Phil Collins on the closest Genesis came to getting things right: “Everybody tensed up in the studio”
Every artist tends to be their own worst enemy in the studio. Those four walls may offer a bit more creativity than simply playing a tune onstage, but whenever someone starts to hit a stumbling block during recording, it can be like pulling teeth trying to get the final take for four seconds’ worth of music. And while Phil Collins has remained proud of many of his finest moments with Genesis, he knew that all of them were inherently flawed in some way over time.
First of all, it’s easy to see where some of the records hit a wall right out of the gate. The band’s debut, From Genesis to Revelation, was bound to be rough around the edges since they were barely out of school, and once Collins left the fold, Calling All Stations is still one of the most forgettable things they’ve ever made, despite having some decent singles behind it like ‘Shipwrecked’.
Then again, it’s not like Collins was the sole reason for their success. In many people’s minds, he was the reason why the band became too popular in the 1980s, and even when working on some of his solo stuff, there were moments where people thought he’d lost the plot, especially when he thought releasing a song like ‘Sussudio’ would earn him any respect with his longtime fans.
But Collins never yearned to be a frontman. He ended up becoming a solo star by complete accident, and even before he got the urge to move out front in the band, Peter Gabriel usually didn’t need anyone else onstage to command attention. All of their previous efforts had been conceptual works, and seeing Gabriel change his image to whatever suited the song was the kind of eye-catching visuals they needed.
When the band first started out, though, every album seemed to be building to something, and once they hit upon The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, they were free to do whatever they wanted. Since they had room to stretch for a double album, this feels like the most concentrated version of what they could do, having the time to spread things out without having to make one elongated song based on a single topic.
And even though Collins has a soft spot for those early years, he admitted that this was the one moment where everything fell together for Genesis, saying, “We had a real hard edge that always got softened and glossed and shined in the studio. We never really got it right on record. The Lamb was close because we recorded that on a mobile in a barn in Wales. But everybody tensed up in the studio.”
At the same time, this could have been a case where Collins was testing the waters. It wasn’t clear that Gabriel was going to leave, but seeing the drummer take the microphone on some songs was a way for him to see what it was like to lead the band without having to step on Gabriel’s toes all that much.
Still, even if the band was tense, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a good starting point for anyone remotely interested in what they could do. There are moments that are extravagant and a bit too over-the-top, but since Gabriel would leave soon after, there isn’t too much higher for him to have gone afterwards.
