Afterglow

For almost twenty years I believed it. The story of Genesis who, after Peter Gabriel's departure, turned their backs on progressive rock and their longtime fans to devote themselves exclusively to the crassest chart-topping pop. Ok, maybe it wasn't quite twenty years: eighteen, sure, maybe sixteen. And in any case, the more extreme versions of the rumor never seduced me: the ones claiming that Phil Collins is synonymous with betrayal, and that the band's interesting records end with "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway". That the first two albums with the legendary drummer on vocals turned out to be accomplished and fully progressive works is, on the other hand, hard to deny. What I tended to accept instead was the "softer" reading of events: it wasn't Gabriel's farewell that triggered the collapse, but Steve Hackett's. The narrative held up: the timing lined up with prog's decline in favor of other genres, with the band's worldwide success thanks to tracks that were undeniably non-prog, with the vanishing of Tony Banks's acrobatic solos and, inevitably, of the guitarist's (who, unlike the others, would go on to pursue a career always oriented in a progressive direction).

But I was wrong. Because there's not a shred of truth in either account. They're complete nonsense, and for a simple reason. Genesis never stopped playing progressive rock.

But hold on, someone will object – are you seriously claiming that “Invisible Touch” (138 million streams on Spotify), “I Can’t Dance” (94 million), “That’s All” (87 million) are prog tracks? No, not at all. They're pop songs (great pop songs, I'd even venture, but that's another matter) with no obvious progressive elements, but admitting this doesn't undermine the argument. The point isn't to concede that Genesis in the Eighties recorded plenty of purely pop songs and hit it big thanks to them: there's no need to concede that, the numbers speak for themselves. The point is rather to show that those very albums with which Banks, Collins and Rutherford climbed the charts – “Abacab”, “Genesis”, “Invisible Touch”, “We Can’t Dance” – contain, alongside the huge hit singles and other effective verse-chorus songs, a steady stream of full-blown prog tracks – and among the most thrilling of their era, no less.

That's not all. It's the entire received narrative around the band's fortunes that doesn't hold water. Take the idea that the band suddenly decided to sell out instead of caring about art. From their earliest days, their albums included, alongside the suites, more direct and commercial songs too, some of which were released as singles in the hope of “hitting it big”. “Seven Stones” on “Nursery Cryme” (and on 7-inch with “Happy The Man”, never released on an album), “Time Table” on “Foxtrot”, and even two tracks on “Selling England By The Pound”: “More Fool Me” and “I Know What You Like (In Your Wardrobe)”. So why, when reconstructing the story of the band's supposed “sell-out”, do people forget these songs? Well, because it's easy to forget them: they were flops, and musically they're such inoffensive tunes that it's not worth losing sleep over them. In fact, you end up growing rather fond of them. But they're there, and they prove that the dream of breaking through, and doing so with radio-friendly songs, had always existed and had always been pursued. It's just that, sadly, for a long time the band wasn't very good at writing easily catchy songs. Around the time of “…And Then There Were Three…”, with the unexpected success of “Follow You Follow Me”, they finally found their footing, and understandably decided to keep betting on that path going forward. But, just as Genesis never stopped playing prog, they also never actually started playing radio-friendly pop: they'd always been trying to.

Then there's the other recurring bit of nonsense, the idea of Phil Collins as a despot who takes over the band and exploits it for his own shady commercial ambitions. Nothing could be further from what emerges in accounts and historical retellings: the band's mastermind, before, during and after Collins's residency on vocals, was consistently Tony Banks! The bulk of the compositions were steadily his; the timbral choices that most shaped the band's sound were his; the main contribution to the winding instrumental plots of the Seventies, and to their simplification the following decade, was his. The Eighties period, moreover, was the most democratic in the band's history: whereas before then songs had been written by individuals or pairs (mostly Banks/Rutherford, with occasional input from Hackett and Gabriel first, and Collins later), “Abacab” ushered in a new way of composing and deciding, with the band engaging in long improvisational sessions built on an equal contribution from each member, from which the key ideas for the songs would then be jointly extracted.

