This year marks the 45th anniversary of the debut album of the prog-rock/classic rock band Genesis, so I thought it might be a good time to revisit their catalog and select their best tracks. Genesis are my second favourite band of all time, just behind Pink Floyd, and despite their tremendous success, I still feel that overall, they haven't been given much respect in the music community. Maybe it's because some people claim drummer-turned-lead-singer Phil Collins "sold them out" in the '80s by penning a bunch of poppy, 3-minute tunes to get radio airplay, but I still feel the band managed to keep their integrity. As Collins once noted, the band always wrote short, three or four minute songs; they just weren't very popular, so he gathered the band must have gotten better at writing them over the years. Last year, I found a list on the Internet of this band's best songs, and not only was it just 10 tracks deep, it didn't even include any selections from the '70s, which made me question whether the author knew anything about the band's prog-rock roots or even realised that Peter Gabriel used to be the bands leader. So I've decided to rectify that with the following list, in chronological order, of what I feel are the band's 35 best tunes. You will note I didn't include the band's last studio album Calling All Stations, the only one with singer Ray Wilson, because true fans know that album doesn't count.
Michael Perone has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), and The Long Island Voice, a short-lived spinoff of The Village Voice. He currently works as an Editor in Manhattan. And he still thinks Michael Keaton was the best Batman.
