This is well-overdue in a lot of ways, straddling as it does the two mammoth 'Archive' box sets of unreleased and rare material. After all, discounting various live albums, incredibly there's never been a Genesis greatest hits album before.
However, this set is more of a brief introduction than a grand reapprasial. The fact that it's only one album means only the biggest hits make the cut. More annoyingly, they're not presented in chronological order.
Those gripes aside, the album does do its job, i.e. providing an overview of the band's three main incarnations.
Kicking off with live favourite 'Turn It On Again', unsurprisingly the Collins era - particularly the massive 'Invisible Touch' album - is most heavily represented.
Five tracks from said album feature here, along with four from 1991's 'We Can't Dance'.
Disappointingly, this recent bias means fine earlier tracks like 'Your Own Special Way' and 'Illegal Alien' are missing.
The Peter Gabriel era is also sparsely represented, with only breakthrough hit 'I Know What I Like' and a re-recording of 'The Carpet Crawlers' included.
But it's hard to argue with the quality of the songs that have been chosen - even if one could do without schmaltzy ballads like 'In Too Deep' and 'Hold On My Heart', which reek of the tepid MOR of most of Collins' solo work.
If Genesis do continue, mabye next time we could have a bigger (and more representative) collection. Until then, this will suffice for novices and those who want all the biggies in one place.
