Customer Reviews

Genesis - The Video Show

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you were an avid watcher of MTV back in the '80s when it was still 'music television', there was no way to escape watching at least one, two or more Genesis videos during the day. The band was riding high during their second wave of success (post-Peter Gabriel) and they embraced making music videos wholeheartedly.
With MTV and VH1 now seeming to show less music and more 'trash' (reviewers opinion), the "Genesis Video Show" DVD is a huge welcome treat and is a must for the avid Genesis fan.
The collection spans the years 1976 to 1997 and includes every music video the band ever made during their career. It also shows the many sides to the band's personalities displaying humor (as with "Illegal Alien", "Invisible Touch", "Jesus He Knows Me", "I Can't Dance", "Anything She Does" and "Land Of Confusion"), intimacy ("Hold On My Heart", "Follow You Follow Me"), seriousness ("Mama", "No Son Of Mine", "Tonight Tonight Tonight") and pure musicianship ("Abacab", "Ripples", "Home By The Sea").
The sound and picture quality of the DVD is amazing bringing out the music in a stunning new mix (courtesy of long-time producer Nick Davis) with crystal clear images. There are also individual credits for each video that can be displayed by hitting the start button on your DVD remote before the actual video begins.
While the "Genesis Video Show" is a near perfect display of all the Genesis videos, there are a few downsides to the collection. First of all, the band's early days with Peter Gabriel are sadly underrepresented on this DVD - the 1999 version of "Carpet Crawlers" being the only Gabriel track here. While the band did not make any commercial promo clips or videos during the Gabriel-era, it would have been nice to have seen a vintage concert clip or two from this period. This also would've given a more complete picture of the band in this collection.
The second flaw (which is a big one in this reviewers opinion) is in the video for "Man On The Corner" which was taken from the 1981 Abacab tour. The true version of the video is a live performance with the band actually playing the song on stage in real time. For the version on this DVD, the original picture is maintained but the studio album version is heard in place of the actual performance. This creates an awkward experience while watching this video because Phil's lyrics in the live version don't always match that of the studio version. Why this was done this way is a mystery and the video should have been left as is with its original live track in tact.
Apart from these flaws, the "Genesis Video Show" is a fantastic journey down memory lane and is a great collection of videos from this most-loved band. Buy this DVD, sit back and enjoy the ride. It'll be like living in the '80s all over again.

For anyone who is a fan of the group Genesis. I just got their DVD called "The Video Show" and all I can say is WOW! 32 of their videos!!! Everything from 1976 to 1999! I never realized how many of these videos I had either not seen or have only seen once or twice in my life. Back when MTV played videos I remember seeing the videos for "I Can't Dance", "Invisible Touch", "Land Of Confusion" and "That's All" a lot! Then years ago I had VH1 Classics and they played the videos like "No Son Of Mine", "Hold On My Heart", "Jesus He Knows Me", "Throwing It All Away", "In Too Deep", "Illegal Alien", "Abacab", and "Mama" a good bit. They would throw in "live" version of "Turn It On Again" from the "3 Sides Live" album. But I had never seen the real video for "Turn It On Again"!
This is an A+ set for anyone who likes Genesis. The sound quality is out of this world! The picture is clear and crisp.
* = my star rating system for each video. 1 to 5 stars

1. "No Son Of Mine" ***
2. "I Can't Dance" ****
3. "Hold On My Heart" **
4. "Jesus He Knows Me" *****
5. "Tell Me Why" **
6. "Invisible Touch" ****
7. "Throwing It All Away" ***
8. "Land Of Confusion" *****
9. "Tonight Tonight Tonight" ***
10. "Anything She Does" *****
11. "In Too Deep" **
12. "That's All" ****
13. "Mama" *****
14. "Illegal Alien" *****
15. "Home By The Sea/ Second Home By The Sea" ****
16. "Paperlate" ***
17. "Abacab * (Don't like the edit version of the song!!)
18. "Keep It Dark" **
19. "No Reply At All" ***
20. "Man On The Corner" *
21. "Turn It On Again" ****
22. "Duchess" ***
23. "Misunderstanding" ****
24. "Follow You Follow Me" ***
25. "Many Too Many" **
26. "A Trick Of The Tail" ***
27. "Ripples" **
28. "Robbery, Assault And Battery" ***
29. "Congo" **
30. "Shipwrecked" ***
31. "Not About Us" **
32. "The Carpet Crawlers 1999" ****

What the Editorial Reviewer fails to mention is that the audio on each song has been re-mixed from the original multi-track recordings and is in DTS 5.1 for those that have DTS equiptment. The surround mixes are outstanding. The video's are as they were when they first came out, no issues there. What blew my mind the most was Home By The Sea & 2nd HBTS. WOW! Since the original 'Genesis' self titled album has always sounded so dull to me, this was a amazing change in sound.
Now, if they could just get the SACD's out they've been re-mixing, and promissing!

