Genesis Archives, Vol.1: 1967-1975 - The Gabriel Years (1998)


 

Disc One
  1.Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
  2.Fly on a Windshield
  3.Broadway Melody of 1974
  4.Cuckoo Cocoon
  5.In The Cage
  6.Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
  7.Back in N.Y.C.
  8.Hairless Heart
  9.Counting Out The Time
 10.Carpet Crawlers
 11.Chamber of 32 Doors
Disc Two
  1.Lilywhite Lilith
  2.The Waiting Room
  3.Anyway
  4.Here Comes The Supernatural Anaesthetist
  5.The Lamia
  6.Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats
  7.Colony of Slipperment
  8.Ravine
  9.The Light Dies Down on Broadway
 10.Riding the Scree
 11.In The Rapids
 12.It
Disc Three
  1.Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (Live)
  2.Firth of Fifth (Live)
  3.More Fool Me (Live)
  4.Supper's Ready (Live)
  5.I Know What I Like (Live)
  6.Stagnation (Live)
  7.Twilight Alehouse
  8.Happy the Man
  9.Watcher of the Skies
Disc Four
  1.In the Wilderness
  2.Shepherd
  3.Pacidy
  4.Let Us Now Make Love
  5.Going Out to Get You
  6.Dusk
  7.Build Me a Mountain 
  8.Image Blown Out
  9.One Day
 10.Where the Sour Turns Sweet
 11.In the Beginning
 12.Magic of Time
 13.Hey!
 14.Hidden in the World of Dawn
 15.Sea Bee
 16.Mystery of Flannan Isle Lighthouse
 17.Hair on the Arms and Legs
 18.She is Beautiful
 19.Try a Little Sadness
 20.Patricia

 

AAs the curtain quietly fell on Genesis’ recording career near the close of the twentieth century, the band, rather admirably, took a moment to look back—not with the blaring fanfare of a hits compilation (though that arrived too), but with something far more intimate. Archive 1967–75, the first of two expansive box sets, was not a commercial cash-in, nor did it aspire to court the casual listener. This was, unapologetically, a gift to the devoted—a carefully curated trove of rarities, oddities, and long-sought artifacts from the Peter Gabriel years. Unsurprisingly, it sold modestly. Equally unsurprising: those who acquired it cherished it.

The first two discs are devoted entirely to a live performance of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway—the band’s magnum opus, performed in full during the 1975 tour that would also mark Gabriel’s swan song. The decision to include this particular concert is telling. Genesis, even in their theatrical heyday, were never entirely about spectacle—they were about execution. And while this live rendition includes some posthumous studio overdubs (a detail that some purists will no doubt grumble over), the effect is more restorative than revisionist. What remains is a remarkably faithful live document of an album that was, and remains, notoriously complex to perform. That it holds together as well as it does is a testament to the band’s technical discipline—even amid capes, masks, and flashing lights.

Disc three continues the live odyssey, this time with performances from the early 1970s. Here the band wisely avoids duplication—none of the material featured had previously appeared on official live albums, save for Supper’s Ready and I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), both offered here in their original context, with Gabriel still at the vocal helm. These versions are particularly poignant. While Seconds Out gave listeners the Collins-led interpretations, these performances remind us what made Gabriel-era Genesis so unique: the idiosyncratic phrasing, the theatrical cadence, the subtle undercurrent of menace and mystique.

The final disc delves even deeper—into the band’s formative years, before the arrival of Hackett or Collins. Early demos, BBC sessions, and long-buried B-sides are dusted off and presented without polish, and therein lies their charm. The sound is raw, the ideas half-formed, but there’s a clear, unfiltered glimpse of the band that could have been—a more pastoral, melody-driven outfit rooted in English pop, before the epics and allegories took hold. Tracks like Let Us Now Make Love and In the Wilderness are particularly revealing: wistful, melodic, and oddly free of pretension. Had Genesis continued in this vein, one imagines a very different legacy—less grandiose, perhaps, but no less sincere.

What Archive 1967–75 ultimately provides is not just a document of the past, but a narrative—a sonic biography of a band before, during, and after metamorphosis. It celebrates the lesser-known corners of their discography without apology or compromise. And for those who had spent years assembling bootlegs and imports, it finally gave form and fidelity to long-whispered lore.

Not for the newcomer, certainly. But for the listener who followed them through costume changes, concept albums, and critical indifference, this was nothing less than a long-overdue reward.

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