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My personal problem with trying to listen to Steve Hackett's, Anthony Phillips' and Tony Banks' solo carrier is that I cannot stop myself from thinking: Phil Collins would have done a better job on the vocals, even in a lunch break amount of time.
✨ The Many Genres of Genesis Fans I've Encountered Over the Years ✨
PG Purists:
Fans who consider their original frontman, Peter Gabriel, to be the heart and soul of Genesis and dropped off the band after his departure. These fans enjoy all albums from From Genesis To Revelation up to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, though largely consider Genesis's "Big 4" to be the best of their work (i.e. Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, and TLLDOB).
PG Purists are largely into this band because of their deep admiration/infatuation with Peter and his incredible stage presence, and will religiously watch the Belgium TV broadcast, Bataclan, and Shepperton Studios concert footage. Not all PG Purists completely disregard the band's post-Gabriel years, of course, but they are less likely to consider A Trick of the Tail or Wind & Wuthering to be on the same level of quality as the Big 4 and very often do not gain much enjoyment from their pop rock era.
While elder 70's fans are often stereotyped to be PG Purists (still suffering PTSD from that infamous Melody Maker article), there has been a growing percentage of trans & nonbinary people in the fandom that also fit into this category; getting immense gender euphoria from his looks and costumes of this era of his career.
Trio Purists:
The opposite of PG Purists. These fans fell in love with 80's Genesis and greatly prefer their pop rock albums to their original prog rock output. Many of these kinds of fans would say that either Duke or Invisible Touch are the best Genesis albums, though I have met several very vocal Abacab and/or Shapes fanatics as well.
Although the name is derived from the combined musical talent of Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, and Phil Collins, a sizable amount of Trio Purists got into and adore the band due to Phil specifically. Whether it be from pop fans enjoying his highly successful solo work and tracing it back to Genesis or millennials/gen-z kids discovering him via the Tarzan soundtrack, it is highly likely that a Trio Purist will also be a massive fan of PC's solo career and other projects he worked on. As for the other two, most will know at least one Mike + The Mechanics album, yet unlikely that many have even heard Tony Bank's solo work. Nearly all Trio Purists, however, unanimously consider Calling All Stations to be the band's worst album precisely because of Collin's absence.
Interestingly, a lot of Trio Purists I've met seem to not listen to Gabriel-era Genesis not because of a genuine distaste for it, but because they did not even realize that it existed to begin with.
Prog-Era Enjoyers:
Progressive rock fans who are not as devoted to Peter Gabriel as PG Purists are. They do not draw hard lines between the Gabriel and Collins frontman eras; instead adoring ALL Genesis albums they consider to be purely prog rock in sound.
Many of these fans see Genesis's glory days as coming from their Big 4 albums, but just as many also absolutely love A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering equally to the Big 4 and may even consider those two to be their favorite albums. Opinions on ...And Then There Were Three... and Duke are often mixed, but you will find a fair amount of Prog-Era fans who do enjoy these records. From Abacab onward they tend to jump ship.
These Prog-Era fans are more likely to agree with/befriend PG Purists than Trio Purists due to their shared prog rock leanings, even if some find the PG Worship to be annoying at times. They are also highly likely to be familiar with every band member's solo projects, though their enjoyment of each one's varies wildly.
"Genesis Were Always Great" Truthers:
A genre of Genesis fans that are surprisingly smaller than you'd think, but not necessarily a minority either. These fans adore both the prog AND pop eras of Genesis equally, and it is much harder to determine what this group's overall favorite albums are because of their greater acceptance of the band's many sounds throughout the years.
One pattern I have noticed with the Truthers that I've met is that many started as fans of the pop rock era, only to learn about and appreciate 70's Genesis once they were introduced to it when they got older. The inverse of this happens as well, but not quite as often as the former. Like the Prog-Era Enjoyers, these Truthers are also the most likely of the fans to have listened to all of the member's solo work and, like with the band itself, are not as picky with how many of these records they enjoy listening to. These are fans that promote peace and unity within the fandom.
Ironically, they also tend to consider Calling All Stations to be Genesis's worst album, even if they do not "dislike it" per say.
