This is the album that landed with a resounding, if curiously muffled, thud on Amercia’s shores.
Poor Ray Wilson. He didn’t deserve to only get signed on for one shaky, uncertain, occasionally brilliant album and then have the band dissolve out from underneath of him. How does a guy follow in the footsteps of not one but two household-name frontmen?
“Calling All Stations” is, like most post-Abacab Genesis albums, something of a progressive/pop hybrid. There are smart hooks and power chords interspersed with delicate keyboard work and occasionally clunky lyrics, just like we’d come to expect from the band’s last half-dozen releases. The only radio-friendly track, “Congo,” is a decent piece of pop-rock in its own right, as is the title track, “Calling All Stations.” “Alien Afternoon” is whimsical Genesis in the mid-70’s mode with modern technology behind it. Romantic ballads, a Genesis staple thanks in large part to the departed Mr. Collins, are here aplenty in the form of “If That’s What You Need,” “Shipwrecked” and especially “Not About Us.” The album is capped with the social-consciousness epic, “One Man’s Fool,” which isn’t nearly as clunky as you’d expect from a song just this side of being something U2 might have produced if they went for baroque prog-rock stylings.
All in all, it’s not the best album they made but it shows considerable promise for what might have been. Ray’s singing and the songs he contributed to in other ways were certainly getting my hopes up for the next album… which, of course, we’ll never hear. Ah well.
Today’s promo consists of “The Dividing Line,” “Congo,” “Not About Us” and a brief bit of “One Man’s Fool.” I had the damnedest time fitting four clips into this one, folks… though maybe I could’ve used less of the “Dividing” bass riff. Hmm.
Genesis – CAS Promo