But surely there's at least some truth to the dominant narrative? Well, it's undeniable that Genesis in the Eighties were a different beast compared to before. And their commercial success was certainly driven by the more blatantly pop songs, which appeared on the albums from “Duke” onward in far greater proportion than in the past. With their immediacy and universal appeal, these songs effectively served as a “showcase” for the new Genesis sound and launched it toward record sales that would have been simply unthinkable a few years earlier.

There's also no doubt that the band's new direction relied, even in the longer tracks, less and less on instrumental acrobatics and surprise shifts, and increasingly on atmospheric layering, rhythmic repetition, gradual transitions, and timbral exploration. These were aspects rarely placed at the centre of Seventies progressive rock, partly because the means to do so simply weren't available. Until 1975, the most timbrally versatile instrument Tony Banks had at his disposal was the Arp Pro Soloist, a monophonic synthesizer (just one note at a time!) with no scope for sound customisation beyond its thirty presets (ready-made sounds, and far less varied than those of a modern digital keyboard). With the arrival of polyphonic synthesizers, everything changed: the ability to play chords pushed Hammond, Mellotron and electric pianos out of the spotlight; the almost simultaneous arrival of instruments with digital memory made it possible to save patches and recall a sound at the press of a single key, instead of reconfiguring every dial. It's understandable that keyboardists' enthusiasm turned to exploring these new possibilities, setting aside the virtuosic models borrowed from the world of piano playing; the same thing happened, for that matter, in virtually every other strand of pop music.

It's also true that the lead guitar's role became less prominent, and that Phil Collins's drumming style changed profoundly. Although often underrated for his taste and technical skill, Mike Rutherford is no Steve Hackett, and he's far more visible in the role of co-writer and solid supporting performer than as the on-stage centre of attention.

And Collins, accused of having tailored his sound to the more obnoxious side of the Eighties? Well, in this case the common view suffers from a certain unintentional understatement: Collins didn't adapt to the drum sound of the Eighties – he literally invented it! The blame (or credit, take your pick) lies, incidentally, with an old acquaintance: Peter Gabriel. The former frontman wanted Collins alongside him on his third solo album in 1980 and had him record without cymbals, convinced that the sound he needed called for radical choices. Initially a bit thrown, the versatile drummer shut himself in the studio and, together with sound engineer Hugh Padgham, came up with the idea of the decade: the gated drum. By combining a noise gate with a microphone able to capture the reverb of a room (or an electronic reverb unit), it's possible to create an effect that makes the drum sound extraordinarily massive. The trick, which proved remarkably expressive, was used on Gabriel's album for “Intruder”, by Collins for “In The Air Tonight”, by Genesis for “Mama” and… by pretty much everyone else in pop and rock for a good ten years. Yes, it's a shame that the jazz-rock feats Phil Collins had begun accustoming Genesis and Brand X audiences to remained confined to the 1976-1980 stretch. But it was the natural order of things. Pulling out of the hat the sound that would define an era, only to shove it back in and return to the previous style: now that would have been a truly reckless choice!

The playlist underpinning this article contains twenty-five tracks, spread across two decades of the band's career. More songs could have been included, or more obvious choices made: it would have been easy to throw in the complete tracklists of the first two albums without Peter Gabriel, universally acknowledged as excellent by every prog fan (with the exception of a small handful of Phil Collins haters). The gamble here, instead, was to cover as many styles and albums as possible, showing how the band's progressive streak, though reshaped, never truly died out – not even in the days of the much-maligned “Calling All Stations”, with only Banks and Rutherford left to keep the founders' flag flying.