As a lifelong fan of Genesis, it was always a treat to see their videos played on MTV, which wasn't too rare an occurrence in the 80's-early 90's. But the videos that are most memorable to both myself and the more casual fan are the outlandish puppet-Reagan bashing of "Land of Confusion" and several varieties of the 'let's make a video about making a video starring Phil Collins' variety, e.g. "Invisible Touch" and "I Can't Dance". These videos, along with the sublimely dark atmospheres of "Mama" and "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" are among the most popular of Genesis' video career.
Where this collection shines is giving us the more rarely-seen and unique vids from the past. Some shining examples: the humorous band-interplay (esp. between Steve Hackett and Phil) on the 1976 clip for "A Trick of the Tail", the hear-no-evil-speak-no-evil-see-no-evil themes of "Keep it Dark", and a Top of the Pops appearance by th band in front of a small, very-80's crowd in support of "Paperlate". There are lots more seldom-seen videos above, many are quite nice on their own, but the disc drags in that there is a string of videos with the same theme: the band playing the song faux-live. Not very creative, and they don't always look like they're having fun. Phil Collins occasionally laughs while lip-synching, or the band acknowledges that they're clearly strumming to the music, but you get the feeling they'd rather be mugging for the camera a la the humorous "Illegal Alien" or "Jesus He Knows Me" clips. Of these band jam videos, the worst offender perhaps is "abacab", which edits out the extended instrumental at the end of the LP version in favor of the looped single version. It's jarring aurally and visually. However, not all is lost on the live shots: "Home By the Sea" is a stunning mix of lights and smoke, while the rare "Tell Me Why" video intersperses the band with affecting shots of the poor, starving, and suffering...it drives the message home just as effectively as Phil did in his solo "Another Day in Paradise" video.
So, in summary, this is well worth it if you love the songs and the band, or just want to have digital quality versions of some MTV staples (in an age where you don't see Genesis on air anymore! Well, maybe over on VH-1 Classic)... but the majority of the tracks are clearly for the die-hards, and are a bit indistinguishable when watched straight through.

These great Genesis songs have never sounded better than on the surround sound setting of this DVD. They did a fantastic job of remastering these songs and making them sound great. This treatment makes other music video DVDs I own sound tinny by comparison. So 5 stars for the most important aspect of a music video collection -- the sound quality.

While this DVD is absolutely worth owning for any Genesis fan, there are some flaws:

-The video quality does not match the sound quality. Many of the videos appear fuzzy and grainy. They could have done a better job of cleaning up and restoring them.

-I couldn't pause, move forward, or rewind. I've never owned a DVD where these functions were disabled. Strange.

-There are no Peter Gabriel-era tunes except a 1999 cover of "Carpet Crawlers" which wasn't very good. Surely they could have found some vintage concert footage or something to include, because Genesis had some of its most creative, if less well-known and more offbeat, work before Collins took over singing duties. The post-Collins videos appeared high-budget, but somehow the grungy and lyrically lame "Congo" doesn't sound like Genesis to me. I would have gladly traded that for something from their 70s work.

-The non-chronological video sequence seemed arbitrary.

As for music videos only, which is all this promises, this is an excellent collection, and spans the Genesis career from 1976-1999. Unfortunately, there were only two promo videos featuring Peter Gabriel, one was recorded in 1999 and was included, and the other, I Know What I Like, was not included by request of Peter Gabriel. Although this includes most of the videos, there are a few notable absences, such as the alternate versions of 'Many Too Many' and 'Man On The Corner' which could've been put in the extras section, the video for 'On The Shoreline' which does not feature Genesis in the video, but is a nice video, the video for 'Match Of The Day' which could not be found, and the much rumoured 'Whodunnit?' music video, which may not even exist. But be forewarned, uptodukies, because this video disc contains few videos from before 1981, so if you enjoy the later music, then i would suggest buying this. but if you only enjoy their work up to 1980 (or 1974, which is actually a strange cutoff), then you might not enjoy this.

