Favourite Genesis Albums

[Old Frothingslosh]

More of an early to mid Phil era fan nowadays, not much else grabs me like before other than the 4 below

1. A Trick of the Tail
2. Wind and Wuthering
3. Duke
4. And Then There were Three

[cybrkhatru]

Genesis is still my favorite band, 35 years on.... crazy but it's true. (Yes is up there too, fear not!)


My rankings haven't changed much in the last 10 years... well, perhaps a little.

1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2. Duke
3. Trick of the Tail
4. Selling England by the Pound
5. Foxtrot
6. Wind and Wuthering
7. Genesis (1983)
8. Trespass
9. Nursery Cryme
10. Invisible Touch

Three Sides Live still kills me... that was probably the first thing of theirs I truly fell in love with (the video version!). Saw it around the time the 1983 album was released.

That said, my favorite Genesis live album is the Rainbow 1973 show (10/20/73) . It's perfect in every possible way.

[Esthe]

A Trick Of The Tail seems to be very popular among Yes fans.

[Gilly Goodness]

A Trick Of The Tail seems to be very popular among Yes fans.

True. It's my top fave. With ATTWT. Both albums go on my road trips. Dreamy,creamy pastoral prog-pop perfection. Banks choice of keys sounds. Outstanding
Phil's voice, young and strong. Plenty to prove.

[Soundwaveseeker]

Trick, Wind & Wuthering and ATTWT go together in a set. Yes, dreamy and romantic. That organ that Banks used on those - sort of a shimmery sound. Some of my favorite Genesis songs come from this era.

[Chris2210]

A Trick Of The Tail seems to be very popular among Yes fans.

ToT is the only album from Hackett’s run I think is sub-par. There’s a lot of (to my ears) forced humour on there and some quite banal music - I’ve never understood its popularity among prog fans and my view didn’t improve seeing it performed (incredibly well it has to be said) by Hackett and co last November. WaW is almost a carbon-copy in terms of themes and content but just far, far better in that content. There’s nothing on the prior album that comes even close to the wistful beauty of Blood on the Rooftops, not to mention the heartbreaking Afterglow.

Possibly my absolute favourite is Nursery Cryme - mostly because it includes Fountain of Salmacis (which the otherwise magnificent Genesis Live lacks). I’m not going to rank- those things are arbitrary, but I think all the Gabriel era albums from Trespass on are great - probably only slightly eclipsed by Yes’ main sequence.

I quite like And Then There Were Three and Duke, but after that there are only bits and pieces I enjoy and even the longer tracks lack the depth of their Hackett era counterparts.

[Imperatrix]

Genesis is still my favorite band, 35 years on.... crazy but it's true. (Yes is up there too, fear not!)

Same here (although it’s just about 50 years for me), but you knew that. 😂

My rankings are as follows:

1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
2. Foxtrot
3. A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering (both are a set and must not be played separately, ever)
4. Duke
5. Selling England By the Pound
6. Nursery Cryme
7. Trespass
8. Seconds Out
9. Three Sides Live
10. From Genesis to Revelation

That said, my favorite Genesis live album is the Rainbow 1973 show (10/20/73) . It's perfect in every possible way.

You said it, Spanky; it’s mine, too. 😎

[Esthe]

True. It's my top fave. With ATTWT. Both albums go on my road trips. Dreamy,creamy pastoral prog-pop perfection. Banks choice of keys sounds. Outstanding
Phil's voice, young and strong. Plenty to prove.

W&W is better.

[Yorkshire Square]

ToT is the only album from Hackett’s run I think is sub-par. WaW is almost a carbon-copy in terms of themes and content but just far, far better in that content.

Wot Gorilla? All in a Mouse's Night?

Come on, you've got me wrong, sir!

[Chris2210]

Wot Gorilla is an instrumental. It would be completely throwaway but for the fact the percussion really shines - as it does throughout the album - which is Collins’ finest hour in my book.

As for Mouse - yeah it’s silly and a bit forced, it has that in common with the previous album. But ignoring the lyrics the main verse structure is strong and the outro of the song is ravishing. I also think One for the Vine sounds a bit like ‘Genesis formula’ in terms of its themes. There was I think a danger of the band really getting into a rut at that point. The remainders just were nowhere near as good or natural with the ‘English whimsy’ approach as Gabriel. There’s perhaps even more polish to the music by this stage, but thematically they were in danger of hitting a dead-end and they were already on a path to being a lot more commercial.

[luna65]

Trespass is possibly my number 2 favorite album ever (only behind CTTE). It’s criminally overlooked by most Genesis fans, it seems.