The tracklist draws not only on studio albums, but also on live material and non-album tracks, aiming to highlight the songs most overtly rooted in a progressive aesthetic. Some of the artistic high points of Genesis's Eighties output are therefore missing (no “Turn It On Again” and no “Mama”, for instance), while room is made for B-sides, tracks released only on EPs, and live medleys. These are songs that show just how consistently the band clung to an ambitious idea of pop music, one centred on conjuring unusual settings, building stories that look beyond the everyday, shifting moods, and expanding the song form beyond the verse-chorus template (or its more elaborate variants, enriched with pre-choruses, bridges and codas).

The order is chronological by original release date, with only two exceptions, easily spotted from the years listed next to the titles. Whether or not, by the end of the listen, you share our verdict on the “progressiveness” of these songs, the hope is that this selective focus on the band's more elaborate episodes might encourage a reconsideration of this long, but often overlooked, phase of their career. Setting aside the mockery, and instead recognising it as a period of tremendous creativity, one that fully earns Genesis their place among the greatest prog bands of all time.

Throughout their entire existence, despite changes in line-up and sound, Genesis were always unique and unmistakable. They may well be the most “cloned” progressive band of all, yet if you compare a neo-prog track trying to be more authentic than the real thing with one by Eighties Genesis, you instantly recognise in the latter – however far removed from the Seventies sound – a certain quid, a specific personality, that the former could never have. As Daryl Stuermer, the band's guitarist on every tour from 1978 to 1992 (and now, with the “The Last Domino” tour, back in the line-up), explained in an interview: “I said to Mike [Rutherford]: 'What was it that I had that the others [session players auditioned] didn't?' He said: 'Well, you knew the songs!' One of the other guitarists had asked 'What style do you want me to play in?' To me, Genesis is a style unto itself. It's not country, it's not rock, it's not jazz. It's Genesis”.

Robbery, Assault And Battery, da “A Trick Of The Tail” (1976)

What's Tony Banks's most memorable solo? Which is the most compelling, which the most surprising? It's a tough call, one that could be debated forever. But only one song enters the running with two contenders worthy of the podium: it's “Robbery, Assault And Battery”. The first, around the halfway mark, has the keyboardist chasing, first with the Arp Pro Soloist and then with the Hammond, the slippery groove of Phil Collins's jazz-rock drumming; the second, lightning-fast and intensely melodic, unfolds entirely between Mellotron and Arp just before the track ends. The song's theme is one of banditry and echoes that of “The Battle Of Epping Forest”, to which there's even an explicit quotation (the melody of the line “He’s leaving by the roof” is identical to Gabriel's line “Amidst the battle roar…”). A song, in short, clearly continuous with the “old” Genesis, but also a forerunner of certain rhythmic ideas to come (chief among them the 13/4 pulse of “Turn It On Again”, the 1980 hit taken from “Duke”).

One For The Vine, da “Wind & Wuthering” (1976)

Another astonishing Tony Banks showcase, probably the most intricate and ambitious of his career. Conceived and refined alone over the course of a year, it's a circular narrative blending messianic overtones, levity and disillusionment into a critical vision of war and charismatic figures. It tells the story of a soldier who deserts his army, led by a commander who presents himself as “the chosen one”, only to find himself reluctantly leading a new horde of adoring fighters. The protagonist's physical and spiritual trials are underscored by some of the most kaleidoscopic instrumental sections in the Genesis catalogue, complete with key changes, disco-prog forays, and harmonic passages as tortuous as they are evocative. The ending is genuinely moving, thanks to its brilliant depiction of the moment when the fugitive, now risen to commander himself, watches one of his own soldiers walk away from the battlefield, heading toward that very same fate.

Inside And Out, da “Spot The Pigeon” (Ep, 1977)

A saccharine ballad built on acoustic guitar arpeggios, the kind Tony Banks has scattered throughout the band's discography for years (not always to the delight of long-time fans). That is, at least, for the first four minutes (“Inside”): the long instrumental coda, “Out”, is an entirely different matter. With a sharp break, the track shifts into one of the most energetic keyboard-driven charges around, which in turn gives way to a quasi-minimalist conclusion that, both in its Arp synthesizer ostinatos and its slashing guitar work, strongly recalls the Who of “Who's Next”. The track's exclusion from the tracklist of “Wind And Wuthering” is sometimes cited as the last straw for Steve Hackett, prompting him to leave the band after feeling increasingly sidelined by Banks's ever-expanding compositional reach.

