Best Genesis Album - your opinions please.

I've just picked up the 3CD compilation called Platinum Collection from 2004.

I did this mainly to see how the Nick Davis remixes and remastering sounded.
It is tremendous the early material is given a complete revamp.
Essential if you are an Audiophile and Genesis fan.

Whilst it can't cover all the bases for serious fans,it is a pretty strong selection that just totally flattens any previous remastering.

It's on EMI (7243 8 63730 2 1)and it's been a while since I've enjoyed my system as much as when I was blasting this old stuff out today.

Sdatch, I saw them in the late Fall of 1974 in Boston at the Music Hall (now the Wang Center). I can remember the show like it was yesterday. No warm up band. The hall darkened and after a couple of minutes to let everyone's eyes adjust to the darkeness, a pair of bright blue eyes glowed appearing completely bodiless and suspended in the air at stage level. It was Gabriel who then announced that despite what we'd heard in the media, on the radio and such..."we're gonna play the whole thing."

He left and came back a couple of minutes. The stage lights came up and he was dressed as Rael. And Tony began to play.

And the Lamb began. And remember, no one had heard it in the States because the album had yet to be released here, much to the band's frustration (I think it was one of the straws that broke the camel's back). The screw up was with their label Atlantic (Atco). And then the three-screen slide show began perfectly synchronized to the music. And it was simply amazing and I know my two close friends and bandmates from high school and I watched and listened slack jawed for the next two hours. I remember the instrumental sections were longer than the studio release; they took more time in the ambient, wierd sections.

They encored with The Musical Box, Gabriel did his flashing light ending, humping the mike stand during the last notes and the death fall backwards just at the end punch and the lights killed.

And their live sound was better than any band I had heard before or have heard since.

You can bet I ran to the record store when it was released here in the winter of '75. And I listened and listened.

I get misty again thinking about that show and the amount of pure talent on that stage that night. I would again get to see them post-Gabriel for Trick of the Tale (over at the Aquarius), but it didn't compare.

Name me one other band that had so much creative talent in five guys. Very few qualify, then or since.

My votes: 1) SEBTP 2) Foxtrot 3) LLDOB 4) ATOTT 5) W&W
The worst Genesis album? Without a doubt it has to be "We Know What We Like - The Music Of Genesis" by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Palmer. RCA Red Seal Digital 6242-1-RC. Imagine "I know What I like", "The Knife", "Can Utility and The Coastliners", "Horizons", "Entangled", "Supper's Ready", "Mad Man Moon", "Undertow", "Entangled", "Turn It On Again" and many other great Genesis compositions played in the lamest arrangements most appropriate for a slow elevator ride or the dentist's chair. It reminds me of "The American Symphony" from the end of "Mr. Holland's Opus". Steve Hackett (guitar), Tony Hymas (keyboards) and Ian Anderrson (flute) are listed among the musician credits. The worst thing about the whole affair is Sir George Martin's liner notes, which are almost humorous when read after auditioning this wretched musical mess. I paid a buck for my copy and have gotten more than my money's worth seeing the puzzled and then disgusted looks my Genesis loving friends have on their faces when they hear it. No Genesis collection can be truly complete without this gem.
The back of the album mentions another release by the LSO and David Palmer with the music of Jethro Tull and I do know they also went on to completely mangle the music of Yes on yet another LP . If I see these two albums on my travels for a buck apiece, I'll pick them up, as I can always use a good laugh (to think these folks were serious when they recorded this stuff!).
Speaking of Sir George, give a listen to any of his mid 1960's releases on United Artists. Judging by these albums I can easily say: if he didn't produce the Fab Four, he'd be long forgotten by now.

TVAD, W and W is worth revisiting. Not a guarantee you'll like it but I think its the best of the post-Gabriel releases.