Customer Reviews

Platinum Collection

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What Genesis' single disc greatest hits, Turn It On Again: The Hits, accomplishes for passive Genesis fans, this massive 3-CD set, The Platinum Collection, achieves for the true Genesis enthuasist. Culling material from 1970's Trespass through 1997's Calling All Stations, this 40-song retrospective is as thorough as almost any fan could want.

All tracks featured are the original studio album versions with the exception of the single edit version of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight." In some cases, some tracks have been newly remixed for this collection by long-time Genesis Engineer/Producer Nick Davis and sound incredible! To be honest, I've been an avid Genesis fan for 25 years, and I find it difficult to find a bad word to say about this set. Yes, it is missing a few songs I would have included like "In The Cage", "Watcher of The Skies", "Deep In The Motherlode", "Man on The Corner" and "No Reply At All," but the group's back catalog is so extensive, that there really isn't anything I would cut from this set to makes those songs fit if I could (with the possible exception of "Undertow" from And Then There Were Three). In fact, I think most people who would consider themselves "fans" would probably ditch most of their old Genesis CDs after buying this one. It's just that good! It's fairly comprehensive, sounds great, and is filler-less! This one is a MUST OWN for any serious Genesis fan!

The liner notes state that die-hard Genesis fans likely won't have all the tracks in this compilation. That's a bold statement, bolstered by the observation that there are three stratified legions of Genesis fans, delineated by two milestones: Peter Gabriel's departure in 1975 and the advent of the hitmaking Genesis of the 1980s-1990s. Consequently, most folks aren't conversant with the group's entire output. In that spirit, however, this review focuses on pre-1980 material: specifically, the remixes, which are of greatest attraction to die-hard fans.

First, cuts from And Then There Were Three, Wind And Wuthering and Trick of the Tail, not lacking sonically in the least, now are opened up to IMAX proportions. That was an unexpected bonus.

There is a bobble at "Lamb:" the remixes seem strident and too much "in your face," lacking the enveloping warmth of the original. Minus one star. Hopefully, the upcoming, promised re-release of The Lamb won't succumb to this problem.

Continuing along, the remixes improve inversely with the age of the material. Previous releases were sonically compressed; here, they are given a new life. Songs from "Selling England," in original recordings, didn't lack for dynamics, but now are jaw-droppingly etched and three-dimensional. Guitar is treated lovingly in the mix. This trend is amplified with The Musical Box and The Knife. Peter Gabriel's vocals are crisp and clear, and the entire band finally is in the room. Lyrics in The Knife are intelligible and riveting, and the last few phrases of that song stand prescient and chilling, given current events.

The songs were remixed at The Farm, Tony Banks' studio; songs chosen for remixing, not surprisingly, also feature prominent keyboard parts. That said, if this compilation is successful, hopefully those involved will consider remixing and rereleasing the entire back catalog, in segments matching the above fan stratification. Call them Bronze, Silver and Gold, if you like.

If you are an earlier-era Genesis fan, and would like a new take on old recordings, this compilation won't disappoint. The later material is a bonus, and I suspect a sneaky motivation for this release is to unite the above factions, and allow all folks to gain a better appreciation of this band's decades-long and considerable musical accomplishments.

I bought this collection because something called my attention: more than 50 % of the songs were indicated as "Newly Remixed by Nick Davis". "Newly remixed?" I thought..."did they do to other songs what they did to 'Carpet Crawlers' in the last collection?" I asked myself. Then I remembered that 'Carpet Crawlers' was then RE-RECORDED, not just remixed, so this new collection would possibly retain the spirit of the original songs, making them more polished. So I took the risk.
(The remixed songs are, from the first CD, Illegal Alien and Paperlate; from the second CD, ALL except Behind the lines and Your own special way; and from the third CD, ALL except Supper's Ready).

Overall, I was pleased to hear that most of the original sound was respected, in the sense that you don't hear different rhytms or shortened or extended parts. And my expectations were met about the better sound: in most remixes, you hear a clearer voice (specially in "Follow you follow me" and "Carpet crawlers"), and from there you have more clarity in all the instrumentation.

Of course, any remix have the risk of enhancing instruments that were not as sharp in the original mix, and lower some others that were more present before. So there might be a possibility that for those very familiar with the original songs, you will identify something that was not originally clear, while miss something that originally was.

That would be the reason why purists will reject "remixes". Why change things? Why not to leave the sound alone, as part of the history? A classic old painting might look dark to some, but nobody will ever dare to suggest to release it with enhanced colors and contrasts just to make it "look better".

And the remixing proccess has another consequence: the sound of the songs is kind of leveled, very alike. But if you are familiar with a group, you know that part of its history is not only the style, but also the recording sound of the time in which the songs were recorded. If you take a song like "The musical box" from the early 70's, and remix it now, no matter how close to the original sound you stay, there's no doubt that you are "modernizing" it.