Dance On A Volcano/Los Endos, from "Seconds Out" (live, 1977)

The one-two punch formed by the opening and closing tracks of "A Trick Of The Tail" became a symbol of the band's galvanizing live shows, which saw former Mothers Of Invention drummer Chester Thompson become a permanent fixture alongside Phil Collins, who was by then mostly occupied with his frontman duties. In this breathless pair of tracks that flow into one another and echo each other's themes, the two drummers instead get the chance to go head to head, showing off all the power the band's fusion engine has on tap. Collins puts to good use the experience gained in Brand X, combining rhythmic drive and constant variation with the melodic imagination that always seemed to be missing from that jazz-rock supergroup.

Down And Out, da “…And Then There Were Three…” (1978)

While plenty of harsh words have been said and written about the albums that followed, the first record without Hackett got an even worse treatment: it was simply ignored. Presented almost everywhere as a transitional album that marked a lurch toward pop barbarism, "...And Then There Were Three..." is actually a treasure chest of prog gems, in which the brevity of the songs never gets in the way of their ability to surprise and captivate.

The opener "Down And Out" marks a high point in Phil Collins's jazz-rock journey, and it catches you off guard with particularly sharp mood swings — from the luminous intro dominated by Mike Rutherford's distinctly Hackett-like guitar, to the tension of verses built on dry, leaden blasts of Hammond organ. In five minutes and change, one of the most chameleonic songs in the band's career.

Deep In The Motherlode, da “…And Then There Were Three…” (1978)

A mini-suite centered on the gold rush, which through constant shifts in atmosphere follows the story of an imaginary seventeen-year-old prospector, sent to Nevada by his family in the hope of seeing him ship his future fortune back East. The way the accompaniment evolves from robust to dreamlike marks the fading of illusion, gradually replaced by regret over wasted years. Well worth watching is the bootleg footage of the live show at the Lyceum Theatre, which shows just how central the songs from this period remained in live performances even in the years immediately following. Then again, thanks to the single "Follow You Follow Me", "...And Then There Were Three..." had been the band's best-selling album up to that point!

The Day The Light Went Out, da “Many Too Many” (singolo, 1978)

Released as one of the B-sides of "Many Too Many" (the other was "Vancouver"), "The Day The Light Went Out" is one of the densest Genesis songs both in terms of word count (1.4 per second: worse than "The Battle Of Epping Forest"!) and rhythmic twists. It's also one of the darkest songs thematically: a shadow of darkness and despair falls over humanity; every attempt to drive out the parasite fails, until it chooses to leave on its own... only to be followed by another shadow of terror! Three zigzagging minutes that perfectly capture the pursuit of brevity — without losing any progressive drive — that the band was pursuing at the time, and in which Mike Rutherford's bass shines as it rarely has.

Behind The Lines, da “Duke” (1980)

The opener of what many fans consider "the last decent Genesis album" is one of their most powerful songs in terms of sheer grandeur: it's precisely the splendor of the keyboard theme that suggested the album's regal title. The luminous, grandiose aura is built by putting Tony Banks's new toy to good use, the massive Arp Quadra with its memory and polyphonic capabilities.

The transition from the overture to the sung section (the latter later re-recorded by Collins alone for the worldwide hit "Face Value") exemplifies the band's mastery of mood shifts, at once fluid and disorienting.

