Top 20 Genesis Solo Songs

Genesis‘ musical history spans 33 years and nearly a dozen members over a 15-album discography.

But it all comes down to just a handful of those members, starting with its three main cofounders: singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist Mike Rutherford, who were later joined by guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins.

The band was later pared to a quartet with Gabriel’s 1975 exit and then a trio when Hackett left a couple of years later. Music history was then made as Genesis shifted their songs from 10-minute prog epics to the commercially safer confines of three-minute pop tunes. World domination with Collins at the microphone was not far behind. That said, it’s probably no surprise which two members dominate the below list of the Top 20 Genesis Solo Songs.

20. Mike + The Mechanics, “All I Need Is a Miracle”
From: Mike + The Mechanics (1985)

Like bandmates Phil Collins and Tony Banks, guitarist Mike Rutherford spent Genesis’ downtime on side projects. After releasing a pair of solo albums in the early ’80s, Rutherford used a break following a world tour supporting 1983’s Genesis to form Mike + The Mechanics with Sad Cafe singer Paul Young and former Ace and Squeeze member Paul Carrack. “All I Need Is a Miracle,” a Top 5 hit, comes from their debut.

 

19. Mike + The Mechanics, “The Living Years”
From: Living Years (1988)

Three years after their debut, and again between a Genesis album and tour, Rutherford resurrected Mike + The Mechanics for a second LP. This one reached No. 2 in the U.K. and Top 15 in the U.S., led by the album’s title track. “The Living Years,” with Paul Carrack on lead vocals, touched heartstrings worldwide. Inspired by his father’s death, Rutherford taps into universal regret of words not said when they still can.

 

18. Phil Collins, “You Can’t Hurry Love”
From: Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982)

Collins and producer Hugh Padgham challenged themselves to replicate the classic Motown sound on their cover of the Supremes‘ 1966 classic “You Can’t Hurry Love,” a note-for-note remake found on Collins’ second solo album in 1982. Pointless, though enjoyable, as it may be, the song became his first U.K. No. 1 and his first Top 10 hit in the U.S., setting the stage for bigger chart successes throughout the ’80s.

 

17. Phil Collins, “Sussudio”
From: No Jacket Required (1985)

Phil Collins’ third solo album took him to where no Genesis album could: No. 1. No Jacket Required spawned four hit singles, including its opening track, the nonsensical “Sussudio.” The singer and drummer has said he was messing around in the studio with a drum machine when the song’s title came out of his mouth. The synth-driven single raced to No. 1, too, his third consecutive chart-topper in little more than a year.

 

READ MORE: Peter Gabriel, ‘i/o’ Album Review

 

16. Phil Collins, “Another Day in Paradise”
From: … But Seriously (1989)

Phil Collins took the title of his fourth solo record to heart with its lead single, the homelessness-awareness track “Another Day in Paradise.” The heavy message was a reaction to some of the backlash Collins faced in light of “Sussudio” and Genesis’ pop-leaning Invisible Touch but didn’t affect the loyalty of his fans. The song (featuring a vocal assist from David Crosby) went to No. 1, Collins’ seventh, as did the album.

 

15. Peter Gabriel, “Mercy Street”
From: So (1986)

As he prepped his fifth solo and breakthrough mainstream LP, Peter Gabriel deliberately moved in more commercial directions. “Mercy Street,” however, has the closest ties to his past, from its stretched-out length (its 6:22 running time is just 11 seconds shy of So‘s longest song) to its unconventional subject (based on Pulitzer-winning poet Anne Sexton’s work). Its main drum track was initially slotted for another song, later a B-side.

 

14. Peter Gabriel, “Blood of Eden”
From: Us (1992)

The first version of “Blood of Eden” appeared in the 1991 Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World but wasn’t on the soundtrack album. A year later Gabriel reworked it for his sixth album, Us. Like the Kate Bush duet “Don’t Give Up” from So, “Blood of Eden” is a slow-burning ballad with a co-vocal by a woman at the peak of her career – in this case, Sinead O’Connor, who supplies warm harmonies beneath Gabriel’s rasp.

 

13. Peter Gabriel, “Digging in the Dirt”
From: Us (1992)

Six years after So made Peter Gabriel a worldwide star, he released the follow-up Us. The lead track, the worldbeat art-rock mash-up “Digging in the Dirt,” had little in common with the singles that attracted Top 40 listeners to his previous record. While a hit on the modern rock chart, “Digging in the Dirt” stalled outside the Top 50, though the album made it to No. 2. It was 10 years before Gabriel released more new music.

 

12. Peter Gabriel, “Red Rain”
From: So (1986)

The opening song on Peter Gabriel’s breakthrough fifth album promised more of the same from the musically tangled art rocker. But it didn’t stay that way. At five and a half minutes and building over a slow, brooding pace, “Red Rain” is an ominous opener to So, especially as it’s followed by the joyful and horny (in more ways than one) “Sledgehammer.” Nuclear war warning or AIDS parable? “Red Rain” is a little of both.

