Genesis re-evaluated: I posted the following to the I Love Music board on ILXOR.com yesterday and was told that I managed to make someone interested in a Phil Collins song. Yay for me! The track in question is on the criminally-underrated Invisible Touch album and really should be heard by everyone, if only to show that AOR doesn't have to be boring and formulaic.

Okay, I just downloaded "Domino" and the opening is just as fantastic as I remembered it to be. Pulsating guitar/synth lines with wispy goth drums suddenly burst into a micro-fit of AOR bombast minus bass line and power chords. All the while, the guitar is just lurking in the background, playing the same undulating hypnotizing line. Phil sings about a broken relationship, jonesing for luvin' and a thunderstorm without rhyming until the chorus. The chorus itself contains one of those AWESOME descending progressions that just make you want to sway. The whole thing builds in 80s cliche after 80s cliche (Drumpad abuse? Check. Cathedral keyboards? Check.) all throughout the first half.

Then, everything drops out except for the synths. Phil sings a line about wishing things would last forever, then BAM we've got The Genesis interpretation of Nitzer Ebb's "Lightning Man". Phil starts singing REALLY LOONEY lyrics about a river of blood that overflows its banks and melts children. There's a reverb/echo break for the guitar at this point, sounding sort of like Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell" rescored for solo guitar, then they burst into the TRIUMPHANT SOUNDTRACK FINALE where Phil talks about awful things on TV and quotes Anthrax (!!) interspersed with triumphant (and nonsensical) exhortations that "you gotta go domino!" The song's final breakdown occurs, where Phil repeats the "nothing lasts forever" line at the faster tempo then wanks all over his drumpads, and then they play us out by having Tony hit every preset on his keyboard in succession while Mike continues to show that while Genesis may have guitar, it's all rhythm guitar. Tony, Phil and Mike tastefully jam their way to the fade-out and you immediately push play again because the whole thing is SO AWESOME.