Evidence Of Autumn, da “Misunderstanding” (singolo, 1980)

An outtake from the "Duke" sessions, quintessentially Banks-like: a soft, drizzly ballad, with far from predictable chord progressions well supported by the diaphanous tone of the Yamaha CP-70 electric piano. Just past the halfway mark, the chiaroscuro mood gives way to a livelier streak that briefly ventures into territory very close to "One For The Vine". Much loved by fans, some even argue it should have been chosen for the LP instead of the more hackneyed "Misunderstanding", to which it serves as B-side.

Me And Sarah Jane, da “Abacab” (1981)

In case anyone has ever wondered what a progressive ska song might sound like, "Me And Sarah Jane" already has the answer ready. It's another mini-suite with a tragicomic streak: it's about a man, perhaps a vagrant, who invents an imaginary woman (the Sarah Jane of the title) to feel less alone, but, dissatisfied with the relationship, ultimately decides to let himself drift away with her on the rising tide. The lopsided rhythmic construction, the use of echo on the vocals, and even the blissful break that conveys the sensation of flight ("First I'm flying…") may recall certain devices used by 10CC, a reference that would recur often for the band in the early Eighties.

Dodo/Lurker, from "Abacab" (1981)

The longest track on "Abacab" is also one of its sharpest-sounding, and it represents the finest marriage between the album's technological, experimental side and the more familiar Genesis style. Here too the Caribbean influence is noticeable, as is the 10CC-tinged verse; the song's structure, rich in mood shifts and melodic invention, is nevertheless quintessentially Genesis-like. As is the keyboard opulence, here entirely devoted to exploring the most menacing sounds of the brand-new double-manual Prophet 10.

Rutherford's guitar digs in with real aggression, while the lyrics are among the most cryptic Banks ever wrote: in the first part ("Dodo") he seems to be referring to mankind's exploitation of animals; "Lurker", meanwhile, presents itself as a riddle:

Clothes of brass and hair of brown

Seldom need to breathe

Don't need no wings to fly

And a heart of stone

A fear of fire and water

Who am I?

Fans have argued over the solution for decades; the answer, however, might be…

Submarine, da “Man On The Corner” (singolo, 1982)

Dodo/Lurker was initially conceived as a four-part suite. Finding the scheme too close to what fans would have expected from the band, the Banks/Collins/Rutherford trio decided to split it, keeping the first two parts for “Abacab” and using the remaining ones as B-sides. Never performed live, the complete suite is something of a holy grail for the most hardcore fans, who still argue over the correct order to assign to the various sections. It does, however, seem to be settled that the instrumental “Submarine” should follow “Lurker”, since the title is a plausible solution to the riddle posed by the “Abacab” track. Stylistically, it's an atmospheric piece with a somewhat Floydian construction, made of layered synths and long sustained notes, giving rise to a pace that is at once majestic and dreamlike, washed-out and enveloping.

Naminanu, from “Keep It Dark” (single, 1981)

The fourth part of the suite that never was, “Naminanu” is another largely instrumental piece, marked by a succession of bright moods tied together by the choral repetition of the nonsense title. Across the various sections that make up the track's four minutes, Collins gets to alternate his jazzier touch with the more aggressive style he was honing at the very same time. Banks, meanwhile, makes full use of his keyboard arsenal, deploying the Yamaha CP-80 for the piano parts, the Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer for the brass, and the Prophet for the more shimmering-toned pads.

You Might Recall, from “3×3” (Ep, 1982)

A track dating back to the “Abacab” (1981) sessions and released the following year on the “3×3” Ep, “You Might Recall” is a fine example of the new kind of compositional subtlety that caught the band's interest in the early Eighties. On the surface, it's an ordinary pop song, well-crafted and blessed with surprising soul inflections, but lacking any real progressive flourishes beyond a few Banks phrasings tinged with baroque pop. Listen more closely, though, and the structure reveals itself to be anomalous: first a verse, then a pre-chorus, followed by a chorus… which is however decidedly too long to actually be a chorus, and might in fact be another verse, melodically independent from the first, which then evolves further into a new pre-chorus (or maybe a chorus, or maybe a bridge, or who knows). A crescendo of four distinct sections, laid out without ever drawing attention to itself, and closed by the return of the first theme, which sets off a new turn of the carousel. A track that seems to be pulling one over on the listener, compressing the mechanics of a progressive suite inside what presents itself as just another soul-pop ditty.