First of all I think Genesis is one of the greatest bands of all-time as well as the solos Phil, Peter, Mike, and Tony.
I practically wore out the videocassettes of Genesis: Volumes 1 & 2 years ago when they were first released watching them over and over again.

However... even though the DVD collection has excellent video quality and superb sound, some of the videos that require to hear background noise or speech during the video is completely gone. For example... the video "Land Of Confusion" has several background voices and sound effects such as the Bob Hope puppet saying "I...GOTTA...TELLYA"! and the crying & wimpering of puppet Nancy Reagan, or the combat boots making a splashing noise in the water, plus several other noise background features missing, unlike the videocassette version. There are several other Genesis videos in this DVD collection that do this... not good!

Also, in the video "Man On The Corner", like reviewer Cesar "juliomontoya2000" mentioned, why is the studio version of this in the video instead of the live version? Phil's vocals are hardly in synch with the studio version. There's no rhyme or reason why this happened. Again, the videocassette version is the correct version. I'm a bit disappointed in that!

All these features I mentioned could have been easily mixed into the videos... someone got lazy!

Overall, it's a great collection but I think I'll make my own homemade DVD Genesis collection putting in the videocassette versions of the ones I want into the disc as well as the unavailable videos (such as Paperlate, etc.) not on the videocassette into my DVD.

Thank you Genesis for all the years of great entertainment, concerts, and collectables! Looking forward to your future concerts... I hope!

The 5.1 DTS sound of this video collection is worth the price alone. Even though I have small speakers, the songs still come across as crisp and vibrant, a definite upgrade to the normal stereo format previously available for these videos.

The video quality is, as expected, outstanding. More notable goodies are the "Calling All Stations" videos which feature Ray Wilson in the last era of Genesis. It's too bad that the band did not continue after this because he was vastly underrated as a lead singer. Then there's "Carpet Crawlers", the late 90's version, which is simply amazing. An awesome Peter Gabriel / Rael "clone" is in the video and if every LAMB song was produced like this on video the band could easily make a movie of that brilliant album. Of course, the "fluffier" Phil-era songs like "Invisible Touch" and "Throwing it all Away" are here too, and they sound great. "Illegal Alien" is a hilarious video showing that Genesis indeed had quite a sense of humor.

I'm glad this is finally available. After years of trying to collect each promo on video, Rhino has now made it possible to buy them all on one collection. Now if only we could get some great "live" archive material as well....:-)

The very first thing that you should be amazed at is the extraordinary sound that this DVD has for its mixes in DTS and Dolby 5.1. The instruments are well balanced all around the main 5 channels (front right and left, center and sorrounds) to create a full surround feel, that makes the songs sound heavier and clearer, due mostly to the new remixes by Nick Davis, that guarantee that you will hear the songs differently anyway.


Mainly, it's the voice the most favored by the 5.1 sound, since is heard in the center, almost alone, therefore, clearer than ever.

The full sound is better appreciated here, in DTS and dolby 5.1, than in stereo, as heard in the CD version of this collection that was simultaneously released, in which most of the songs are remixed, no doubt taking advantage of the work that was done for the dvd release. The sound that in some instances is "overloaded" in the CD, is better heard in the multi-channel DVD.

My only complaint would be the mixing of "No son of mine". For any strange reason, Nick Davies choose to lower the drum sound once the chorus of the song begins, making it loose strenght. So it's only in some parts of this song that you can really hear it heavier than usual. But the rest of the DVD is like discovering the songs all over again.

The sound alone is reason enough to acquire this collection. The quality of the videos vary from very simple to well produced, according to the time in which they were released, with the exception of "Robbery Assault & Battery" and "Trick of the tale". Being both from 1976, they were ahead of their time. Even "Ripples", also from 1976, without special effects or acted parts, has very interesting camera combinations and impressive use of lights.

Practically, you have 2 dvds for the price of one, due to the amount of material included, more than 2 and a half hours, which would have promted others to release it in two chapters. Now, the fact that they choose to include all the material in one disc has affected the sharpness of the videos. We can guess that the quality would have been better if the videos were not so compressed. But for me, this is a minor flaw.

