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Genesis’ Studio Albums

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Below are the studio albums released by Genesis from their inception until their last studio album, released in 1997.
  1. From Genesis to Revelation (1969)
  2. Trespass (1970)
  3. Nursery Cryme (1971)
  4. Foxtrot (1972)
  5. Selling England by the Pound (1973)
  6. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974)
  7. A Trick of the Tail (1976)
  8. Wind and Wuthering (1977)
  9. And Then There Were Three (1978)
  10. Duke (1980)
  11. Abacab (1981)
  12. Genesis (1983)
  13. Invisible Touch (1986)
  14. We Can’t Dance (1991)
  15. Calling All Stations (1997)
From Genesis to Revelation 1.873 stars out of 3 ratings
Released: 3/69 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 170 UK chart peak -- Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA -- sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions --

Tracks: 1. Where the Sour Turns to Sweet 2. In the Beginning 3. Fireside Song 3. The Serpent 4. Am I Very Wrong? 5. In the Wilderness 6. The Conqueror 7. In Hiding 8. One Day 9. Window 10. In Limbo

Review: “Every band has to start somewhere. Genesis arrived, produced by English impresario Jonathan King, as an earnest, mushy, cliché-spouting knockoff of the Moody Blues. ‘Fill your mind with love,’ Gabriel sings, soon to have strings and horns gooped on top of the band. The most amazing thing about this album – a true relic of late-1960s hokum – is that Genesis didn’t change the band name out of embarrassment” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Trespass 2.925 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 10/23/70 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine -- UK chart peak -- Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA -- sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions --

Tracks: 1. Looking for Someone 2. White Mountain 3. Visions of Angels 4. Stagnation 5. Dusk 6. The Knife

Review: “As serious as all get-out, this first effort at large-scale songwriting was a warm-up. The lyrics grapple with good and evil, salvation and vengeance. But the band’s classical-folk-jazz meld hasn’t yet moved from hyphenation to hybrid” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Nursery Cryme 3.673 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 11/12/71 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine -- UK chart peak 39 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA -- sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions --

Tracks: 1. The Musical Box 2. For Absent Friends 3. The Return of the Giant Hogweed 4. Seven Stones 5. Harold the Barrel 6. Harlequin 7. The Fountain of Salmacis

Review: “Two new musicians – Collins on drums and Hackett on guitar – put some kick into the band. They were full of ideas, testing extremes of fingerpicking delicacy and rock riffing, expansiveness and compression. Compared to what Genesis would become, their third album can sound clumsy. But for once in their career, decorum didn’t always matter” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Foxtrot 4.283 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 10/6/72 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine -- UK chart peak 12 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA -- sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions --

Tracks: 1. Watcher of the Skies 2. Time Table 3. Get ‘Em Out by Friday 4. Can-Utility and the Coastliners 5. Horizons 6. Supper’s Ready: a. Lover’s Leap b. The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuarcy Man c. Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men d. How Dare I Be So Beautiful? e. Willow Farm Apocalypse in 9/8 (co-starring the delicious talents of Gabble Ratchet) f. As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men’s Feet)

Review: “Warning: Mellotron in use. The bombast runs thick on this album, nearly half of which is devoted to the music-hall apocalypse of the 23-minute suite Supper’s Ready. Foxtrot was Genesis’s milestone at the time, yet what sounded wildly innovative 35 years ago now seems endearingly goofy and all too overblown” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Selling England by the Pound 4.474 stars out of 5 ratings
Released: 9/73 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 70 UK chart peak 3 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 0.5 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 0.5

Tracks: 1. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight 2. I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe 3. Firth of Fifth 4. More Fool Me 5. The Battle of Epping Forest 6. After the Ordeal 7. The Cinema Show 8. Aisle of Plenty

Review: “Their fifth record is prog Genesis at its pinnacle, an album of songsuites that can barely stop morphing long enough to show off a majestic tune or a spiraling guitar riff. It’s a concept album (but of course) about Britain’s long descent from past glories: from Shakespeare and chivalry to dead-end jobs and supermarket shopping. Midway through, More Fool Me introduces Collins as the morosely romantic lead singer he would later become full-time. But most of the album flaunts songs that are stuffed with stop-start riffs, shifty meters, atmospheric interludes and nutty rhymes: meticulously plotted excess” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

See DMDB page.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway 4.334 stars out of 8 ratings
Released: 11/18/74 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 41 UK chart peak 10 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 0.5 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 0.5

