Fadeouts in Calling All Stations

[Scott Bails]

Beyond that though...I really do dig this album. It has a distinct atmosphere from any other Genesis album; not really a nod to either the deep or recent past. It felt like a meshing of the guys behind 'Beggar on a Beach of Gold' and 'Strictly, Inc.' given a darker hue, with a wonderfully raspy singer to distinguish it from anything either one had done in many moons. I can totally appreciate why folks dislike it; guess for me, I can look past the flaws and find something pretty charming to these ears. And I wish there had been more.

Very well-stated, John.

[bill g]

Very well-stated, John.

Yep. Although I could never for some reason get into 'Beggar...' (or any M&TM album, I don't know why) that post sums it up nicely for me as well.

[battema]

Yep. Although I could never for some reason get into 'Beggar...' (or any M&TM album, I don't know why) that post sums it up nicely for me as well.

It isn't the whole album, but the tracks "Someone Always Hates Someone" and "Ghost of Sex and You" to me have pretty strong ties to the sound/feel we ultimately heard on Calling All Stations.

Thanks for the kind agreements, gents! Much appreciated

[bRETT]

The two hardest things for me on the album are some of the lyrics.

Prime clunker for me is "One man's hot is another man's cool."

[battema]

Prime clunker for me is "One man's hot is another man's cool."

Ha ha ha...yeah, another one of the less-stellar verbal moments That said, I gave the song a good solid listen en route to work this morning and it is damned fine. It feels the most like something that could've happened with Collins still in the band; the chords, that quirky rhythm guitar playing that Rutherford used (same as on Driving the Last Spike), the driving drums near the end.

The hardest track for me is Small Talk. Honestly, almost nothing about that track works...the balance of the album has such a consistent sense of brooding and dark, and then this goofball of a tune lands out of nowhere.

[ThomasKDye]

The hardest track for me is Small Talk.

And I must be the only one here who likes that song. I like the bridge ("Say something to me") and Tony's chords over the final chorus particularly. One man's hot IS another man's cool, I guess!

[Scott Bails]

"Small Talk" never bothered me as much as it seems to bother others here, either.

[battema]

And I must be the only one here who likes that song. I like the bridge ("Say something to me") and Tony's chords over the final chorus particularly. One man's hot IS another man's cool, I guess!

I do like the outtro section more than the rest of the song...but hey, no worries! For those of us who are underwhelmed, we've got that lovely "next track" button on our players, right

[bob_32_116]

I believe the lyrics on later Genesis albums are the "elephant in the room." They were starting to sound a little lame on the Shapes album, but I like the music on that one enough for it not to bother me. Thereafter, they seem to sound more amateurish with each album. I'm pretty sure this is due to the loss of Gabriel and, to a lesser extent, Collins.

What's interesting is that I think most of the lyrics on Banks's solo albums are pretty well crafted, which points to Rutherford as being the one to blame.

[JJ88]

The hardest track for me is Small Talk. Honestly, almost nothing about that track works...the balance of the album has such a consistent sense of brooding and dark, and then this goofball of a tune lands out of nowhere.

It's trying too hard to sound 'quirky'. Hated it from the first listen, these days I just skip past it altogether. But in its defence, at least it's not a bland Adult Contemporary ballad, like some of the other turkeys on here,

[LeFrog]

It's trying too hard to sound 'quirky'. Hated it from the first listen, these days I just skip past it altogether. But in its defence, at least it's not a bland Adult Contemporary ballad, like some of the other turkeys on here,

Definitely the one I like least on CAS, I would have replaced it with Sign Your Life Away. Like the title track, they improved it live, adding a welcome guitar solo on the outro.

[perpetual strange]

What's interesting is that I think most of the lyrics on Banks's solo albums are pretty well crafted, which points to Rutherford as being the one to blame.

I think so too, there generally seems to be an extra layer to many of Banks' lyrics that aren't always apparent initially.

"One man's hot is another man's cool" I think is just fine, but "you have to lose me in another world" (from Congo) I'm not sure about. It doesn't rhyme but it was left anyway, which normally would mean that the wording was more important than the rhyme, but I'm not sure that's the case here, unless I'm missing something. Personally, I've always liked the album with my favorites being "Uncertain Weather" and "One Man's Fool". My least favorite is "Shipwrecked", which isn't bad, but would have been way more successful a track had the bridge been more like the bridge in "A Piece of You". So its a song of unrealized potential.

[Progatron]

I like "Small Talk". I get why others don't though.

[dpt3]

I like "Small Talk" as well, though it's a bit of an odd fit on the album.

I really like CAS as an album, but the fadeouts are definitely one of things that make it kind of frustrating.

[trurl]

I listened to bits of the album on Youtube and it starts off like the album is going to kick ass. And then it just... doesn't. You can jump to the 2nd song and not know it's a new song. And os on and soon. Same tempo, same key, same beat. I like where it could have gone a lot. But I think they just got lazy.

[rael74]

Genesis & fadeouts go together like hand & glove as if they never knew how to finnish a song. As I'm typing this I can't think of a song from the Gabriel ers that doesn't finnish with fadeout, though I'm sure there's lots?

You don't listen to Chamber of 32 Doors much then?

[trurl]

Remember, The Lamb songs don't fade for the most part, they cross-fade. Big difference. It's hard to give an extended concept work a sense of flow if it's crashing to big stops every five minutes. The Lamb songs flow into each other. Fades give albums a continuity that tends to be different from live performances where you get applause and get ready for the next thing, which usually didn't come after the previous thing you just played in the first place. Genesis also constructed beautiful full stop transitions on their albums, like Entangled into Squonk.

That said, the fades on CAS don't seem to be there for any sense of flow or aesthetics, they just seem arbitrary and lazy.