With Phillips and Mayhew gone, the addition of Hackett and Collins created a stable line-up for the balance of the albums in 1970-1975. Hackett brought a greater virtuosity to the band, one of the first guitarists—in rock, perhaps the first—to utilize two-handed tapping, but that didn't change the group's emphasis on writing. Collins was a powerhouse drummer capable of navigating more complex arrangements while bringing a more firm sense of groove. He also brought a strong second voice to the group, and one that resembled Gabriel's so much that few even recognized it when he took a lead spot on the brief "For Absent Friends," on his Genesis debut Nursery Cryme. More importantly, he gave Genesis' background vocals greater personality.
The rapid evolution of the group, from album to album, can be found from the outset on Nursery Cryme, with its opener—another tune that would enter the Genesis canon as an in performance classic, "The Musical Box." It signaled an even more concerted shift toward storytelling than heard on Trespass, but this time, with a more immediately potent Victorian-flavored story about a young girl who removes the head of her childhood friend with a croquet mallet. Opening the boy's musical box, she frees his soul in a body that quickly begins to age while still retaining the mind of a child. Alternating between soft, pastoral passages reminiscent of Trespass, where Rutherford, Banks and Hackett create an even richer guitar trifecta, and music more aggressive and complex than anything heard on Trespass, this was also the beginning of Gabriel turning more theatrical in performance. Using masks and costumes, Gabriel began to bring Genesis' stories to life onstage, although a 1972 Belgian Rock of the 70s performance on the Foxtrot DVD still finds him a more conventional front man—though there were no other front men at the time with a bass drum that they'd kick with abandon, as Gabriel did during some of the group's instrumental sections—a response, along with his flute, to wanting to have something to do while the group performed its long instrumental passages.
Genesis had the uncanny ability of announcing significant change within the first few notes of every album, and "The Musical Box" was no different, with the intertwining acoustic and electric guitars of its opening section sounding especially beautiful with this new remix. Epic as that song is, however, Nursery Cryme—also featuring the absurd and dense "The Return of the Giant Hogweed," and more mythical "The Fountain of Salmacis," which tells the story of the child of Greek gods Hermes and Aphrodite and a lake that would turn any who bathed in it into hermaphrodites—was also notable for four shorter songs, ranging from the gentle "For Absent Friends" and pastoral "Harlequin" to the darker, Beatles-esque "Harold the Barrel" and more despair-laden "Seven Stones." For a group of musicians just into their twenties, more than being musically sophisticated they demonstrated a distinctive lyrical slant as well. While Yes was struggling with Jon Anderson's oblique lyrics, Gentle Giant was, in its early days, battling with self-indulgence and King Crimson was working with the flowery verse of Peter Sinfield, Genesis differentiated itself with an ability to write lyrics that were both poetic and direct.
