Music Reviews

As for the videoclips: In the years 1976-1982, we're still a long way from the humor of the 1985 video for the Collins solo track "Don't Lose My Number." Only the Beatlesque clip for "A Trick of the Tail," with the band gathered around a piano, registers a smile. Everything else is either a bland "performance" video or an equally bland, one-dimensional "concept" video. Thankfully, all of the clips are in surround - but what's with the frequently bad picture quality? Whether it's 1976's "Robbery, Assault and Battery" or 1981's "Man on the Corner," images are often blurry, and colors are washed out.

Still, they're high-def perfection compared with the "bootleg videos" on the Wind & Wuthering DVD. "Bootleg" is right: The picture quality is egregious. There's a segment from The Mike Douglas Show, with the laughably lip-synced "Your Own Special Way" and "Afterglow." Equally useless are Japanese "performance" lip-syncs of "Way," "Eleventh Earl of Mar," and "One for the Vine." One could argue that the tour programs aren't very useful either, as the pages are shot from a distance. Excerpting the still photographs would have been better.

That leaves the really good stuff, and there's a lot of it. First, I must commend Banks, Collins, and Rutherford for taking the time to sit down (separately) in front of a camera and do the album-by-album, often track-by-track interviews. It seems like almost nobody does this sort of thing, and it's appreciated for such a historical project - especially when we get moments like Banks explaining why Wind and Duke are his favorite Genesis albums, and Collins talking about the Duke suite that might have been ("Behind the Lines," "Duchess," "Guide Vocal," "Turn It On Again," "Duke's Travels," "Duke's End"). And especially when we get a genuinely gracious Hackett not only joining the Trick and Wind discussions but candidly, calmly explaining on Three why he left the band. Each album interview may seem to whiz by, but together they total a generous 80 minutes. (Extra Tracks adds an interview about the new stereo and surround mixes, but alas, it's just 5 minutes long.)

And then there are the three featurettes, as it were. First, accompanying Trick, is the 40-minute Genesis in Concert - a previously unreleased film of the quartet from 1976, augmented by drummer Bill Bruford. Opening with "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)," they also tackle "Fly on a Windshield," "The Carpet Crawlers," "The Cinema Show," "Entangled," "Los Endos," and even a chuck of "Supper's Ready." The performances are hot, and the widescreen picture is good. Second, accompanying Duke, is another 40-minute live program - nicely directed and edited footage from London's Lyceum in 1980, with the trio joined by guitarist Daryl Stuermer and drummer Chester Thompson. The music here is vivid, too, including "Behind the Lines," "Duchess," "Guide Vocal," "In the Cage," "Afterglow," "Dance on a Volcano," and another "Los Endos."