Happy 25th: Genesis, WE CAN’T DANCE
25 years ago today, Genesis released their 14th studio album and the LP which – at least as of this date – remains the final studio album released by the band with Phil Collins as their lead singer.
To be fair, it’s remarkable that Genesis got back together after Collins found such tremendous success as a solo artist with NO JACKET REQUIRED, especially when one considers that Mike Rutherford was going great guns with his own solo project, Mike + The Mechanics, while Tony Banks was keeping busy with soundtrack work for films like The Wicked Lady and Quicksilver. But lo and behold, they returned to the studio in October 1985, and it was less than a year later when the world was graced with the arrival of INVISIBLE TOUCH.
It would be another five years before Genesis reconvened to record the album that would come to be known as WE CAN’T DANCE, and this time even Banks and Rutherford didn’t anticipate that Collins would be up for getting the band back together, but damned if he wasn’t. The resulting record was – not entirely surprisingly – a huge commercial success, not only on the album charts, where it #4 in America and #1 in the UK, but in terms of singles as well. Remarkably, five different songs found their way into the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100: “Jesus He Knows Me” (#23), “Never a Time” (#21), “Hold on My Heart” (#12), “No Son of Mine” (#12), and the title track, which provided the band with another top-10 single when it hit #7.
Alas, when Genesis completed their touring obligation for WE CAN’T DANCE, Collins finally made good on every fan’s worst fears by departing the band, which led to a short-lived stint by former Stiltskin singer Ray Wilson as Genesis’s new frontman, but after a single album – 1997’s Calling All Stations – the band called it a day.
Well, until 2007, anyway, which is when Collins, Rutherford, and Banks reunited and went on a reunion tour. Will there be another one? One might have said “no” up until last year, but now that Collins has come out of retirement and Banks has acknowledged that he wouldn’t be against working with Collins and Rutherford again, who’s to say? Perhaps Genesis may yet turn it on again.
