In The Beginning There Was... Genesis
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 24 April 1971
GENESIS ARE going to cause outrage and chaos in the coming year. Already they are breaking through with a blend of showmanship and original music that has not moved the public so much since the inauguration of the Woolwich ferry.

 Genesis: Too Posh For Fame
Caroline Boucher, Disc and Music Echo, 25 March 1972
ASK GENESIS how their careers are progressing and they'll tell you they're superstars in Aylesbury and Belgium, but little known elsewhere. In fact their fame is beginning to spread and they are at last reaping the benefits of the hard slog up and down the motorways of Britain.

 Genesis Doing The Foxtrot
Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 9 September 1972
PETER GABRIEL – slightly eccentric or acute schizophrenic? He cycles to Island Studios to begin a day's work on the new Genesis album, and unpacks a bottle of throat medicine and a wonder cure spray rather like a schoolboy would unload his textbooks.

 Genesis: The Band Who Want To Be Booed
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 23 September 1972
A PARTICULAR quality of certain successful groups has been their ability to create moods, to take an audience a little further than the surface excitement of an insistent rock beat. Their entire performance is calculated to one end - to grab and disturb listeners, to play upon their emotions.

 Genesis: Foxtrot (Charisma)
Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 30 September 1972
"HAVE YOU GOT a copy of the new album yet?", Mike Rutherford inquired meekly as Genesis prepared to go onstage at the Marquee last week. Well I did have the album, and momentarily I found it impossible to reconcile his almost apologetic demeanour with what must surely become one of the major works of the year.

 Lindisfarne, Genesis: Dublin Stadium, Dublin
Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 7 October 1972
TO BE CASUAL is to be Lindisfarne, but even the most relaxed of bands have a hard time putting over a set of new numbers when an audience hitherto starved of their music demands the oldies all the time.

 Genesis: Nursery Cryme
Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 26 October 1972
THE COUNTRYSIDE COTTAGE in which (it says here) Genesis regrouped their creative energies must have had a lot of strange stuff coming out of the walls to have been worthy of hosting this new contender for the coveted British weirdo-rock championship.

 Genesis: A Hit LP in the Making
Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, December 1972
Some people are too embarrassed to ask Peter Gabriel about his spot of artificial 'premature' baldness. He's seriously thinking of making a public statement saying that it was for deep personal religious feelings that he committed the act and then maybe people would become more understanding. Meanwhile customs officials regard him with a degree of suspicion and Hare Krishna devotees pat him on the back and tell him he's already half way to becoming a disciple.

 Genesis at Philharmonic Hall, New York
Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, May 1973
IN A MUSICAL WORLD dominated by dueling banjos, pop boys, wimpoid artist and Soul Train, is there a place for a British group that writes epics on such trivial matters as death, money, government, sex, freedom, nature, war, and power; whose lead singer has a half dozen different voices resembling Roger Daltrey, David Bowie, Roger Chapman, and John Lennon by turns; and who have nothing whatever to do with Slade, Mott the Hoople or T. Rex? Genesis are answering that rather long question with a resoundingly succinct "You betcha", as their second American tour demonstrates a newly improved control over their incomparable theatricality and a paring down of their act to six quite literally fantastic excursions into a Lewis Carroll, sci-fi "half-world" revealed through Peter Gabriel's multiplicity as singer, mimic narrator and flautist. Peter also plays bass drum and has a rather prominent streak of baldness along his center part

 Genesis: What Genesis Did On Their 'Holidays'
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 28 July 1973
NOT MANY groups conduct their rehearsals squashed together in a Morris Mini. But if you are in the habit of strolling around the backwaters of Shepherds Bush, you might come across the well known beat group Genesis, parked outside a turf accountants, engaged in heated discussion.

 Genesis: The Rainbow Theatre, London
Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 10 August 1973
IT'S A LITTLE dishonest using the same strokes to hammer Genesis as are periodically used against Yes. But there you go. Such is the nature of the atomic age.

 Genesis: The Man Behind The Mask
Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 25 August 1973
THE MUSIC world rarely awakens before noon, but I met Peter Gabriel at the unlikely hour of 9.30 a.m. Genesis, having finished their Selling England By The Pound album, were rehearsing the new show. The man was looking weary-eyed as he ate buttered toast and sipped a coffee – the living proof that rock is all late-night rave-ups.