Tracks, Disc 1: 1. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway 2. Fly on a Windshield 3. Broadway Melody of 1974 4. Cuckoo Cocoon 5. In the Cage 6. The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging 7. Back in N.Y.C. 8. Hairless Heart 9. Counting Out Time 10. The Carpet Crawlers 11. The Chamber of 32 Doors

Tracks, Disc 2: 1. Lilywhite Lilith 2. The Waiting Room 3. Anyway 4. The Supernatural Anaesthetist 5. The Lamia 6. Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats 7. The Colony of Slippermen (The Arrival/A Visit to the Doktor/The Raven) 8. Ravine 9. The Light Lies Down on Broadway 10. Riding the Scree 11. In the Rapids 12. It

Review: “Sooner or later, every progressive-rock band has to do its double-LP concept/opera/extraganza, and for Gabriel’s Genesis, it was The Lamb. The plotline, a surreal odyssey, tracks a character named Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid through a phantasmagoria of urban squalor and subterranean ghoulies. The title songs ranks with Genesis’s most majestic moments, and there are some nicely creepy set pieces. But the filler stretches on and on” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

See DMDB page.

A Trick of the Tail 4.280 stars out of 3 ratings
Released: 2/2/76 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 31 UK chart peak 3 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 0.5 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 0.5

Tracks: 1. Dance on a Volcano 2. Entangled 3. Squonk 4. Mad Man Moon 5. Robbery, Assault & Battery 6. Ripples… 7. A Trick of the Tail 8. Los Endos

Review: “Denial can be a beautiful thing. After Gabriel left Genesis for a solo career melding new wave and world music, the band tried to maintain its old self. Collins opening imitated Gabriel, and when Banks and Rutherford stepped forward as the main songwriters, they kept up the oblique storytelling lyrics and the multipart structures, cinched by the filigree and sinew of Steve Hackett’s guitar. The songs are still fantasias, but they don’t ramble” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Wind and Wuthering 3.377 stars out of 3 ratings
Released: 12/27/76 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 26 UK chart peak 7 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 0.5 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 0.5

Tracks: 1. Eleventh Earl of Mar 2. One for the Vine 3. Your Own Special Way 4. Wot Gorilla? 5. All in a Mouse’s Night 6. Blood on the Rooftops 6. ‘Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers… 7. …In That Quiet Earth’ 8. Afterglow

Review: “After A Trick of the Tail, this second 1976 album seemed flabby. Still seeking the grandeur of the Gabriel years, the band went mostly for the slow and momentous, complete with filibustering interludes that anesthetize the songs” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

And Then There Were Three 3.350 stars out of 3 ratings
Released: 3/23/78 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 14 UK chart peak 3 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 1.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 1.0

Tracks: 1. Down and Out 2. Undertow 3. Ballad of Big 4. Snowbound 5. Burning Rope 6. Deep in the Motherlode 6. Many Too Many 8. Scenes from a Night’s Dream 9. Say It’s Alright Joe 10. The Lady Lies 10. Follow You Follow Me

Review: “Adios to Steve Hackett’s lead guitar. Pared down to Collins, Banks and Rutherford, Genesis made its most anthem-laden album, with keyboardist Banks seizing the foreground. The songs are still high-concept scenarios – one seems to be about a killer snowman – but the music sets aside most of the old digressions in favor of pop discipline. For all their grandiose reverberations, the songs stay grounded in melody. With Follow You, Follow Me, Genesis had its first U.S. hit, even if old fans started to feel betrayed” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Duke 3.388 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 3/28/80 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 11 UK chart peak 1 2 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 1.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI 0.3 estimated world sales in millions 1.3

Tracks: 1. Behind the Lines 2. Duchess 3. Guide Vocal 4. Man of Our Times 5. Misunderstanding 6. Heathaze 7. Turn It on Again 8. Alone Tonight 9. Cul-De-Sac 10. Please Don’t Ask 11. Duke’s Travels 12. Duke’s End

Review: “A schizoid but invigorating album. Part of it goes for Gabriel-style Genesis, with fanfare-like keyboards, martial drumrolls and the old opulence. But one song, Guide Vocal, has lyrics that give Gabriel a definitive kiss-off – and another is about Collins’s divorce. The music usually stays upbeat (two tracks became FM-radio staples), and every so often the hazy instrumental passages clear up for the kind of straightforward songs that would define latter-day Genesis” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Abacab 3.413 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 9/14/81 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 7 UK chart peak 1 2 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 2.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions 2.0

