Genesis
I Can’t Dance (The Other Mix)
I Can’t Dance (The Sex Mix)
In Too Deep (Live)
That’s All (Live)
On The Shoreline
Hearts On Fire
Is there a thinkpiece out there about how all the prog acts went mainstream all at the same time? Let’s make a timeline:

• 1977 – Genesis, with Steve Hackett out of the picture, release And Then There Were Three, they immediately get the biggest mainstream hit of their career to that date with “Follow You, Follow Me.”
• 1982 – Prog giants John Wetton, Geoff Downes, Steve Howe, and Carl Palmer combine their progressive rock talents and form…Asia, who score a massive adult-contemporary hit with “Heat Of The Moment.”
• 1983 – Yes go full synthpop with 90215 and hit it huge with “Owner Of A Lonely Heart.”
• 1985 – Howe and Hackett join forces to form GTR, the poor man’s Asia. Meanwhile, Peter Gabriel releases mainstream art-pop masterpiece So, which garners him pop uber-hit “Sledgehammer.”
• 1986 – The Moody Blues release The Other Side Of Life, trading in the flutes and orchestras for a keyboard and scoring the hit single “Your Wildest Dreams” as a result.
• 1987 – Pink Floyd, free from Roger Waters’ mommy and daddy issues, release A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which gives the world the “Learning To Fly.”

Selling out (a term I am not using derisively here) is hard work, and I think that the different levels of success you find here certainly prove that. Yes and Asia were able to find success by updating their sound for the 80s, but neither could get much further than that, and failed to capitalize off that success with their coming albums. Ditto for The Moody Blues, anyone remember anything they recorded after “Your Wildest Dreams?” And can anyone out there remember anything from GTR?

Pink Floyd managed a little better just by resting on their back catalog. You know what’s a great song? Pink Floyd’s “On The Turning Away.” You know what’s also a great song? “Learning To Fly.” You know what’s a fucking terrible song? Damn near everything else on that album. Pink Floyd would sit out the remainder of the 80s-sound era of rock and not record another album until The Division Bell (which also isn’t great but much more in the vein of classic Floyd). Post-Waters Floyd was a touring machine first, an album-maker second.

Of all these acts, the only one who managed to keep their pop momentum going was Genesis. Hell, not only were they able to score pop hit after pop hit from 1977 to 1991 with nearly all the albums they put out, they also were able to continue that pop streak with incredibly successful solo albums by Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford (Mike + The Mechanics are underrated dammit).

But all good things must come to an end. Even if Phil Collins hadn’t jumped ship after We Can’t Dance, I can’t imagine that the band would’ve been able to keep things going in a post-Nirvana world. At least, not in any respectable way. Let’s be real, if Phil Collins would’ve stuck around with Genesis, then we would’ve ended up with Genesis doing some version of that fucking Tarzan song. Comparatively speaking Calling All Stations is a less embarrassing move.

I’ll be honest, while I own a lot of Genesis, I do not own We Can’t Dance. I’m sure that it still has some remnant of their progressive roots on that album somewhere, that somewhere sure as hell isn’t “I Can’t Dance.”

“I Can’t Dance” is without a doubt Genesis as their most pop. While Genesis had their share of love songs, remember that many previous Genesis pop hits covered topics as heavy as drug addiction (“Tonight, Tonight, Tonight”) nuclear war (“Land of Confusion”) and…whatever the fuck “Mama” is about. Meanwhile, “I Can’t Dance” is a biting satire on…jeans commercials.

Man, the early-90s were a simpler time.

The early-90s were also a bit of a nadir for pop music. This was the era of easy listening, quiet storm, and smooth ballads. Other pop hits from around this time include the Celine Deon “Beauty And The Beast” song (which won a fucking Grammy), “You’re In Love” by Wilson Phillips, and Bette Midler’s “From A Distance.” Compared to those songs, “I Can’t Dance” is punk. Sure, it’s a stupid satire about jeans commercials, but at least its commenting on something. At least it’s not Amy Grant (who also was a mainstream pop star at this time).

Did “I Can’t Dance” need two “dance” remixes? No. Did it need one dance remix? Probably not. Did it need a remix called “Sex Mix?” Absolutely definitely not in a million years. But the remixes aren’t bad. “The Other Mix” was done by remix legend Ben Liebrand, and it has that big 80s sound that he was so good at. But the “Sex Mix” (sigh) is even better and sounds a little ahead of its time. It’s almost a proto-big beat tune, which makes total sense considering the remixers were Apollo 440 (before going by that name). Wonder if they ever drop this one in a DJ set?

I took these remixes from two CD singles, one for “I Can’t Dance” and the other for “Jesus He Knows Me.” Sadly, neither had any remixes for “Jesus He Knows Me,” which is a much better song than I can’t dance (with a far more relevant social message) but they did have some interesting tracks. The live songs are fine, they are what they are, live versions of decent Genesis tunes, performed aptly. But the real highlights here are the B-sides. “On The Shoreline” is coulda-been-a-single good. The simple-but-effective riff drives the song with good momentum, and Collins’ vocals are exceptionally strong. It’s a good, propulsive rock song. Meanwhile, “Hearts On Fire” (which is sadly not a cover of the song from Rocky IV) is a dope as fuck love song with a killer bassline and a downright awesome “check out what our samplers can do” breakdown. Fucking loving this track. Maybe I do need to buy We Can’t Dance? I’m nearly 40 years old now, I assume I’m that album’s intended demographic at this point.

If you found this post interesting and want to hear me ramble on even more about prog, then I’ll have good news for you in the coming weeks! If you didn’t find this post interesting and you don’t want to hear me ramble on even more about prog…um…I’m sure I’ll post some obscure game music soon!