The curtains always open on something new in a Genesis song. But more than anything, the rule created a guiding principle for Genesis: to honor the spirit of collaboration, to push each other beyond what they could accomplish individually, and to invite their audience along as we all discovered something, together.Įven before the ’80s, this was their appeal. This process led to songs that could sound like three minds interlocking like a jigsaw puzzle (“Turn It on Again”), or a pinhole view into a lightning-in-a-bottle experiment (“Mama”), or, occasionally, a bad joke that should have never left the room (“Illegal Alien”). In other words, anything and everything on a Genesis album had to be created within the presence of the entire group: This way, no single person could be credited (or blamed) for the music that emerged.

At some point in the ’80s, Collins and his bandmates-keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford-established a rule that no individual member could enter the studio with pre-written musical ideas. And in retrospect, the band’s increasingly popular, slow-danceable ballads closing out the decade-“Ripples…” and “Your Own Special Way” from 1976, “Follow You Follow Me” in 1978-do emerge from their discography like exit signs toward the oncoming highway to fame, just up the road.Īs natural as it feels to equate Genesis’ turn from progressive rock to pop with Collins’ rise as a solo star, the truth is that Genesis was always a band, and Collins was always just one voice. Because of his public persona, there is a misconception that he single-handedly transformed this artful, bookish progressive rock band into the Phil Collins Show as soon as he took over vocal duties from Peter Gabriel in 1976.

Genesis discography torrent