Calling All Stations

 


Calling All Stations was released in 1997

Track Listing:
1. Calling All Stations
2. Congo
3. Shipwrecked
4. Alien Afternoon
5. Not About Us
6. If That's What You Need
7. The Dividing Line
8. Uncertain Weather
9. Small Talk
10. There Must Be Some Other Way
11. One Man's Fool

Genre: Pop

...and then there were two.  For a bit.  Collins is out and Banks and Rutherford decide to carry on.  Why?  Probably money but who knows.  Either way in comes Ray Wilson to handle vocals.

Calling All Stations is typically considered Genesis's worst album, and it's clear why, this album is garbage.  It does have one thing going for it though they managed to nail that generic, directionless, overlong, and boring motif that they were aiming for on We Can't Dance.

Congo is passable, not good, but passable.  Alien Afternoon kept my attention the whole almost 8 minutes.  Not because it was good, but because it was so actively bad.  I couldn't begin to guess what would come next.

And the lyrics are just awful.  Genesis hasn't really written great lyrics in years but this is next level bad.  If AI existed back then I would have thought this was some garbage ChatGPT shat out.

And of course, it wouldn't be a Genesis album without the shitty slow ballads.  In the tradition of Hold on My Heart and In Too Deep we now get Not About Us and If That's What You Need.  The worst part is Ray Wilson is not Phil Collins.  Say what you will about Genesis's slower songs (and I've complained my fair share about them), at least Collins's light and airy voice worked.  Wilson's lower pitched, raspy deliver is even less interesting.

All said and done this actually isn't much worse than We Can't Dance.  They both have the same flaws, too much filler, too little going on, songs overstaying their welcome, and that bland 80s synth sound making everything sound super dated.  Sure this one doesn't have Collins, and the lyrics are absolutely garbage but swap singers and this album would still be ass.  This isn't Wilson's fault, he came in and provided decent vocals, but Rutherford and Banks wrote most of the music.

Same as We Can't Dance, mostly all red (8 red out of 11), Genesis should have called it quits before the 90s.

1/5

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