It/Watcher Of The Skies, da “Three Sides Live” (live, 1982)

It's 1976, and following the release of “A Trick Of The Tail”, Genesis are looking for a drummer to take, on the live tour, the place that had always been Phil Collins', who is now busy on vocals. The band's first choice is ex-Yes and ex-King Crimson man Bill Bruford, with whom Collins had already played live in Brand X. The joint venture doesn't last long – Bruford finds the band's required approach, very precise and leaving no room for improvisation, decidedly too restrictive – but the performances from those dates leave behind some rather striking evidence (including the entire bootleg “Live At The Cleveland Music Hall”). The version offered here of two Gabriel-era classics doesn't just hold up against the originals, it injects the tracks with a fusion-style elasticity entirely absent from previous versions. (Note: in the Spotify playlist linked to the article, the track is merged with a later version of “The Fountain Of Salmacis” due to an audio file segmentation error. The selected track begins at 8:40).

Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea, da “Genesis” (1983)

The 1983 self-titled album is perhaps the “least prog” entry in the band's discography, but that doesn't make it the least experimental: proof of that is the unsettling “Mama”, generally appreciated even by the most die-hard haters of Eighties Genesis. It is, in any case, the album that gave us the “Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea” double-track, clocking in at eleven minutes and representing the most progressive outcome of the new approach the band was trying out in the studio: avoiding group run-throughs, each musician would record a “trial” version of their own track, with the aim of shaping the mood of the piece and guiding the other musicians as they recorded the final takes. Collins' beat, in particular, was initially programmed on a LinnDrum drum machine, and the drum parts were the last to be recorded: the resulting rhythmic coldness also stems from this deliberate expressive choice. Setting aside the structural innovations, the (double) track follows an intricate scheme, with two extended instrumental episodes acting as an interlude between the first and second sung sections, and it would go on to become one of the band's most frequently revisited live staples.

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, from “Invisible Touch” (1986)

The fourth single taken from Genesis' best-selling album. It's a track that develops gradually, and across almost nine minutes sees the taut, sharp sound of the opening section shift toward an increasingly epic direction. Heavily trimmed down in the 7'' version, which lasts just 4 minutes and 32 seconds, on the album it features, midway through, an instrumental digression that best showcases the atmospheric qualities the trio had achieved, and allows the vocals to return in a far more charged and majestic setting. The lyrics, written by Collins starting from the single spark provided by words improvised in the studio (“I'm coming down like a monkey”), deal with drug addiction – a theme that clashes rather starkly with the occasion that made the song famous, namely its use in a TV commercial for Michelob beer.

The Brazilian, da “Invisible Touch” (1986)

The instrumental that closes “Invisible Touch” is the album's most unusual track, and one of the strangest in Genesis' entire career. The title refers to the feel of a sample loaded by Banks into the E-mu Emulator, over which, from the very first bars, a jungle of electronic percussion unfolds courtesy of Collins, who was obsessed with the Simmons Drum Synthesizer at the time. It's a track that's strikingly innovative in both sound and atmosphere, yet also quite close to classic Genesis style thanks to the constant thematic shifts and Banks' melodies pushed to the fore. The mood is frantic yet suspended, dazzling yet mysterious; the synth lines, the true center of attention, arguably represent the peak of Tony Banks' sonic exploration. The most technically minded fans still wonder how he managed to achieve the disorienting, “wrong-sounding” tone that dominates the track: the most widely accepted theory is that he made use of the formidable Yamaha TX816, a MIDI-controlled unit that can house the equivalent of eight Yamaha DX7 frequency-modulation synthesizers inside it. By working intensively with pitch bending and the detuning of the digital oscillators, one can indeed get close to the shapeshifting, enveloping character that makes the effect so distinctive.

