The way Genesis walk live - long trousers or short?
Prog years versus pop years, or is it all a version of Genesis music?
I review albums when they are celebrating a release anniversary (or are close to one). Often this is linked to a reissue, perhaps in the form of a super deluxe edition or a new vinyl release/remaster. I’m digging into my own digital collection at the moment, and this will inspire some of my selections this year, too.
Listen to Genesis - The Way We Walk - Vol. 2: The Longs on your preferred streaming service
Original release: 11 January 1993
Some will tell you that, when Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, they immediately became a pop band. Indeed, I read a comment online a couple of weeks ago by someone who said they loved Gabriel-era Genesis, but had never listened to anything post-Gabriel. It seemed his father had told him they became a pop band when Phil Collins took over as singer. Firstly, that’s not the whole story, not by a long way. Secondly, to love a band and then refuse to listen, even once, to some of their records, based on someone else’s opinion (even from one as influential as his father), is odd to say the least.
Perhaps with that in mind, Genesis made an unusual move when they released this document of their 1992 We Can’t Dance tour. Rather than put out a double album representing the whole set list, they split their songs into two categories: Volume 1: The Shorts, offering their ‘pop’ songs, and this album, Volume 2: The Longs.
This meant pop Genesis fans needn’t be bothered by extended prog songs, and prog Genesis fans didn’t have to suffer the indignities of pop. Naturally, the set list presented for the real live experience blended their shorter and longer songs. (A DVD of the Earl’s Court gig in London gives a fuller representation of Genesis in concert.) Here’s an extract:
Genesis - Domino: In the Glow of the Night/The Last Domino (Earls Court, London, 1992)
The first 20 minutes of The Longs is an ‘Old Medley’ of Gabriel-era songs (with the exception of a short ‘Dance on a Volcano’, the opening track on the first Collins album as lead vocalist, A Trick of the Tail.) Interestingly, though, Collins inserts the titles of a few ‘pop’ Genesis songs at then of the ‘I Know What I Like’ section, perhaps as a rebuke to those fans to like to separate the ‘eras’ and make it clear it’s all integrated.
To my ears, this isn’t the best recorded live album. It all sounds too compressed. The vocals have been treated on ‘Old Medley’ and, overall, the recording doesn’t offer enough punch for me.
And then the Genesis/Collins as a pop band argument crumbles, because the remaining Longs are all from the Collins era: ‘Driving the Last Spike’ (10:18); both parts of ‘Domino’ (11:21); ‘Fading Lights’ (10:55); ‘Home By the Sea/Second Home By the Sea’ (12:14); and to top it all off a giant drum solo by Phil Collins and Chester Thompson, ‘Drum Duet’ (6:06) - note there are four songs longer than this on The Shorts. None of this music is ‘pop’, if that matters.
The ‘Old Medley’ is superbly arranged, taking us back to the band’s formative years yet with an updated sound to suit the band as it was in 1993 - Phil Collins on vocals and drums, Tony Banks (keyboards), and Mike Rutherford (guitars/bass); supported by second drummer Chester Thompson and Daryl Steurmer (guitars/bass). Genesis listeners are not always happy about their beloved songs being ‘reduced’ to a part in a medley, but when crafting a set list for a band with as many fan favourite songs as Genesis, it’s probably the only way of acknowledging the past without the set being swamped by songs that the more recent fans may not have heard. To reverse my opening comments, there must be plenty of ‘late to the party’ listeners who have never heard ‘progressive’ Genesis.
Of course, there is only one Genesis. In the beginning, way back at the end of the sixties, the plan was to write songs for others, and pop songs at that. They became progressive, but if any of their first batch of songs (which can be heard on their debut album From Genesis to Revelation) had taken off, what would have moved them from that style?
Of the full songs, ‘Driving the Last Spike’ is an epic tale, complete with passion, drama, and driving keyboards. The soul of Genesis is Tony Banks, and his keys have always been present. Away from Genesis, Banks has written classical works.
‘Fading Lights’ was the last song on the last Genesis album, if we accept that the last album to bear the Genesis name, Calling All Stations, is a postscript and not fully canon (do we accept that proposition? If so, it means no Genesis without Collins, but there was). It’s just that ‘Fadling Lights’ would have been such a great song to finish their career with. The verses are epic and beautiful, and the instrumental break, the centrepiece, is classic Banks. Here, though, there are still two songs to come if we count ‘Drum Duet’.
