Genesis - Trick Of The Tail

A couple of weeks ago I did a post about the Yes album Close To The Edge a favorite of mine from the group and now I will write about another of my “progressive” rock favorites….Genesis.

When Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 after completing the tour for the groups most successful album to date, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, most people expected the band to not do very well without their gifted lead singer, but unexpectedly with the release of the Trick Of The Tail record in early 1976 they surprised everyone with how good it was.

After spending a long time auditioning hundreds of singers to replace Gabriel they finally decided their drummer, a guy named Phil Collins, was a good replacement. Like most everyone else I am not a big fan of his solo material or the post Abacab stuff either, but he is a great drummer and did a very good job on the first five Genesis records he sang lead vocals on. I suspect part of it is that he wasn’t the dominant songwriter on those recordings with keyboardist Tony Banks and bass player Mike Rutherford providing most of the material. A great sounding record produced by David Hentschel and Genesis with lots of acoustic piano, moog synthesizers, acoustic and 12 string guitars and on a couple of songs some pounding drums, it is a favorite of many fans.

Here is the aggressive album opener Dance On A Volcano and the lush acoustic song Ripples about how it’s not fun growing old, which has some of the best singing Collins ever did.

Buy it here.