Is that allright for you? If so, you would like this collection. It didn't bother me a lot: in a time in which songs and complete CDs are remixed in five channels for DVD audio, SACD, DVD video and others, I'm more than used to rediscover, through a new mix, the sound of a song or cd that I knew. And I'm disappointed when they sound almost the same.

When you hear the oldest songs, like "Musical Box", "The Knife" of "Firth of fifth", you have to admit that the clarity provided by the new mix really does them a favor. But there are exceptions of course: "A trick of the tail" and "Ripples" come from the CD "A trick of the tail" from 1976. If you take the REMASTERED version of that cd, you have to say that there's nothing wrong with the sound, it couldn't be better. So, why remix those songs for this collection?. The truth is that in these two cases, and "Illegal alien", the sound is "overloaded": instead of give clearity to the sound and instruments, everything is in a high level. That "overload" is more favorable to a song like "Los Endos" because of its rockish sound.

But as I said, I was overall pleased with this collection of alternate sound songs. At least, they provide something different. If you don't like it, just stick to the originals, or better, the remastered versions. I've got nothing against them, for nostalgia's sake.

I give only 4 stars because of the "Illegal-Trick-Ripples" flaw, and also beacause songs like "Man on the corner" "Robbery assault and Battery", "In the cage" or "Dance with the Moonlit knight" are missing.

Why the remastering? What happened to the Definitive edition Remasters (DER)? Did someone decide they werent so "definitive"?
Tracks remixed by Nick Davis definatly sound different but not true to the original mix. The tracks from self titled Genesis album sounds as if the volume was maxed out to give the impression that it was remastered but as far as I can tell still sounds like the first cd version released may years ago.

Great songs but if your a genesis fan you probably have most of these songs to begin with and the DER are easy to find and sound wonderfull.

Hello! First of all: This is a Argentina IMPORT of Platinum Collection. The CD is the same of US & UK version, only is MADE IN ANGENTINA. If you would like of have a south america version of this album, this is for you!!!

I have been a marginal Genesis fan for some time, and I have enjoyed most of their eras of music. If you are a fan of the early music, you are in for a huge treat with the re-mixed versions from Nick Davis.

Simply put, he took enjoyable tracks and turned them in to blazing, crystal clear renditions of themselves. From what I understand he worked from the original master tapes, and used modern digital audio software to clean things up, re-balance the mix and make things sonically tidy.

The results on tracks of Disc 2 and 3 are worth the price. Simply put I was not prepared to enjoy these old tunes this much.

In case anyone who has control over such things is reading this, I would be happy to purchase all the oldies again if they had this treatment to them.

Hogweed anyone?

This is probably the best compilation collection Genesis has released yet (not including the archives). It covers every era except their 1960's period (but I don't think they own the rights to those songs).

It's not perfect though, there a quite a few gems missing, and I probably would have switched out more than a few tracks in favor of others. I also think they put too much focus on the 3 albums from 83-91, and too little focus on the 6 albums from the Gabriel era (particularly since one of them was a double album). Still, this is a good way to introduce someone to Genesis, in a backwards fashion (especially since it saves the best for last).

Every major release except their first album is represented here, some more than others, but you get the general idea of how this band evolved from its prog rock beginnings.

Aside from all the songs being remixed, there is nothing new here, so it's clear this is targeted to the new potential fan who is just getting introduced to Genesis. Unfortunately, because of the price, it may be hard to convince a casual listener to buy this 3 disc set. Perhaps a cheaper 2 disc set would have been more appropriate. A track listing like this would have satisfied both those look for hits, and those who want to get a taste of all eras of Genesis:

Disc One
1. The Silent Sun
2. Dusk
3. The Musical Box
4. Watcher of the Skies
5. Can-Utility and the Coastliners
6. I Know What I Like
7. Firth of Fifth
8. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
9. Fly on a Windshield
10. Broadway Melody of 1974
11. Anyway
12. Carpet Crawlers
13. Blood on the Rooftops
14. Ripples
15. Follow You Follow Me

Disc Two
1. Dance on a Volcano
2. Turn it On Again
3. Misunderstanding
4. Abacab
5. Mama
6. That's All
7. Takin' it all Too Hard
8. Invisible Touch
9. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
10. In Too Deep
11. Throwing it all Away
12. No Son of Mine
13. I Can't Dance
14. Never a Time
15. Hold on my Heart
16. Shipwrecked
17. Harlequin

From what I had read on the Genesis website I was anticpating that this mix would have far less redundency with TURN IT ON AGAIN -THE HITS (1999) than it does. The content runs in reverse chronological order, in terms of the featured albums (Calling all Stations notwithstanding). Do they think listeners would be turn off if they started at the beginning?

Disc 3 features selections from the Gabriel years. The only major omissions that stick out here are Watchers of the Sky and perhaps Sour Turns to Sweet (if for no other reason than having a token track from the first album). They should have put In The Cage instead of Carpet (the 99 version is far better anyway) or Counting. Kudos for including the some prog classics: Knife, Supper, Fifth.

