The Genesis reissue campaign soldiers on, this time with the band’s studio output during the half-decade between 1976 and 1981 which includes A Trick of the Tail (1976), Wind & Wuthering (1971), And Then There Were Three (1978), Duke (1980) and Abacab (1981). The 1976-1981 era was a transitional period for Genesis on a couple of different levels, but the music that emerged within those years helped take a prog-heavy gang of musicians and turn them into proper pop/rock heroes.

 

The most curious thing about Abacab is that the band wrote an entire album’s worth of material, discarded it because the songs made them feel like they’d become a caricature of themselves, and started anew. We may never know what might’ve been, but at least we know what Abacab turned out to be, Genesis's second of four consecutive chart topping albums in the U.K. thanks to the trifecta of classic Top 40 singles, "Abacab,"  “No Reply at All,” and “Man on  the Corner.”