A Trick of the Tail

The Artist

Genesis formed in the late 1960s at Charterhouse School in England, growing from a group of teenage songwriters into one of the defining acts of British progressive rock. Through the early 1970s, fronted by Peter Gabriel and anchored by the instrumental interplay of Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, and Phil Collins, they built a reputation for theatrical live shows and long-form compositions dense with literary imagery. When Gabriel departed after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, many assumed the band was finished, and the search for a new singer reportedly turned up nothing better than the drummer they already had. A Trick of the Tail is the album where Phil Collins steps to the microphone, and Genesis proves it can carry on without its most visible member. It marks both a continuation of their prog ambitions and the first hint of the more accessible band they would eventually become.

The Album

A Trick of the Tail was recorded in late 1975 at Trident Studios in London, with the band co-producing alongside engineer David Hentschel, who would go on to work on several subsequent Genesis records. The sessions took place under real pressure: material had been sketched with Gabriel still in mind, and the band auditioned outside vocalists before Collins committed to fronting the group. Released in early 1976, the album was greeted with relief and enthusiasm by fans who had feared the worst, and it became one of their strongest commercial showings to that point. The songs lean into fantasy, fable, and character sketches, with lyrics full of mythic creatures, imagined cities, and outsiders looking in.

Listen For

The Collins voice question. Listen to how closely Phil Collins echoes Peter Gabriel's phrasing, especially on "Squonk" and the title track. It is one of the most quietly remarkable transitions in rock history.

Tony Banks at the keyboards. Banks is the harmonic engine of this record. Pay attention to his layered keyboard textures on "Mad Man Moon" and the long instrumental passages of "Los Endos".

Dynamic shifts within songs. "Dance on a Volcano" and "Robbery, Assault and Battery" swing between tightly composed sections, tempo changes, and sudden shifts in mood without ever feeling stitched together.

A quieter, gentler moment. "Ripples" builds slowly around acoustic guitar and Collins's most tender vocal on the album, meditating on time and lost youth in a way that lands very differently from the fantasy tracks around it.

Storytelling and mythic imagery. The lyrics are populated with strange creatures and outsiders: the hunted beast of "Squonk", the trickster of the title track, the reflected faces of "Ripples". Notice how the band builds whole small worlds inside single songs.