“We didn’t want to go through all that again”: The album that made Genesis break up
It’s never an easy decision for a band to decide to hang it up for the final time. Every artist is going to want to continue getting better on every release, and even if an album doesn’t hit the mark every time, it’s no big deal as long as they can bounce back on their following release. In the case of Genesis, though, they knew that they had nothing more to give to the world after releasing this album.
Then again, Genesis already felt indestructible before they entered their final years. Any band that lets go of someone like Peter Gabriel would normally have their playing days numbered, but getting Phil Collins to speak up from behind the drumkit turned them into one of the biggest names in music all over again once the MTV generation kicked in and started incorporating synthesisers into the mainstream.
Compared to their earlier work, though, most prog fans would be forgiven if they never wanted to listen to the pop schlock of Invisible Touch ever again. A lot of the band’s new songs were still catchy, but there was a fine line between making the episodic songs found on their album cuts and making the candified version of pop that would make Madonna tell them to turn things down a bit.
While We Can’t Dance got them back in touch with something a bit closer to prog-rock, Collins had had enough of being in the group. Although the drummer was more than happy to work with the group, he had a lot more to say as a solo artist and wanted them to promise him they would continue, saying, “When they said they were going to carry on, I was really pleased, because I didn’t really want to split it up. I just didn’t want to be in it.”
Even though they had overcome this kind of band shakeup before, bringing in Ray Wilson was far from the breath of fresh air that everyone wanted. Not only did he not measure up to Collins or Gabriel, but listening to Calling All Stations, the entire band sounded checked out too, only scraping together meagre hits like ‘Shipwrecked’ and not even selling enough tickets to tour for the record.
Although Wilson may have thought the band could carry on, Tony Banks thought the time was right for them to bow out gracefully, saying, “We were getting older, and we felt perhaps we didn’t want to go through all of that again, you know, all that you have to put up with.” Then again, it didn’t take the band long for the original lineup to come roaring back to life on the touring circuit.
While Gabriel remained outside the fold and kept moving on with his solo career, Collins figured that he was up for touring when he could, often taking the band out on the road and playing a greatest-hits setlist throughout the 2000s. But after 1997, it was clear that none of the members had any desire to go back into the studio to make a new album.
And that’s not exactly a bad thing, either. Some people might critique bands like Genesis for riding the nostalgia wave for as long as it takes them, but it’s sometimes better to say all that you have to say rather than staying too long at the party and have your core audience wondering why you’re still making records.
