Post by Mr. Atari on Dec 28, 2011 0:46:03 GMT -5
Calling All Stations (1997)
I've been asked to be kind to this album, but I just can't. Calling All Stations was an ill-advised mistake of an album. Even Ray Wilson thinks so. Who's Ray Wilson, you ask? Exactly.
Wilson was hired to replace the departed Phil Collins; Rutherford and Banks thought they could weather one more departure of a long-time member, as they had with Phillips, Gabriel, and Hackett. They were wrong. Wilson, who has some singing chops, was hired because he sounded darker and more like Gabriel, and the boys wanted to go back to some of the intricate progressive earlier sound. There were two problems with this: Wilson doesn't sound anything like Gabriel, and the boys wrote some of the least complex songs in their career.
The album starts off with the title track, which is mildly interesting, but has absolutely no chorus. None. It also begins with a HUGE rip-off of the first notes on "Zoo Station" from U2's Achtung Baby. Maybe Genesis was trying to make their Achtung Baby, but instead they made Verhalten Baby. The second track, "Congo" is decent and was a decent hit. When the best track on the album is best described as "decent", you can start to get the picture. Then there's "Shipwrecked", which is a song so by-the-numbers and cliched, they ought to be embarrassed.
All of the songs are completely devoid of character. Wilson's singing comes across as mediocre, but mainly because the songs are dry and hook-less. The whole thing just sounds bland and forgettable. They brought in two drummers to replace Phil, and their playing styles are so disparate that it's jarring to go from one song to the next. Why they couldn't have just hired the touring guys (Steurmer and Thompson) they'd played with for decades is beyond me.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part: every song fades out. The fade out is usually a recording studio cop out. When it works, it's done over a repeated chorus or some jamming or vocal riffing. On this album, the fade outs are during the verses! Wilson will be singing a new lyric in the song, and it'll...just...fade...out. Talk about anti-climactic. Even if the song was good (and most of them aren't), it would leave the listener with a bad aftertaste.
The overall sound is indicative of the time. Sonically, and arrangement-wise, it sounds like a Seal album, or The Wallflowers, or any number of dark, late-'90s, corporate mood rock. Like Invisible Touch, Calling All Stations is a product of its time. Unfortunately, the late '90s was an awful time for popular music.
*
I've been asked to be kind to this album, but I just can't. Calling All Stations was an ill-advised mistake of an album. Even Ray Wilson thinks so. Who's Ray Wilson, you ask? Exactly.
Wilson was hired to replace the departed Phil Collins; Rutherford and Banks thought they could weather one more departure of a long-time member, as they had with Phillips, Gabriel, and Hackett. They were wrong. Wilson, who has some singing chops, was hired because he sounded darker and more like Gabriel, and the boys wanted to go back to some of the intricate progressive earlier sound. There were two problems with this: Wilson doesn't sound anything like Gabriel, and the boys wrote some of the least complex songs in their career.
The album starts off with the title track, which is mildly interesting, but has absolutely no chorus. None. It also begins with a HUGE rip-off of the first notes on "Zoo Station" from U2's Achtung Baby. Maybe Genesis was trying to make their Achtung Baby, but instead they made Verhalten Baby. The second track, "Congo" is decent and was a decent hit. When the best track on the album is best described as "decent", you can start to get the picture. Then there's "Shipwrecked", which is a song so by-the-numbers and cliched, they ought to be embarrassed.
All of the songs are completely devoid of character. Wilson's singing comes across as mediocre, but mainly because the songs are dry and hook-less. The whole thing just sounds bland and forgettable. They brought in two drummers to replace Phil, and their playing styles are so disparate that it's jarring to go from one song to the next. Why they couldn't have just hired the touring guys (Steurmer and Thompson) they'd played with for decades is beyond me.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part: every song fades out. The fade out is usually a recording studio cop out. When it works, it's done over a repeated chorus or some jamming or vocal riffing. On this album, the fade outs are during the verses! Wilson will be singing a new lyric in the song, and it'll...just...fade...out. Talk about anti-climactic. Even if the song was good (and most of them aren't), it would leave the listener with a bad aftertaste.
The overall sound is indicative of the time. Sonically, and arrangement-wise, it sounds like a Seal album, or The Wallflowers, or any number of dark, late-'90s, corporate mood rock. Like Invisible Touch, Calling All Stations is a product of its time. Unfortunately, the late '90s was an awful time for popular music.
*