Watch Genesis perform the eccentric classic ‘The Musical Box’ in 1973
The Genesis of the early 1970s were a far cry from the power pop group they would end the decade as and even further from the pop sound drummer Phil Collins would go on to shape in the 1980s.
The genesis of Genesis took place in 1967, when Charterhouse School students Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel and Anthony Philips decided to go off-piste in music class. Their plan was to stress the boundaries of art, picking up where The Beatles’ psychedelic odyssey in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band left off.
This early lineup found some early glimmers of success with a handful of intriguing art-rock singles as they built up to their 1969 debut studio album, From Genesis to Revelation, recorded at the end of their teen years.
By the spring of 1970, the prolific group already had enough material for a follow-up album and hit the studio for the Trespass sessions at trident studios in London. The sessions were completed in June, but sadly, lead guitarist Phillips had contracted bronchial pneumonia by this point. Compounded by a worsening case of stage fright, he decided to leave the band. His last gig with Genesis took place in Haywards Heath in July 1970.
Genesis soldiered on and released Trespass in the autumn, but it was met with underwhelming levels of commercial and critical attention. “Genesis seemed to be dying a death around our second album”, Gabriel told Q Magazine in 2011.
The turning point for the band came with the induction of Collins and replacement guitarist Steve Hackett. With these two auditions, Genesis took on the eccentrically accessible form that would conquer the prog-rock scene of the early ’70s.
“My only knowledge of Genesis was through seeing the ads for their gigs. It seemed like they were constantly working. I thought, ‘At least I’m going to be working if I get the gig’,” Collins reflected on his audition back in August 1970 via Genesis: Chapter and Verse.
“It was a combination of things,” Banks added, discussing the new recruit. “[Collins] could make it swing a little bit … he could also tell good jokes and make us laugh … And he could sing, which was an advantage because Mike and I were not very good at backup vocals.”
The tide began to change for Genesis with the release of Nursery Cryme in November 1971. The album was by no means a masterpiece, and its foggy production let it down, but with Collins’ explosive energy and Gabriel’s strange, Ziggy Stardust-rivalling stage presence, the live shows began to gain serious traction. The band’s tight cult following began to grow.
The defining moment on Nursery Cryme was its epic opener, ‘The Musical Box’, a magical story about a young girl named Cynthia who decapitates her friend Henry during a game of Croquet. Henry’s spirit gets trapped in Cynthia’s magical box, where time moves much faster. He emerges as an angry, aged ghost who attempts vengeance through a depraved sexual attack, but she is saved by her nurse, who throws the musical box at Henry, returning him to the spirit world.
Watch the greatest live rendition of the obscure prog-rock tale below.
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