Genesis

The group emerged from a school-band setting in the late sixties. Tony Banks' keyboards and Mike Rutherford's playing became central to its development, with Steve Hackett and Phil Collins joining the early-seventies line-up around Gabriel. Foxtrot in 1972 included Supper's Ready, an extended sequence that gave the band's storytelling and instrumental ambitions an unusually large canvas.

Selling England by the Pound followed in 1973. Firth of Fifth and The Cinema Show placed lyrical keyboard writing and sustained guitar lines inside complex structures, while I Know What I Like offered a more concise point of entry. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in 1974 took the narrative impulse into a double album whose urban imagery differed from the earlier storybook atmosphere.

Gabriel left after The Lamb, with Collins moving from the drum kit into the lead-vocal role as well. Later changes eventually left Banks, Collins and Rutherford as the central trio. The songs became shorter, but the arrangements did not simply abandon complexity. A rhythmic accent or harmonic turn could preserve the band's identity inside a more accessible form.

Invisible Touch in 1986 placed that approach before a huge pop audience. The title song, Land of Confusion and Throwing It All Away coexisted with the extended Domino, making the change less absolute than the singles alone might suggest. Genesis' history is most revealing when those records are allowed to speak to one another: the appetite for a long musical journey and the craft of a concise hook were never entirely separate instincts.