Genesis (band)/YMMV

These things about Genesis are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.


 * Anvilicious: Phil Collins' attempts at setting himself up as an artist with a social conscience were less than impressive - "Tell Me Why" was especially embarassing. Rutherford didn't fare much better - "Land of Confusion" was only saved by its sheer energy and the popular Spitting Image video.
 * Archive Panic: With over forty years' worth of material plus all kinds of bootlegs and each member's solo material, new fans can find it all a bit daunting.
 * Awesome Music: Oh, so many. "Watcher Of The Skies" from Foxtrot immediately springs to mind.
 * Also, "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", "Dance On A Volcano", "Firth Of Fifth", "Los Endos" and the ending sections of "The Musical Box", "Supper's Ready" and "Cinema Show".
 * Side One of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is very much up there too.
 * Broken Base: Oh God, and how! Gabriel vs. Collins, Collins vs. Wilson, etc. etc. etc.
 * Crosses the Line Twice: "Harold The Barrel" from the album Nursery Cryme.
 * Ear Worm: Many of their songs, especially the Phil Collins-led era.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Phil Collins came out from behind his drum kit to take over as lead singer of the band, and then went on to have an astronomical solo career. Mike Rutherford has also found solo success with his band Mike + The Mechanics.
 * Epic Riff: "Dance on a Volcano". So epic, they reprise it during "Los Endos".
 * Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Some fans have come up with some rather interesting interpretations for various songs, including the theory that the Eighties pop album Invisible Touch is a concept album about nuclear war.
 * Face of the Band: Phil Collins was definitely this during The Eighties, to the extent that radio DJs would announce Genesis songs as either Phil Collins songs or "Phil Collins and Genesis", as though Genesis were merely Collins's backing band. It also meant that - to this day - long-time fans consider Collins to be singly responsible for the band's move into a more commercial direction, as though the other two members were either completely uninvolved, or somehow forced by Collins to go along.
 * Fanon Discontinuity: The following people (either individually or in any combination) never left/joined the band: Anthony Phillips, John Mayhew, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Phil Collins, and Ray Wilson. Also, no albums were ever recorded with/without some/any/all of these people.
 * Similarly, the band's fanbase is split in half: Those who prefer their Peter Gabriel led albums and those who like Phil Collins-led records. What albums exist usually depend on which side you're on.
 * See: Broken Base above.
 * Many people, including the band themselves tend to pretend that the album Calling All Stations never happened. None of the songs from that album were performed on the recent reunion tour.
 * Their first album also qualifies. Not only were Phil and Steve not on it, but the band does not own the rights to it, and it is distributed to the few who want to hear it by another company. Thus, most official discographies and catalogues make no mention of it. It's also pretty different from even their second album.
 * Freud Was Right: The Slippermen, and Doktor Dyper's "cure" for same.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Not that they wren't big anywhere else, but they were huge in Italy, and pretty much from day one.
 * Newbie Boom: Following the success of Duke and Abacab.
 * Old Shame: Despite the song as a whole being nearly universally considered Crowning Music of Awesome, the lyrics to Firth of Fifth are considered by Tony Banks to be some of the worst he's ever written. On the reunion tour, they cut the lyrics out entirely and just played the epic middle section as an instrumental.
 * Older Than They Think: Hackett made heavy use of the "tapping" and "sweep picking" techniques often thought to be invented by 1980's heavy metal guitarists.
 * Replacement Scrappy: Phil Collins was initially seen as this when he replaced Peter Gabriel. Ray Wilson was seen as this by many fans when he replaced Collins.
 * Sophomore Slump: Averted with "Trespass;" the band had kept writing songs during their early tour and cherry-picked the best ones for the album.
 * Special Effect Failure: In a documentary, Collins said The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway had at least one in every show they did. For example, one scene required two explosions onstage revealing Gabriel and a mannequin dressed as Gabriel to represent Rael's dual personality. The pyrotechnic expert was a bit overzealous on the explosives, resulting in a charred mannequin.
 * Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: The Phil Collins solo song "Another Day In Paradise".
 * Tastes Like Diabetes: "Hold On My Heart" from We Can't Dance.
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The older fans of Genesis feel this way about the band's output during the 1980's.
 * Tough Act to Follow: What happened after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, until the band switched genres.
 * Also, Ray Wilson following Phil Collins as lead singer.
 * Collins following Gabriel into a solo career; This Troper believes it was Johnny Carson who once introduced him as "The man who made a career out of being not as good as Peter Gabriel."
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, arguably. Also, Peter Gabriel's elaborate stage costumes and the bizarre stories he told between songs.
 * The costumes also helped Gabriel with his stage fright too.
 * Unfortunate Implications: "Illegal Alien", a comedy song about an opportunistic Mexican immigrant. Not only does Phil Collins perform it with an awful, fake Spanish accent, but he also wears a sombrero in the video. It hasn't aged well.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the surreal, fantastical stage show that resulted.
 * Possibly a subversion; they may very well have been on drugs. That certainly would explain a lot.
 * Word of God claims the band were among the least drug-affected of bands in their era.
 * This probably doesn't count Phil Collins, who spent the Lamb tour high as a kite, and "initiated" Hackett into the band by seeing how much Newcastle Brown Ale he could drink and still play the drums at a live gig. For a seventies rock band, that's practically straight-edge, though.
 * The Woobie: Phil Collins (see: Break the Cutie on the main page).