My boyfriend in college was a big fan of Trespass too. Burgeoning prog fan that I was, I tried valiantly to get into it, and I enjoy "The Knife," but it was maybe too esoteric for me? At the time I was much more into Foxtrot and Lamb.

[Chris2210]

I really like The Knife, but I think it’s a bit close to Bowie’s Cygnet Committee to be mere coincidence. Genesis were familiar with the dame’s early work as they’d shared a stage and Gabriel did admit to being influenced by his experiments with performance. The length, structure and concerns of the two are strikingly similar even if they have nothing melodically in common.

[Mr. Holland]

ToT is the only album from Hackett’s run I think is sub-par. There’s a lot of (to my ears) forced humour on there and some quite banal music - I’ve never understood its popularity among prog fans and my view didn’t improve seeing it performed (incredibly well it has to be said) by Hackett and co last November. WaW is almost a carbon-copy in terms of themes and content but just far, far better in that content. There’s nothing on the prior album that comes even close to the wistful beauty of Blood on the Rooftops, not to mention the heartbreaking Afterglow.

Possibly my absolute favourite is Nursery Cryme - mostly because it includes Fountain of Salmacis (which the otherwise magnificent Genesis Live lacks). I’m not going to rank- those things are arbitrary, but I think all the Gabriel era albums from Trespass on are great - probably only slightly eclipsed by Yes’ main sequence.

I quite like And Then There Were Three and Duke, but after that there are only bits and pieces I enjoy and even the longer tracks lack the depth of their Hackett era counterparts.

Sacrilege!! Concerning TotT that is my favourite Genesis album. I think the album carries an amazing energy from beginning to end. It sounds like a band broken free from what eventually became chains (Gabriel, and that's not a dig at Gabriel, but the dynamics changed and I don't think the creation of The Lamb was a happy one for most involved). The album soars on the more up-tempo pieces and the melodies on the ballades flow and are simply gorgeous. I feel a lot of joy coming from the album, as where its successor Wind & Wuthering, which happens to be my second favourite Genesis album, feels like a heavier, more serious affair.

Can't argue on Blood on the Rooftops though, which is one of my favourite Genesis songs, period.

[Soundwaveseeker]

Interesting in that Trick Of The Tail is a step back to Selling England by the pound, but in the best way. 12 string guitars are more featured again, it has some of the feel of pre-Lamb albums. The Lamb on the other hand is closer to Wind & Wuthering or even Duke in its instrumentation. The keyboards seem more cutting edge, and gone are some of the more pastoral, woodsy bits you find on other albums - with the exception of maybe Cuckoo Cocoon, which has that flute you never hear again after Gabriel left.

Wind & Wuthering traditionally is my favorite Genesis album or second favorite. Love that autumnal, romantic atmosphere - you can almost feel a light wind or see the brown and orange leaves snappin' off the trees when you listen to it. But yeah, a more intense and heavier album. I suppose with Wind & W, it was like Rush with 'Hemispheres' - they went as far as they could go in that direction with the heavy conceptual themes and intense instrumentation, while others were already starting to scale back. They were like 'Ok, enough of that'. What came after was differently focused: ATTWT or Permanent Waves.

But I would say Steve Hackett on W&W is him coming out of his shell. What you hear on there is the Hackett of Spectral Morning, Defector etc. Before that, he was just the guitarist in that band. As good as his contributions to those were, with W&W you can hear him as one of the personalities along with the other three equally. It finally was a 4-way split, though a little too late and he was gone from the band just as he was 'becoming' the Hackett we know now.

[gbh90125]

I am strongly in the Phil Era camp, - though I love songs from the Pete era, I prefer Phil singing them. Cinema Show, Suppers ready Firth Of Fith etc, from seconds out are all significantly better than the original versions.
In decending order;

15) Genesis to Revelation
14) Calling All Stations
13) Tresspass
12) Nursery Chryme
11) Selling England By The Pound
10) Foxtrot
9) We Cant Dance
8) ...and Then There Were Three
7) The Lamb lies down in Broadway
6) Trick Of The Tail
5) Abacab
4) Duke
3) Genesis
2) Invisible Touch
1) Wind and Wuthering

To put it in perspective for me though my fav rock/pop albums of all time are:

1) Tunnel Of Love - Bruce Springsteen
2) Wind and Wuthering - Genesis
3) Miami Vice The Compete Collection - Jan Hammer
4) Going For The One - Yes
5) Building The Perfect Beast - Don Henley
6) About Time - Chinese Whispers
7) Invisible Touch - Genesis
8) Tormato - Yes
9) 90125 - Yes
10) Ghost In The Machine - The Police