Disc 2 features the pre-superstardom Collins years 76-81. There are many alternative tracks that could have gone on here.

Disc 1 features the superstardom years 84-97. Most of this was already on TURN IT ON AGAIN. Too bad they have the edit version of Tonight, the album version is best track of the Collins era.

Rather than featuring the same stuff that was already on TURN IT AGAIN, this collection would have been better off featuring more of the overlooked material. That said, 3CDs does provide space for many fan-favourite album tracks.

At any rate this collections does give you the (more of less) best of both worlds - and hopefully it will introduce many listeners to the band's excellent 70s material.

The catch is that real fans would already have all their albums, while many casual fans who are only familiar with the hits would find TURN IT ON AGAIN a more economical selection.

Genesis' 3-CD box set The Platinum Collection, which was released in November of 2004 in the UK and in September of 2005 here in the US, and (until its discontinuation in 2008 (for the US and Canada) in favor of the 2-disc version of Turn It On Again The Hits) was the best Genesis compilation available.
The three discs in this set contains 40 songs, many of them freshly remixed by Genesis engineer Nick Davis, and is close to four hours of music.
It also contains a 20-page booklet with an interview with Phil Coliins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks conducted by Hugh Fielder as well as the song titles and writing credits, what songs came from which albums, pictures of the album covers, and thank you's.
Prior to The Platinum Collection, there was the limp 18 track compilation Turn It On Again: The Hits (1999) (which was released in a superior 2-CD set in 2007). The 2 songs missing from that set here are "Congo" and "Carpet Crawlers 99" - no issue from me with these being omitted (they are on both versions of the Turn It On Again compilation).
Disc 1 was their most recent stuff from 1982 to 1997. We start with four tracks from the 1991 US Top 5 album We Can't Dance (their final album with Phil Coliins) which are "No Son of Mine", "I Can't Dance", "Jesus He Knows Me" and "Hold on My Heart" which were all the big hits from the album. Then we had five tracks from 1986's Top 3 album Invisible Touch starting with the album's chart-topping title cut plus "Throwing It All Away", "Tonight Tonight Tonight (edited)", "Land of Confusion" and "In Too Deep" all of which were singles. Then the first five tracks from the 1983 Top 10 self-titled effort a/k/a The Shapes Album starting with the atmospheric UK smash "Mama", the US smash "That's All", the epic "Home By the Sea/Second Home By the Sea" (I count as one track but is split as two) and "Illegal Alien" (remixed for this collection)). Then from the UK 3 X 3 EP and the original US edition of the Top 10 album Three Sides Live we had the Top 30 hit "Paperlate" (here in a new 2005 remix). The first disc ends with the title cut from 1997's dud Calling All Stations (the band's final album).
Disc two covered 1976-81. We start with two tracks from 1981's US Top 10 album Abacab represented by the album's title cut and "Keep it Dark" (both of which were remixed for this collection) although some question why the album's other US hits "No Reply at All" and "Man on the Corner" are missing but appear on the off-shoot Video Show DVD (and the 2-CD Turn It On Again The Hits Tour Edition). Then we have four tracks from 1980's Duke which are "Turn it On Again", "Behind the Lines", "Duchess" and "Misunderstanding" (all are remixed except for Behind the Lines). The band's first US Gold selling Top 20 album, 1978's And Then There Were Three, featured three tracks which are "Many Too Many", "Follow You Follow Me" and "Undertow" (all here in remixed versions). 1977's Top 30 charting Wind and Wuthering is represented by three tracks which are "In That Quiet Earth", Afterglow" and "Your Own Special Way" (all here in remixed versions save Your Own Special Way). The band's first US Top 40 album A Trick of the Tail is represented by the title cut, "Ripples" and "Los Endos" (all remixed). Robbery Assault and Battery was also remixed but is on the off-shoot Video Show DVD.
Disc 3 is 80 minutes of Peter Gabriel era Genesis starting with three tracks from his finale with the band, 1974's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway represented by the title cut, "Counting Out Time" and "The Carpet Crawlers" (all here in remixed versions)). Then we have three tracks from 1973's Selling England by the Pound which are "Firth of Fifth", "I Know What I Like" and "The Cinema Show" (all remixed). Next is the 22-minute epic "Supper's Ready" from 1972's Foxtrot. Next is the 10 minute epic "The Musical Box" from 1971's Nursery Cryme (here in a remixed version). The 1970 album Trespass is represented by "The Knife" (here in a remixed version).
This collection may have only stalled at #100 in the US and no longer available in the US but sales and availability aside, this is a great start point for those who want to either discover Genesis or rediscover them in a new light with the remixing job on many of the tracks and a look back on one of rock's best bands.
RECOMMENDED!

This is an outstanding compilation of Genesis's songs. From the heavier progressive rock era, to the more easylistening hits from the eightes. Of all the "Best of", "Greatest hits", etc, I have ever listened to, this is by far the best.