No argument in this music is older than this one. The Genesis Peter Gabriel era gave the band its reputation; the Collins era gave it the stadiums. The two are often discussed as different groups, which is not quite right: four of the five musicians on the last Gabriel album are also on the first Collins one, and the man who took over the singing had been in the band since 1970. This guide sets out what changed and when, with the line-ups, the dates and the chart figures, and ends with the album to start each era with.

What happened, and when

Gabriel left at the end of the tour for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which finished in May 1975. The band kept it quiet: they went into a studio in west London, wrote, and auditioned singers – by various accounts somewhere between one hundred and four hundred people applied – while the press knew nothing. The departure was made public only on 15 August 1975, days after an advertisement in Melody Maker asked for a singer for a “Genesis-style group” and the paper worked out what that meant.

The replacement was already in the room. Phil Collins, the drummer since 1970, had sung lead on album tracks before, and he took the job. A Trick of the Tail came out on 13 February 1976, and on the tour that followed Collins sang at the front while Bill Bruford, between King Crimson line-ups, played the drums. From 1977 the touring drummer was Chester Thompson, with Collins joining him for the instrumental sections.

One more change matters as much as the singer. Steve Hackett left in 1977, after Wind & Wuthering and the live album Seconds Out, and Genesis became a trio – Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford – with Daryl Stuermer joining them on stage. Anyone who says the band changed in 1975 is telling half the story: it changed twice in three years.

The two line-ups

The Gabriel era. The band on the first two albums included Anthony Phillips on guitar and, on Trespass (1970), John Mayhew on drums. The line-up everyone means by the Gabriel era arrives with Nursery Cryme (1971) and holds for four albums: Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins.

The Collins era. Two albums as a four-piece – A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering, both 1976 – then a trio from … And Then There Were Three … (1978) onwards, with Thompson and Stuermer on stage. That trio made every album up to We Can’t Dance (1991).

What the records did

The numbers are the part of this argument that is not a matter of opinion. In the Gabriel era, Foxtrot (1972) was the band’s first album to chart in Britain, at number 12; Selling England by the Pound (1973) reached number 3 and produced their first UK hit single, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”; The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway reached number 10 in Britain and 41 in the United States.

The Collins era started at that level and kept climbing. A Trick of the Tail reached number 3 in Britain and 31 in America, higher than any album with Gabriel had gone there, and “Follow You Follow Me”, from … And Then There Were Three …, became the band’s first UK top-ten single. From Duke (1980) came five consecutive UK number one albums, among them Invisible Touch (1986), which reached number 3 in America and produced a US number one single in its title track, and We Can’t Dance (1991).

Read the two lists side by side and the shape of the argument is clear: the Gabriel era is where the band built its name with one audience, the Collins era where it reached everyone else.

What changed on the records

Rather than describe the sound, here is what is on them. The Gabriel albums are built around long pieces: “Supper’s Ready” on Foxtrot runs about twenty-three minutes and fills a side, and The Lamb is a double album telling a single story. Gabriel performed that material in costume, which is the other half of what people remember. The first Collins albums keep the long form – “Dance on a Volcano” and “Los Endos” on A Trick of the Tail, “One for the Vine” on Wind & Wuthering – and it is from 1978 onwards that the songs shorten and the hit singles begin. The band that made Invisible Touch was doing a different job from the band that made Foxtrot, and doing it on purpose.

Where to start with each era

Gabriel era: Selling England by the Pound (1973). It carries the long pieces and the first hit single on the same record, which makes it the least steep way in. If it works for you, go to Foxtrot next, and then to The Lamb, the most demanding of the five.

Collins era: A Trick of the Tail (1976). The bridge record: the same band minus one member, still writing at length, with a new voice at the front. From there Duke (1980) shows the trio halfway to the 1980s, and Invisible Touch shows where that road ended.

For the catalogue album by album there is my guide to Genesis albums ranked, and where to start with Genesis is the shorter route in.

The era nobody argues about

There is a third Genesis. Collins left in 1996 and the band made one more album, Calling All Stations (1997), with Ray Wilson singing; it reached number 2 in Britain and 54 in the United States, and the band stopped afterwards. The trio played together again on tour in 2007, and once more in 2021 and 2022. In the argument about eras, that last album is the one both sides leave out.

Go deeper

For Genesis itself, start with the Genesis band guide, the best Genesis albums and the best Genesis songs. For the same argument in other bands, see the hub of prog rock’s great era debates and the piece on line-up changes that improved a band; and if you would rather compare bands than eras, there is Pink Floyd vs Genesis. The full story of British progressive rock, Genesis included, is told in Beyond the Thames, the second book in my Beyond the Sound series.

Want the full story of Genesis and the British scene? The books map every era →

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