Tony Banks’ favourite Genesis songs: “All over the place”
For all its cultural revolutionaries and psychedelic experiments, the 1960s wasn’t going to last forever, and neither was its musical landscape.
In the wake of Woodstock and the tailing off of the hippie years, a new age was dawning, and it required its own soundtrack, which came in the form of Genesis and their expansive realm of progressive rock.
In many ways, prog was the natural development of psychedelia, retaining its endless, often quite self-congratulatory solos and otherworldly soundscapes, only with the incorporation of new technologies and a kind of art rock approach. Genesis certainly weren’t the first group to embrace this new sonic age – that accolade goes to, if anyone, King Crimson – but the Surrey-based group formed an essential chapter in the development of the genre, particularly in terms of its mainstream appeal.
After all, Genesis are something of a unique beast within the prog world. Although, particularly during their earlier years, they dove headfirst into the weird and wonderful depths of prog, they quickly morphed into a group with much more mainstream appeal. By the time Phil Collins rose to the forefront, for instance, they were leaning much more towards the pop side of their sound, predicting Collins’ later rise to pop culture icon in his post-Genesis days.
Inevitably, then, Genesis fans are typically divided over which period of the band was truly the greatest – whether it was their experimental prog heights of the early days or the pop-centric sounds of their later material. If anybody is best positioned to give their take on the highs and lows of Genesis, though, then it’s probably Tony Banks, having been there from the very beginning.
As an early adopter of keyboards and synthesisers, like the infamous ARP Pro Soloist, Banks was utterly essential in carving out the sound of prog during those early days, but, at the same time, he was always looking forwards rather than wallowing in past success. While any other self-respect prog keyboardist might resent being told to adopt a more mainstream approach, Banks seemed to appreciate all the facets of Genesis’ existence.
“If you’re asking about favourites,” he once revealed in a Songfacts interview. “In the early days, the long song ‘Supper’s Ready’, that was about 26 minutes long, and went through all these changes, and worked really well.” That extensive, if unpopular with the mainstream, prog masterpiece is the kind of thing you might expect Banks to highlight as a notable favourite, but his list isn’t entirely composed of half-hour epics.
“Then in the ’80s,” Banks continued. “We had the song off the album Duke called ‘Duchess,’ which would be one of my favourites. But I like a lot of the singles we’ve done, like ‘Turn It On Again’ [also from Duke] and ‘Mama’ [from 1983’s Genesis].” The keyboardist qualified his list of favourites by saying, “I don’t really listen that often to the early tracks, but when we re-did all the albums a few years ago, I found songs all over the place that I still really enjoy.”
Seemingly, though, Genesis’ 1980s period – with Phil Collins at the forefront – forms the bulk of the keyboardist’s career highlights, in spite of his close relationship with Peter Gabriel. Then again, it is difficult to argue against the prog-pop power of an album like Duke.
Tony Banks’ four favourite Genesis songs:
- ‘Supper’s Ready’
- ‘Duchess’
- ‘Turn It On Again’
- ‘Mama’
