Platinum Collection (2004)
Disc 1
1.No Son of Mine
2.I Can't Dance
3.Jesus He Knows Me
4.Hold On My Heart
5.Invisible Touch
6.Throwing It All Away
7.Tonight Tonight Tonight (Edit)
8.Land of Confusion
9.In Too Deep
10.Mama
11.That's All
12.Home By the Sea
13.Second Home By the Sea
14.Illegal Alien
15.Paperlate
16.Calling All Stations
Disc 2
1.Abacab
2.Keep it Dark
3.Turn it On Again
4.Behind the Lines
5.Duchess
6.Misunderstanding
7.Many Too Many
8.Follow You, Follow Me
9.In That Quiet Earth
10.Afterglow
11.Your Own Special Way
12.A Trick of the Tail
13.Ripples
14.Los Endos
Disc 3
1.The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2.Counting out the Time
3.The Carpet Crawlers
4.Firth of Fifth
5.The Cinema Show
6.I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
7.Supper's Ready
8.The Musical Box
9.The Knife
At long last, a latter-day compilation that actually manages to make sense of Genesis’ sprawling, often contradictory career. For a band with roots in English pastoral art-rock and a commercial peak defined by pop hooks and MTV airplay, the idea of a “greatest hits” album has always been something of a paradox. Their first attempt—Turn It On Again: The Hits—was respectable, if slightly confused: a single disc trying to summarize a band with multiple incarnations and ever-shifting stylistic ambitions. Platinum Collection, by contrast, casts a wider net and comes back with a far richer catch.
Spanning three discs and clocking in at nearly four hours, this is as close as Genesis has come to a definitive overview of their studio career. There are no previously unreleased gems or hidden demos—those were reserved for the more niche Archive volumes—but that’s hardly a drawback. What we get instead is a meticulously curated retrospective of officially released material, and a surprisingly thoughtful attempt to trace a coherent narrative through a body of work that spans progressive concept albums, quirky pop experiments, and radio juggernauts.
The track selection, as always, invites debate. No Reply At All is conspicuously absent, while Keep It Dark sneaks in. The full-length Abacab is included, but Tonight, Tonight, Tonight appears in its trimmed-down single form. These are quibbles more than grievances. Each disc is crammed to near-capacity—none running under 76 minutes—which suggests that the compilers were less interested in the perfect setlist than in maximizing value. In this regard, they succeeded.
Where the set stumbles, however, is in its sequencing. Rather than opting for a chronological arc—surely the most logical choice given the band’s radical evolution—the songs are presented in reverse order, beginning with No Son of Mine and winding backwards to The Knife. The intent is unclear. One suspects a commercial rationale: lead with familiarity, lure the uninitiated, and ease them into the murkier waters of Foxtrot and Trespass. Yet the effect is disorienting. The natural drama of musical progression—from baroque experimentation to pop minimalism—is lost, and the listener is instead left to navigate the catalogue in rewind.
There’s also a curious bit of chronological sabotage: Calling All Stations, the lone relic from the Ray Wilson era, appears not at the tail end, nor the beginning, but awkwardly inserted near the conclusion of Disc One—neither buried nor foregrounded, but tactfully downplayed, like a wedding guest no one quite remembers inviting. It is, to be fair, the only real blemish in an otherwise graceful lineup.
Still, for the casual listener—or the curious newcomer—Platinum Collection is a remarkably effective introduction. It paints Genesis not as a band torn between identities, but as one capable of reinvention without total disavowal. Each era is given its due: the Gabriel-fronted epics, the Collins-led radio ascendancy, even the oft-overlooked transitional years. For the longtime fan, it’s a reminder of just how much ground they covered; for the neophyte, a gateway into one of the most eclectic and unpredictable careers in British rock history.
Not perfect, but impressively comprehensive—and more coherent than a band this complex has any right to be.
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