Hackett Acolytes (a.k.a. "Hackolytes"):
A more obscure subgenre of prog-loving Genesis fans who worship Steve Hackett and his incredible guitar skills, believing that he was the true soul of the band's progressive rock sound and what contributed heavily to their greatest work.
For these Hackolytes, they all agree that the band's best output was their Big 6 albums (Nursery Cryme up to W&W). To them, the original sound of Genesis never truly died, but to this day is still carried by Steve via his long-spanning collection of solo albums & live shows. The vast majority of this collective can be found attending his concerts (obviously), and are often very devoted to attending as many as they can in order to see him cover entire classic Genesis albums. Many are also likely to be fans of Peter Gabriel's first four self-titled records was well as Tony Bank's and Mike Rutherford's 1st solo records respectively... though moreso Tony's.
Tony Banks Solo Career Knowers (a.k.a. "Banksians" or "Banks Bitches"):
Another uncommon collective of Genesis fans who have actually listened to/bought Tony Banks's solo projects. This group consists of 74% of the autistic members of the Genesis fandom + the occasional allistics who consider him one of the best keyboardists out there.
Opinions on each of Tony's albums vary wildly amongst Banksians due to how many genres this man has covered, but there are notably less arguments amongst these sorts of fans due to the obscurity of these albums objectively leading to less obnoxious fan discourse in comparison to the band itself. Frankly, all it takes is obsessing over at least one of his albums to be indoctrinated into this faith. My favorites are A Curious Feeling and Five.
Ant Rememberers (a.k.a. "People who still remember Anthony Phillips exists"):
Perhaps the rarest subgenre of all. These are the fans who still think about Genesis co-founder and early leaver of the band, Anthony Phillips, and who greatly enjoy his solo records.
They are the least vocal of all Genesis fans due to how little material they have to work with compared to every other member of the band, but still make do with what they have. The biggest fans of Ant's work usually consider Trespass to be one of their favorite Genesis albums (if not their absolute favorite), and many who follow his scripture believe that he was the one responsible for writing what would become the main melody of "The Musical Box" and possibly other Nursery Cryme songs before his departure.
The CAS Defense Force:
A radical group of fans that have been steadily growing since '97 who not only declare that Calling All Stations is NOT Genesis's worst album by any means, but also consider it an underrated masterpiece in the band's catalog if not their favorite Genesis album period.
Arguments in this album's favor range from prog rock fans liking the return to a heavier sound + longer songs, pop fans appreciating the change of pace this music brought after the band was becoming stagnant with releases such as We Can't Dance, and even those who simply enjoy Ray Wilson's performance and think it fit well with the rest of the band. There is some debate as to whether the original '97 version or the '07 remixes are superior. In fact, some have even taken to creating fan remixes of the album in an attempt to bring it to its full potential (one example of which I unfortunately can't find on yt anymore...).
While these CAS fans have made their mark online, I have yet to encounter any out in the wild. But do know that they're out there!
Dreamboat Genesis 💕✨️💕✨️
Favourite solo album from each Genesis memeber?
Tony Banks - The Fugitive, a solid synthpop album, his vocals are pretty ok all things considered, also the only of his solo albums I've heard.
Phil Collins - Face Value, again it's the only one I've really listened to, it's solid and it does have Coming in the Air Tonight.
Peter Gabriel - Melt without a doubt, very moody album stacked with bangers. Probably my favourite solo album of any Genesis member.
Steve Hackett - Voyage of the Acolyte, the album really feels like if you took Genesis and made the sound more guitar dominated (makes sense, as it is basically Genesis minus Tony Banks on the album).
Anthony Philips - The Geese & The Ghost, just a really interesting album on the whole, lots of lovely 12 string guitars throughout and Collections is just one of the most beautiful songs I've heard.
Mike Rutherford - I haven't listened to his first one, nor made it through Acting Very Strange, nor touched Mike and the Mechanics so no opinion.
When I still didn’t listen to prog rock, I used to think that Anthony Phillips and Eddie Jobson were the same person😭😭
GENESIS (1967 - 2022) | CLASSIC ROCK UK, May 2019.