 

11. Peter Gabriel, “Big Time”
From: So (1986)

It’s pretty much “Sledgehammer Part Two” but that doesn’t take away the fun of “Big Time,” the third of So‘s four hit singles (and like “Sledgehammer” it made the Top 10 and featured an eye-popping animated video). This is Gabriel at his loosest, funkiest and, in a way, emptiest, which is sort of the point. Targeting ’80s greed and ego, the song carries its weight like a two-ton boulder, making its release all the more rewarding.

 

10. Philip Bailey & Phil Collins, “Easy Lover”
From: Chinese Wall (1984)

Phil Collins was inescapable in the mid-’80s, performing onstage with Led Zeppelin, appearing on TV, producing a record for a former ABBA member and making music with seemingly anyone who asked. After employing Earth, Wind & Fire‘s horn section for his solo debut, Collins struck up a friendship with the group’s singer Philip Bailey, producing his 1984 solo album and serving as a duet partner on the hit single “Easy Lover.”

READ MORE: Genesis: The UCR Roundtable

 

9. Phil Collins, “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)”
From: Against All Odds: Music From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1984)

In between his collaboration with Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey and producing and playing drums on Eric Clapton‘s 1984 album Behind the Sun, Phil Collins was asked to contribute a song to Taylor Hackford’s in-progress movie Against All Odds. Calling up a sketch of a ballad first considered for his debut solo album, 1981’s Face Value, Collins constructed “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” his first of seven No. 1s.

 

8. Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush, “Don’t Give Up”
From: So (1986)

Kate Bush guested on two songs on Peter Gabriel’s second solo album in 1980, including the French-sung hook of “Games Without Frontiers.” She was coming off the massive success of 1985’s epochal Hounds of Love when she rejoined him in the studio for So‘s controlled-tension ballad “Don’t Give Up.” The six-and-a-half-minute simmering-to-boiling cut has since become a song of reassurance for a variety of people seeking it.

 

7. Peter Gabriel, “Shock the Monkey”
From: Security (1982)

For his fourth solo album (titled Security in the U.S. but, once again, Peter Gabriel everywhere else), the former Genesis singer moved more into the world music he began exploring in his preceding LP. But he also moved deeper into post-punk rhythms spliced with his usual art-pop. “Shock the Monkey,” thanks to much MTV support, became Gabriel’s first Top 40 hit. Not an animal rights song, but one about jealousy.

 

6. Peter Gabriel, “Games Without Frontiers”
From: Peter Gabriel (1980)

Peter Gabriel never shied away from political themes in his work, even though he rarely spoke of them outright, leaving direct interpretation to listeners. But it’s hard not to take away the anti-war message of “Games Without Frontiers” (the song’s video includes a clip from a 1950s education film about what children should do in the event of a nuclear attack). Kate Bush provides the sing-songy backing vocals, sung in French.

 

5. Peter Gabriel, “Biko”
From: Peter Gabriel (1980)

The most political song of Peter Gabriel’s career helped spur the anti-apartheid movement of the mid-’80s that included Bruce Springsteen, U2 and others. Taking as its main subject Steve Biko, a South African activist who died while in police custody in 1977, “Biko” employs an Afropop base to relate the matter-of-fact details of his fate (“It was business as usual in police room 619“). A musical protest that brought real change.

 

4. Peter Gabriel, “In Your Eyes”
From: So (1986)

“In Your Eyes” is a rare song that had two different runs on the chart. The first came in 1986 when it was released as the second single from Peter Gabriel’s hit So album; it reached No. 26 the first time around. Three years later the song was rereleased after serving in a pivotal scene from the teen rom-com Say Anything. This time, in a trimmed version, “In Your Eyes” peaked at No. 41. Both times it charted for 14 weeks.

 

3. Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer”
From: So (1986)

After four albums of often complex and challenging art rock, Peter Gabriel burrowed into accessible areas for his fifth. In a sign that something new was afoot, he gave the album a title, instead of calling it Peter Gabriel again. So‘s first single, “Sledgehammer,” exalts in phallic imagery and reveals an artist willing to tear down his reputation as a solemn and occasionally despairing artist with a big hook and a huge grin on his face.

 

2. Peter Gabriel, “Solsbury Hill”
From: Peter Gabriel (1977)

Gabriel left the band he helped form in 1967 in late 1975; less than two years later he released his debut album (the first of four eponymously named LPs), led by a song in which he laid out his trepidations of going solo. “Solsbury Hill” directly addresses his move: “I was feeling part of the scenery / I walked right out of the machinery / … I will show another me.” A declaration of independence set to a wistful folk-rock beat.

 

1. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”
From: Face Value (1981)

Phil Collins was facing dark times in 1981. Even though Genesis released the highest-charting U.S. album of their career up to that time only a year before (Duke, which just missed the Top 10), the singer, drummer and de facto leader of the now-lean trio had gone through a messy divorce, the scarring details of which made up the bulk of his debut solo album, Face Value. Collins has said he’s not sure of the exact meaning of “In the Air Tonight,” but “there’s a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration” in it. Over the years, the song has taken on many meanings shaped by its various interpreters, from rock and pop artists to hip-hop and electronic. Experimental at its core, with a slow leaking melody revealing itself over a tension-filled five and a half minutes, “In the Air Tonight” has come to be defined by its explosive drum break, a forest-clearing assault that is one of the most identifiable and famous in music history. A milestone moment that has lost none of its impact to thrill over the decades.