 No Exodus Yet for Genesis
Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 25 August 1973
"OBVIOUSLY we're out of the public's attention – but we come back that much stronger; some bands seem afraid to take time off; they feel they have to capitalise on their popularity."

 Genesis: Selling England By the Pound (Charisma)
Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 29 September 1973
GENESIS FANS unite, stand proud and be counted; get ready to say 'I told you so' to all those people who have been doubting your praise of the band.

Genesis: Chapter and Verse
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 6 October 1973
GENESIS have lain dormant throughout the summer, at least as far as the public was concerned. Then came the sensational appearance at Reading Festival, when Peter Gabriel rose as a vision upon a hydraulic ramp, ensconced inside a white pyramid. Of its significance, only the wind knows. But there's no doubting that Gabriel had once again stunned his audience with another in his series of ingenious and baffling visuals

 Genesis: Peter Gabriel Talks
Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 13 October 1973
THE MUSIC world rarely awakens before noon, but I met Peter Gabriel at the unlikely hour of 9.30 a.m. Genesis, having finished their 'Selling England By The Pound' album, were rehearsing the new show. The man was looking veary-eyed as he ate buttered toast and sipped a coffee - the living proof that rock is all late-night rave-ups.

 Genesis: Masked Idol
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 19 January 1974
PETER GABRIEL, man of a thouand faces, is now also a man of several voices. One at least swoops upwards into the stratosphere, gibbers madly, then drops into the bowels of the earth. It's a frightening effect and can only be induced by judicious inhalation of noxious fumes.

 Genesis: No 'Pale' Imitation
John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, March 1974
Genesis combines surreal songwriting with an interesting instrumental and visual approach. Lead singer Peter Gabriel notes: "We all took courses in pretentiousness."

 Genesis Is The Start Of Something?
Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 16 March 1974
ARRIVING AT THE seedy looking Capitol Theatre, New Jersey's lower middle-class palace of rock, you could tell something good was going on inside. With even the standing room "seats" all sold out, the out-front area was rabidly snarling with kids desperately begging for tickets.

 Genesis: Short on Hair, Long on Gimmicks
Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 28 March 1974
LOS ANGELES – Peter Gabriel's five o'clock shadow tints not only cheeks and chin but the shaved patch of flesh which cuts up from the top of his forehead into the center of his hair, as if a tiny lawnmower had gone to work.

 Genesis: Evolution & Revelation
Anne Moore, Valley Advocate, 17 April 1974
GENESIS IS the perfect combination/blend of rock, theatrical production and intelligent literary comment. Genesis is also a five man group from London, England. Their popularity over the past few years has spread first to Europe, then their own homeland and finally to America.

 Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (Charisma)
Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 23 November 1974
I WISH that rock musicians would learn the importance of self-editing. A few golden, miraculous notes, and some choice pithy words are worth all the clutter and verbiage in the world.

 Genesis: To Them, It's Only Rock & Role
Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, 2 January 1975
LONDON – Having recently sold England by the pound, Genesis and Atlantic Records now turn their attention to the United States, where the esteemed buck reigns. A Genesis tour is in progress, scheduled to run through February 1st. An accompanying album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, is just now in release.

 Genesis: The Future of Rock Theatre
Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, February 1975
THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY is a short story that comprises no fewer than 48 different plot movements, and a stage show with 3000 slides paralleling the action, both musical and conceptual. So what's a fly dude of Spanish extraction got to do with five well-bred, highly educated and frequently esoteric young Englishmen, with a penchant for moody myths and subtle self-satire?

 Will America Swallow The Lamb? Why Genesis wouldn't chop up The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Ron Ross, Circus, March 1975
For years Genesis had dreamed of cooking up a recipe of their most powerful surreal visuals and most mesmerizing music. Yet they feared their ambitious new double album might prove too intense for in-concert consumption.

 Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down But Genesis Carries On
Barbara Charone, Sounds, 13 September 1975
THE GATHERING was far from morose. No black clothes or sombre faces. No mourning music or dirge-like drones. No sullen postures, despondent looks or vehement rage. Everyone seemed quite happy. You could almost call it secure.

 The Ghost That Haunts Genesis
Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 14 February 1976
YES, PETER IS PAST, but the legacy remains. And Tony Banks, keyboards' player with Genesis, is finding it difficult to swallow that. Peter Gabriel has quit the band, life must go on as if nothing has happened. Courageously philosophical; hardly realistic.

Go Back