Tracks: 1. Abacab 2. No Reply at All 3. Me and Sarah Jane 4. Keep It Dark 5. Dodo/Lurker 6. Who Dunnit? 7. Man on the Corner 8. Like It or Not 9. Another Record

Review: “Straining to feel like virtuosos while staying terse, Genesis piled up staccato, minimalist keyboard patterns behind some of their bleakest lyrics. The ambition is palpable, but too many songs just misfire. The one that doesn’t, No Reply at All, echoes the funk and horns (from R&B masters Earth, Wind & Fire) Collins was savoring on his smash solo debut, Face Value” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

Genesis 3.340 stars out of 5 ratings
Released: 10/3/83 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 9 UK chart peak 1 1 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 4.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI 0.6 estimated world sales in millions 4.6

Tracks: 1. Mama 2. That’s All 3. Home by the Sea 4. Second Home by the Sea 5. Illegal Alien 6. Taking It All Too Hard 7. Just a Job to Do 8. Silver Rainbow 9. It’s Gonna Get Better

Review: “The drums go boom and Collins belts hard while simple keyboard hooks are slammed home on this determined attempt to go pop with Police and XTC producer Hugh Padham. (Are those cookie cutters on the album cover?) It worked; the songs are so concise they’re virtually new wave, but still steeped in angst. Only the surpassingly stupide, Mexican-accented Illegal Alien – where craftsmanship overcomes good sense – tarnishes the album” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

See DMDB page.

Invisible Touch 2.977 stars out of 3 ratings
Charted: 6/9/86 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 3 UK chart peak 1 3 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 6.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI 1.2 estimated world sales in millions 10.0

Tracks: 1. Invisible Touch 2. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight 3. Land of Confusion 4. In Too Deep 5. Anything She Does 6. Domino (a. In the Glow of the Night b. The Last Domino) 7. Throwing It All Away 8. The Brazilian

Review: “Here’s pop Genesis at its overachieving best, trying to pack muscianly thrills into simpler structures. Collins is in full lonely-guy mode, bemoaning unapproachable women or conjuring suspenseful plots – even doing both at once in In Too Deep and the big but snappy suite Domino. Banks’s recital-hall piano and organ had long since given way to foreboding synthesizer chords and brittle notes that ricochet all over the place, syncopating neatly against Collins’s salvos of tom-toms. The songs unfold in a percussive, artificial realm that makes Collins’s voice sound even more isolated in his yearing and his predicments. At 6 million copies, it’s their U.S. blockbuster” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

See DMDB page.

We Can’t Dance 2.793 stars out of 4 ratings
Released: 10/28/91 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 4 UK chart peak 1 2 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA 4.0 sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI 1.5 estimated world sales in millions 15.0

Tracks: 1. No Son of Mine 2. Jesus He Knows Me 3. Driving the Last Spike 4. I Can’t Dance 5. Never a Time 6. Dreaming While You Sleep 7. Tell Me Why 8. Living Forever 9. Hold on My Heart 10. Way of the World 11. Since I Lost You 12. Fading Lights

Review: “’We’re all played out,’ Collins sings on his last album with Genesis. It’s not awful, exactly. But coming after a five-year break and the huge success of Invisible Touch, it’s just another set of crisply proficient, bummed-out pop songs – with the 10-minute suite about English railway workers, Driving the Last Spike, slipped in. That’s a rare sign of initiative on an album that clearly boils down to singles-plus-filler. The songs are neatly made, but even the better ones come across like reruns” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

See DMDB page.

Calling All Stations 1.703 stars out of 3 ratings
Released: 9/1/97 Peaked: US chart peak, according to Billboard magazine 54 UK chart peak 2 Sales: sales, in millions, in the U.S. as certified by the RIAA -- sales, in millions, in the U.K. as certified by BPI -- estimated world sales in millions --

Tracks: 1. Calling All Stations 2. Congo 3. Shipwrecked 4. Alien Afternoon 5. Not about Us 6. If That’s What You Need 7. The Dividing Line 8. Uncertain Weather 9. Small Talk 10. There Must Be Some Other Way 11. One Man’s Fool

Review: “Trademark turns into travesty. With Collins gone, Banks and Rutherford signed on a chesty new singer, Ray Wilson, picked up a studio drummer and remade Genesis as a muscle-headed bar-band imitation of its cheesiest self. The title song wonders, ‘Can anybody tell me, tell me exactly where I am/I’ve lost all sense of direction.’ Ain’t it the truth…And they haven’t released an album since” – Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07), pp. 118-9.

This page last updated March 18, 2008.