Do The Neurotic, da “In Too Deep” (singolo, 1986)

The second instrumental to emerge from the “Invisible Touch” sessions, despite its livelier rhythm, wasn't included on the album because the band boldly chose “The Brazilian” over it instead. Here too, the nods to Seventies Genesis are clear, given the tight interplay and the string of thematic changes unfurled across its seven minutes. It's among the episodes in which the underrated Mike Rutherford's guitar sensibility comes through most clearly: whereas elsewhere his role tends to stay in the background or lean toward (admittedly quite convincing) emulation of Hackett, here his sturdy melodic sense takes center stage and gives much of the second half of the track its memorability.

Driving The Last Spike, da “We Can’t Dance” (1991)

The band's last true suite of its career is also one of the tracks on “We Can't Dance” where Collins' contribution is felt most strongly. The lyrics are his, the drum parts are (of course) his, and most of the melodic lines, particularly incisive and compelling, are his too. As was standard for the band at that time, the compositional process behind the track began with a drum machine pattern, over which the three of them improvised, trying out many different ideas. Ordinarily the process takes less than a day, after which the final version gets written; in this case, however, new valid ideas kept emerging for three days straight, and all of them seemed to work together. Hence the decision to turn it into a suite, even though built on premises quite far removed from those of the early Seventies (the transitions between sections, for instance, are extremely smooth, at times almost imperceptible). For the setting, Collins drew inspiration from the book “The Railway Navvies”, which describes the harsh conditions of the workers who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, left their families behind to build Britain's railway network. The singer's deeply felt performance and the parade of brilliant rhythmic solutions, spanning most of the styles the drummer had honed over the years, make it something of an artistic testament to his time with the band, with whom he would never record another studio album.

Domino Medley, da “Live – The Way We Walk Volume Two: The Longs” (live, 1993)

Alongside “Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea”, “Domino” is the suite most beloved by the band among those made in the Eighties, revived on every tour since its release on “Invisible Touch” and even turned into a name instantly associated with the Genesis brand (not for nothing was the 2021 reunion tour named precisely “The Last Domino”). Memories of the 1982 Lebanon war allowed Tony Banks to thematically merge two songs that had originated independently, “In The Glow Of The Night” and “The Last Domino”. The first part, reflective and dreamy, is dominated by the Synclavier and can bring to mind the contemporary style of Peter Gabriel. The second, far more tense and dark, opens with a pounding sequence of drums and electronic bass (Banks again, on the Yamaha DX7/TX7) and explodes into an epic ride that, in live performances, manages to successfully combine Springsteen and the Who. Trivia: the working title the band had given this second section was “Hawkwind”, due to the resemblance between the obsessive drive of the incipit and the music of Dave Brock and Lemmy's band.

Fading Lights, da “Live – The Way We Walk Volume Two: The Longs” (live, 1993)

Another parenthetical structure, with the two sung sections separated by a long instrumental passage. In a way, the track taken from "We Can't Dance" represents for Tony Banks what "Driving The Last Spike" is for Phil Collins: a synthesis of his own stylistic journey, and at the same time a sign of the need to begin a new phase. The lyrics, written by Banks, deal with memory and nostalgia for what once was and can no longer be; the central keyboard solo, played mainly on the brand-new Korg Wavestation, starts out slow and atmospheric before growing increasingly virtuosic, culminating in the symbolic crossed-hands passage — something that had been missing from Genesis's music for a decade. For these reasons, the track would retrospectively come to be seen by fans as the band's definitive farewell, remembered as the emotional peak of the concerts of the era.

