Happy 40th: Genesis, A Trick of the Tail

40 years ago today, Genesis entered a new chapter of their career by releasing their first album with Phil Collins taking over for Peter Gabriel and heading down a path which would lead them to far greater commercial success.

Although he’d been a founding member of the band and had helped define their sound with his distinctive vocals, Gabriel decided in the middle of Genesis’ tour behind The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway that the time had come to leave the band’s ranks. Not unsurprisingly, it was a decision that completely freaked out Gabriel’s bandmates, as they reasonably feared that his absence might prove devastating to the future of Genesis, but they did their best to roll with the punch to the gut, with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford settling in post-tour to start writing new material as quickly as possible. One problem still remained, however: who would replace Gabriel as the band’s singer?

After posting an ad in Melody Maker for “a singer for a Genesis-type group,” Chris Welch worked out that Gabriel had left the band and promptly wrote a cover story for the magazine which said that the band was dead, but the remaining members of Genesis decried this claim and assured the world at large that they’d written a new album and just needed to record it.

Collins felt that the band could simply carry on as before except that the material would simply be instrumental, but his bandmates disagreed and continued with auditions for a new singer. In the end, though, Collins took a shot at singing the track “Squonk,” and his performance was such that it was decided that he should take on the role of frontman for the band. It wasn’t particularly his preference – he’s said on the record that he “didn’t want to not be the drummer” – but for the sake of the band, he took the job.

Thankfully, it panned out nicely: A Trick of the Tail was critically acclaimed, and in addition to matching the band’s previous chart high in the UK by hitting #3, it proved to be their highest charting album in the US up to that point, making it all the way to #31. Alas, it would be a bit longer before Genesis started establishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with on the Billboard Hot 100, but at that point, just proving that they could survive Gabriel’s departure was the only win that mattered.