For Fans of Genesis

Selling England by the Pound (1973) is the record where every element of the early Genesis sound snapped into focus: Peter Gabriel's voice at its most commanding, Steve Hackett's acoustic and electric guitar work extraordinarily beautiful, the rhythm section of Banks, Collins and Rutherford locked into something genuinely magical. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, Firth of Fifth, The Cinema Show -- these songs are long but never feel long. If you have only heard the Phil Collins-era hits on the radio and want to understand what the fuss about the early band is, this is the album that converts people.

Wind and Wuthering (1976) arrived in the difficult gap just after Gabriel left and just before the band became mainstream stars. It is frequently overlooked but it is, arguably, the finest record Collins-era Genesis ever made in a progressive mode. The opening Eleventh Earl of Mar is one of the most powerful things they recorded, and the closing Afterglow remains one of the most purely moving songs in their catalogue. Hackett's departure after this album means it also functions as a quiet farewell to a certain sound. That bittersweet quality runs all the way through it.

It is tempting to treat Gabriel's departure as a loss and his subsequent solo records as a separate story, but that misses the point. Peter Gabriel 3 (the Melt album) and So are direct extensions of everything that made early Genesis exceptional: the theatrical ambition, the emotional directness, the willingness to absorb outside influences without losing a core identity. Any serious Genesis fan who does not have both of those records is leaving the best part of the story unfinished. Sledgehammer and In Your Eyes are not detours. They are where that sensibility finally reached the widest possible audience.

The direct heirs to the early Genesis approach are not in 1980s pop but in the bands that took progressive rock's ambitions into heavier territory. Tool's Lateralus carries the same commitment to compositional length and emotional weight. Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet has the same British melancholy and sonic sophistication. Radiohead's OK Computer owes a genuine debt to the textures Banks and Hackett were building in 1973 and 1974. These are records where you can hear someone thinking hard about what music can carry.