Peter Gabriel’s awkward chart battle with Genesis: “It was a very difficult thing”
Sometimes, your own talent can come back to bite you when it leaves you in a league of your own. Can a person ever truly win when there’s no one in the race but themselves? In the music world, it’s not a common occurrence, as there are millions of contenders putting out songs each day and vying for success. But in 1986 it happened as Peter Gabriel was stuck in a chart battle with himself.
Or perhaps more accurately, the battle was with the ghost of himself. When an artist leaves a band to go solo, the pressure is on to make it and prove that the decision was a good one. They want to exceed what they’d managed within the group in an attempt to show that they can be just as, if not more, successful on their own.
But for Peter Gabriel, that internal battle became a literal one when he found himself in a tough chart battle with his former band, Genesis. When Gabriel left the group in 1975, bassist Mike Rutherford said that they all “could see it coming”, but that didn’t make it any easier. During Gabriel’s years in the group, critics generally tended to focus on him, caring most about the theatrical flair that he brought to the band’s sound, which, over time, bothered the rest of the members. It left them with an uneasy and bitter feeling that Gabriel was leaving because he thought he was better than the rest of them.
Gabriel didn’t help himself out much, either. When he left the group, he released a statement saying it was all down to feeling disillusioned with music and wanting to live a more normal life and spend time with his family. The band didn’t quite see it that way, as Tony Banks said, “Pete was also getting too big for the group. He was being portrayed as if he was ‘the man’ and it really wasn’t like that.”
He admitted that actually, Gabriel leaving made them quite happy, adding, “It was a very difficult thing to accommodate. So it was actually a bit of a relief.”
So, from claiming to be done with it all, it surprised the group that the same year, Gabriel began recording, and three years later, his debut album was out. But while the now solo artist’s career began to build, Genesis was going from strength to strength without him. Now Phil Collins was at the helm, taking the mic once the old singer departed, the band were soaring, meaning that by the summer of 1986, both Peter Gabriel and Genesis were two of the hottest acts around.
It was May 1986. Peter Gabriel’s record So launched him to new heights, remaining his best-selling and most successful release. Only a few weeks later, Genesis released Invisible Touch. The album’s lead singles ‘Sledgehammer’ and ‘Invisible Touch’ entered into a chart battle with each side trying to prove a point.
‘Invisible Touch’ made it to number one first, giving the group their first US top single. But the win was shortlived as the following week, ‘Sledgehammer’ kicked it off the top spot as Gabriel usurped his former band. But realistically, it was all shortlived as only the week after, both of them were beaten out by Chicago.
“I think that consumer culture tends to be very hungry. It can’t get enough of you for a very short time and then your taste gets boring and they spit you out and take the next new thrill,” Gabriel told Rolling Stone. But at least for a brief moment, he was the taste of the week, ahead of the band he abandoned.
