Genesis 1976-1982 - Genesis

Well, this is the first of three Genesis box sets to be released, which will cover their entire career. This one covers from the time just after Peter Gabriel left, Steve Hackett's departure, and the first three "Genesis trio" albums. It is very much the "middle" box set, because this time in the band's career shows the early artsy kind of feel they had, the transitional period, and the beginning of the mostly pop era Genesis.

Each of the albums have been remastered and cleaned up with a new 2007 mix. Some audiophiles (or as I call them bitrate bigots) complain about the mixes. Sigh. They've never sounded as good to me. Disc 2 contains a DVD audio 5.1 / DTS mix of the album if you have that kind of equipment to benefit from it. It also has new interview footage, and related video materials for the specific album they appear on.

This box set contains 5 Genesis studio albums. They are:

• A Trick of the Tail - 1976
• Wind & Wuthering - 1976
• ...And Then There Were Three... - 1978
• Duke - 1980
• Abacab - 1982

If you buy the box set as opposed to buying the albums individually, you get an additional booklet which talks about each album, the band, etc... It also has an additional disc which contains a lot of the leftover and oddball tracks from this era. The band during this period released two EPs of studio material. While those discs aren't contained themselves in the box set, the songs that were on them are on the bonus disc. This covers the "Spot the Pigeon" release from 1977, the "Many too Many" release in 1978, the 3x3 release in 1982, as well as two studio tracks that were unique to "side 4" of the Three Sides Live album. So there's a lot of pickup of rogue oddball tracks on this disc; I like that.

The final disc is another DVD, which contains a new interview with Genesis about these particular remasters and this box, as well as a video for "Paperlate", which came from the 3x3 EP.

If you're a Genesis fan, you're probably going to want this, as there's a wealth of extras. Buying the individual discs will get you everything except the last bonus disc & DVD as well as the booklet. If you're a completist, you'll want the box, not the individual releases.

Also, in my CD blog here I list each of the albums individually, despite my getting them in this box set. I did that so I could list remarks about the music from the individual albums themselves, in addition to my comments about the box set itself here.