Calling All Stations, from "Calling All Stations" (1997)

Shunned by fans of both the Gabriel and Collins eras alike, the only album with Ray Wilson on vocals isn't even available on Spotify. The good news is that the one track included here, the title track, is indeed among the most progressive on this record, which is otherwise devoted to a chiaroscuro-tinted art-pop. It's a very modern, atmospheric brand of progressive, in the vein of Nineties Marillion or Archive or even Anathema. Desolation and grandeur intertwine to evoke the feelings of someone stranded in the heart of Antarctica, desperately seeking radio contact. Conceived by Banks and Rutherford as a song with no repeated themes (each verse is melodically different from the one before), it's also an excellent vocal showcase for the new singer, and a fine result for Israeli drummer Nir Zidkyahu, who proves convincing in his attempt to channel Phil Collins's heavier-hitting side.

Duke's Travels/Duke's End, from "Archive #2 (1976-1992)" (compilation, 2000)

The last gust of "classic" prog is this pair of tracks that closes the album "Duke", originally conceived as the finale of the "Duke's Suite", which also comprised "Duke", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal" and "Turn It On Again". Split apart on the album to avoid falling back into already-explored patterns, its full version was actually a fixture of the 1980 tour. Among the peaks of the band's late-Seventies style, the first part sees Banks and Collins chasing each other through an increasingly frantic whirl of jazz-rock ideas and shifting themes, with a brief sung passage (echoing "Guide Vocal") acting as a bridge to the next section. This makes use of another tried-and-tested device, the reprise of motifs from earlier tracks already tested on "Los Endos": drawing chiefly from "Duke" and "Turn It On Again", the grand finale combines technical tightrope-walking with evocative power, bringing not only the suite's flow but also a stylistic phase of the band to a triumphant close.

Afterglow, from "Three Sides Live" (live, 1982)

Not a progressive track, but a verse-chorus song with no instrumental interludes. And yet it's the perfect ending for this playlist, to which it lends its title and serves as a metaphorical final "encore". It's Tony Banks's harmonic masterpiece, who wrote both music and lyrics for this acoustic-guitar-based ballad, perfectly suited to Phil Collins's voice. It's a track in which light and shadow coexist, inspired by the image of a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by a single survivor, consumed by the memory of all he has lost.

But the idea underlying the composition only emerges between the lines, and the feelings it evokes are far more universal: the desolation left by the loss of someone or something dear, the disorientation, the glimmers of hope rekindled by memory. This last emotion, the subtlest yet also the most magical in the song, is almost entirely absent from the lyrics, and is instead concentrated entirely in two elements: the title and the harmonic choices. "Afterglow" is the untranslatable name for an atmospheric phenomenon in which a glow lingers above the horizon after sunset, caused by dust particles suspended in the air. Like memories of bonds that once were, that warm red light comforts and soothes, but is ultimately destined to fade, giving way to the darkness of night. The dialogue between trust and pain is conveyed through the verse's chord progression, which sways between major and minor, playing on unexpected chords borrowed from outside the key, showcasing Banks's great skill in combining compositional virtuosity with expressive power (the "intrusions" are in bold, minor in the odd-numbered lines and major in the even-numbered ones):

I Imaj7 IV iv6

Like the dust that settles all around me

I Imaj7 IV VII♭ V

I must find a new home

I Imaj7 IV iv6

The ways and holes that used to make me shelter

VI II III vi viidim

Are all as one to me now

A constant presence in live performances, since 1978 "Afterglow" has closed out the "Old Medley", made up of tracks from the band's most classically progressive period (in the most frequently performed version, the other linked tracks are "In The Cage", "The Cinema Show", "Riding The Scree" and "The Colony Of Slippermen"). Another addition found in live performances, and present in the track included here as well, is the inclusion, in the brief closing coda, of a drum fill taken from "More Trouble Every Day" by Frank Zappa and The Mothers: a tribute from Collins to his co-drummer Chester Thompson, who played the break in the original on "Roxy & Elsewhere" (1974) (the passage occurs at 3:54 in "Afterglow" and repeatedly in "More Trouble Every Day", first appearing at 0:15).

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29/11/2025