Genesis
Spot The Pigeon (EP)

The first of two EPs released by Genesis in their career (the other being related to "Paperlate" from 1982), "Spot The Pigeon" from 1977 is the last work of the group featuring Steve Hackett on guitar. However, the guitarist only actively contributed to the creation of "Inside And Out", the best track on the single. All three compositions are from the "Wind And Wuthering" sessions, and according to Tony Banks, the reason for their exclusion from the 1976 album was the excessive length the LP would have reached with the three additions. In reality, a track like "Inside And Out" could have easily replaced "Wot Gorilla?", the weakest piece of the beautiful album with the autumnal cover.

The beginning is with "Match Of The Day" and comes the first surprise; in fact, this is the first piece signed by the future "remaining three." It is a song about football, almost the song about this sport by antonomasia, containing the insults like "..go to hell, referee...", the technical language "...a rather nasty tackle, mate", and all the typical Sunday fan's attitudes. Genesis were, naturally, die-hard football fans. Apart from the lyrics, deemed banal by Tony Banks, who excluded it from "Archive 1976-1996" for this reason, the music is very simple and carefree, foreshadowing songs that would be composed much later, especially "Paperlate". "Pigeons" is a simple, cheerful little song, a little march highlighting the lyrics, decidedly against the poor pigeons "Who Put 50 Tons of Shit On The Foreign Office Roof?/Who Suffers From Nine Known Diseases?", the track isn't bad, but it didn't deserve inclusion in the 1976 work, so it was fitting to use it as a B-side.

The last track is instead pure poetry, the introduction of the twelve-string arpeggios is magical, and Collins begins to sing with a delicate and very expressive voice the story of the poor prisoner, "Brother seems they'll let him out next year/I heard he's behaving well/Governor Conway says he'll be fine/As long as he keeps the discipline", the track then evolves with Collins engaged in both the narrative voice and that of the protagonist; the music is very beautiful, sweet and intimate at the beginning, galloping and majestic in the finale.

The EP was reissued by Virgin in 1988, however, it is now very rare, and in the original version, it can be easily found in specialized markets.