To describe the live drums and percussion performances of Phil Collins and Chester Thompson as ‘drum solos’ is a disservice. If you’ve ever suffered one of those interminable drum solos that seem to lose all purpose, be relieved to know you won’t find that here. ‘Drum Duet’ builds rhythm and power across all six minutes and - honestly - does not outstay its welcome. An odd way to end an album? Yes, it is. But then, Genesis has never played by the ‘rules’ of pop, rock, progressive, or any other genre and sold records by the pound in breaking those rules, so what do we know? Perhaps we can even dance (volcano not included).
Prog Genesis, pop Genesis, or is it all Genesis and this is a sterile debate? What are your thoughts?
Further listening
Genesis - The Way We Walk Vol 1: The Shorts
Genesis - Live (a snapshot of how they sounded in the early seventies)
Genesis - Seconds Out (peak Collins-era double live album)
Genesis - We Can’t Dance (the album of the tour. Prog and, okay, some pop prog too)
Further reading
Mario Giammetti - Genesis 1975 to 2025: The Phil Collins Years [Bookshop.org aff] (the first volume covering the Peter Gabriel years is an engaging, detailed read too).
Next up in LP
LP is now settled into the 2026 rhythm.
Every Tuesday, I post a new review. On the final Tuesday of the month, this becomes an extended, long-read review for paid subscribers.
Randomly, shorter reviews and/or videos will appear in Substack Notes.
Next week, LP>Playlist reaches #065, together with my listening guide. That’s with you on 19 January.
As someone who has everything Genesis ever recorded, and saw them live in every show in the NYC area from 1976 (for which I worked when I was Asst. Stage Mgr of the Beacon Theater) to 1984, I have a fairly broad perspective.
Keeping in mind that any lists or comments on any form of art (music, film, dance, TV, fashion, etc.) are hopelessly subjective, I would say that Genesis started to become "pop-py" with Abacab (which nevertheless has the fabulous Dodo/Lurker), and "cemented" themselves as a "pop" band (if that is the word one wants to use) with Invisible Touch. Yes, it has Tonight, Tonight and the Domino Suite, but most of the rest is in a more "commercial" vein, as most of Abacab and Genesis were as well.
The last truly fabulous album was And Then There Were Three (even with the loss of guitarist Steve Hackett), and even Duke had its unique charm. But there were more and more "pop" songs and fewer and fewer "progressive" compositions. (And note the difference between "song" and "composition.")
I love almost all of Genesis, for different reasons. The Gabriel era obviously gave us the more progressive side of the band on a consistent basis. Starting with Trespass (particularly, but not solely, the Knife), through Nursery Cryme (Hogweed, Musical Box, Fountain of Salmacis), through Foxtrot (virtually every track), through Selling England (every track), and the almost impossible concept album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the group was relentless in offering the best of progressive rock.
It was not surprising that Collins took the band in a slightly different direction while maintaining their progressive roots, particularly on Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering (I could write an entire article about the latter, its exceptional and unique elements, and its singular influence on what became "neo-prog.")
Ultimately, all Genesis music is "Genesis," even if not all of it is "progressive" rock.
I would say Ian strikes true all the way. I prefer prog Genesis, Gabriel Genesis, yet, I won't lie that I adore Invisible Touch as a pure pop album and I recall being surrounded by it every single turn in the 80s to the point of much aggravation, considering I was a pure metalhead at the time. Yet, I wanted to hear the legendary prog stuff even during my teens, so I dug into Trespass, Wind & Wuthering, Foxtrot and Selling England and was like, "Whoa...." It helped me appreciate Invisible Touch, maybe not in the moment, but later on in my listening and eventually music journalism career. It's remarkably affective and infectious album that certainly took hold of the flame carried forward by Abacab and the ST.
Genesis are one of those few bands I give a pass to for their drastic change from one extreme dynamic to another, because Invisible Touch is just that damned good. We Can't Dance to the end, meh. Collins usurping Genesis to a pop verve in the same as what Peter Cetera did to Chicago, albeit, Genesis as a pop band had far more integrity than Cetera's shameful soft soaping of a funk, rock, country, folk juggernaut. Cetera is unforgivable. Collins less so, even if he fell into a stuck mojo as a songwriter once making that shift.