This collection contains ALL the Genesis video promos of the Phil Collins era, plus the last 3 from "Calling all stations" with Ray Wilson (including one of best songs/videos of this collection, "Not about us") and "Carpet Crawlers", the "re-recorded" version of this song that was released in 1999 and the only participation of Peter Gabriel. Of course, there were no real "promos" in his time, but some footage in concert would have been welcomed. Anyway, we're still waiting for the "Genesis in concert" video (1973) to be released in DVD. That would only do justice to Peter Gabriel (and also guitarrist Steve Hackett), whose very important role in the group will be unnoticed for the casual or new viewer through this video compilation.

Although all the videos from the earlier VHS collection, Genesis Volumes I & II, are here, there are a couple of differences: "Turn it on again" is the original promo, not the one from the concert "Three sides live", and "Man on the corner" has its original concert sound subtituted by the studio version (hence the lack of sycrho in Phil Collins vocals, most noticeable in the last part of the song. That would be a flaw, except that for me is more interesting to see how one have to wait until almost the end to notice it). Also, Paperlate (through footage from a performance in the BBC) appears here for the first time.

I was actually surprised to see this DVD at the store. I'm trying to build a large music DVD collection, so that I can get away from movies and still enjoy my surround sound with music.
But, Rhino can do so much more with music videos. I'm surprised that Rhino hasn't exploited the classic music video market yet. I'll talk more about this, before I close this review.

After the Progressive Rock Era of Genesis (the 1970's), I didn't really follow Genesis too much in the 1980's. Although, I have heard their hits on the radio, to me, it was just a different Genesis. The group Yes, also changed from Progressive to Pop.

This Genesis video collection is better than I had first thought. I knew I wanted the "Land of Confusion" video. That video alone compelled me to buy this DVD. But, I was certainly surprised at all the other great videos that there are here. Right away, I took to liking the videos of "Mama" and "Home By the Sea". Many others will grow on me quickly, I'm sure. So again, what I'm saying is, this video collection is far better than I expected. I've just seen the new 3 CD collection of the best of Genesis, released by Rhino as well. Unfortunately, they again, chose to give us edited versions of some songs and therefore, reduces the appeal of the whole collection to me. I cannot accept the single version of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."

Now back to the DVD. Sure, there are no extras. No documentaries, etc. What would have been nice as a few extras for this DVD, would have been a few videos of the guys doing their solo hits. Some Peter Gabriel, some Mike Rutherford, and most especially, Phil Collins.

With Phil Collins, they could have giving us his videos of "In the Air Tonight", "I Don't Care Anymore", and maybe a few others of his more darker songs. Then, they could go ahead and release a Phil Collins video collection with all his wimpy, schmultzy, love songs like his greatest hits CD was a few years back.

Now, back to Rhino Home Video. Since this is the age of the music DVD video collection, why hasn't Rhino been putting out "Classic MTV" video collections? During the 1990's, Rhino has released music CD collections like: "Have a Nice Day" (25 volumes), "Didn't It Blow Your Mind" (20 volumes), Billboard Hits Collections (10 big hits per CD, from the 1950's, through the 1990's), "Rock Instrumentals" (5 volumes), "The British Invasion", "DIY", etc. The list could go on and on. Back in the mid 1990's, Rhino released a double CD collection called "Classic MTV: 1983". Imagine if that collection were available as the DVD collection that it was meant to be. I was surprised that Rhino only did this one CD collection. They could have done so many more.

So Rhino, why aren't you releasing multiple volumes of "One Hit Wonders" MTV video collections from the "classic MTV" era? I would love to have a classic MTV library on DVD. Something like 20 videos per DVD, year by year, all the way through the 1980's. All the "One Hit Wonders" that we would never expect to see a whole video collection of by that specific artist released on DVD. A Flock of Seagulls, The Art of Noise, Thomas Dolby, Missing Persons, After the Fire, a-Ha, Nena, Devo, Berlin, Ultravox, etc. etc. etc. Rhino could continuously collect pop videos and release them in the DVD format. And built on various themes too. To this day, it is still practically an untouched market.

I really don't know what Rhino has been doing for the past 10 years. I haven't been following Rhino like I use to. Releasing "classic MTV" videos would definately put Rhino back in the forefront of today's purchasing music market.

Rhino! Can you hear me? If other's agree with me, click "yes" to acknowledge this review.