Customer Reviews
The Last Genesis Album With Steve Hackett Is Also The Last To Feature Fantasy Lyrics
There is also a great deal of humor here, which I'm learning how to equate teasing with. WIND AND WUTHERING, the last Genesis album to feature guitarist Steve Hackett, is also their last with lyrics based primarily on fantasy themes. The only song here that doesn't have lyrics that are humorous or fantasy-oriented is the love song "Your Own Special Way", which really should have been saved for the follow-up, but, as is, became the only hit off this album, and the first single by Genesis to chart in the U. S. , even though it was atypical of the rest of the album. This CD/DVD gets five stars for its musicianship, its sense of humor, and the individual players' abilities, making this one a must-own.
Buy the '94 Remaster
The drums on "Eleventh Earl of Mar" sound absolutely terrible. The tasteless overcompression on this version completely undermines all the work that went into the remixing. Compare the way they sound here with the '94 remaster and you really don't have to hear anything else to convince you that the definitive edition remaster IS the definitive remaster - at least for now.
The flattened dynamics also ruin the album. Listen to the compression working at moments like "simple were the folk who lived. . . " in "One for the Vine". It's hard to ignore the way Phil's voice is pulled back into the mix and the moment is robbed of its impact. The intro of "Eleventh Earl" especially lacks its former drama.
I know that the use of compression is probably here to stay. One reviewer on this site claims we should all learn to love it. That's like saying we should learn to love our food burnt - at least if everything is going to be compressed to the point that the new Genesis remasters have been.
To be fair, compression was also used on the recent Steve Hackett remasters. But in the case of those discs, it was done tastefully. The albums sound great and are no longer shrouded in tape hiss. I wish the Genesis catalog could have received the same care. As badly as the Gabriel era needs remixing, it's pointless if the tracks are limited and compressed beyond listenability.
Musically this is a great album - though just a notch below "A Trick of the Tail", their best with Phil up front. For the Gabiel era, the nod goes to "Selling England by the Pound". I recommend the '94 remasters of those as well.
Genesis' swan song with Steve Hackett gets a superb makeover for its 30th anniversary
The album is arguably musically more developed and fleshed out than was on its predecessor, 1976's Top 40 charting album A Trick of The Tail, you can sense the band (and drummer/singer Phil Collins in particular) gaining more confidence in their songwriting and performing abilities. Genesis' ninth album Wind and Wuthering was released in January of 1977 in the US.
The seven minute plus "Eleventh Earl of Mar" (penned by bass player Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett and keyboard player Tony Banks) starts the album off with a bang and is one of my all time favorite Genesis songs. The next track is the majestic ten minute epic "One for the Vine", arguably Banks' best song for the band. The live version from the reissued Three Sides Live rivals the studio version IMHO. Next was Mike Rutherford's "Your Own Special Way", which was an unexpected modest hit (and would pave the way for the road to superstardom starting with 1978's Top 20 charting And Then There Were Three). The Collins/Hackett instrumental "Wot Gorilla" concludes the first half with a bang.
The whimsical Banks number "All In a Mouse's Night kicks off the second half with a bang. Then, Steve's fingers are all over the Collins/Hackett collaboration "Blood On the Rooftops", with beautiful Spanish guitar solos and superb mellotron sounds. The instrumentals "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers. . . " (penned by Rutherford/Hackett) and ". . . In That Quiet Earth" (penned by the whole band) are great. The closing piece "Afterglow" is one of Banks' masterpieces which told of a survivor who had to move on with life sfter losing everything he had and is still a favorite song of mine from the band.
Sadly, this album marked the end of classic prog-rock era Genesis.
Although the band would certainly continue to record prog-rock songs here and there, no album would ever be able to recall the heights of the albums from Trespass to Wind and Wuthering.
Strangely, this Genesis album would prove to be the band's second album to crack the US Top 40 peaking at #26 in early 1977.
I first got this album as a Christmas present from my older brother in 1997 when he bought me the 1994 remastered CD and loved it immediately.
That remastered CD version buried the weak sounding Atco CD issue from the 1980s.
Now in May of 2007, Rhino/Atlantic re-release the album as a CD and DVD set. The album is remixed on CD in stereo for excellent sound (very similar to what was done to The Who catalog in the 1990s). The new mixes are AMAZING and I hear things in the new mixes that I have not ever heard before. Also, it comes with a DVD which has the album mixed in 5. 1 plus two bootleg promo TV performances (these are Your Own Special Way and Afterglow from The Mike Douglas Show in February of 1977 (no, it wasn't hosted by the actor Michael Douglas but the talk show host who passed away last year) and Eleventh Earl of Mar, One For the Vine and Your Own Special Way from a Japanese TV show) plus new interviews with messieurs Collins, Hackett, Banks and Rutherford about the making of the album.
Highly recommended! .
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