Songoftheday 7/8/12 - It's too easy to live like clockwork, tick tock watchin' the world go by...

Genesis - "Paperlate"

from the album Three Sides Live (1982) [US] and 3X3 (1982) [UK]

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (three weeks)

Weeks in the top-40: 5

Today's Song of the Day is by the progressive-rock group turned pop powerhouse Genesis. Genesis had its genesis in 1967, and included guitarist Mike Rutherford, keyboardist Tony Banks, and Peter Gabriel on vocals, among others. Their first album, From Genesis To Revelation, was released in 1969, followed by Trespass a year later, which was their first to dent the UK album charts (and even top the LP chart in Belgium), but still remained an obscure prog-rock curiosity. After hiring on drummer Phil Collins and guitar whiz Steve Hackett, their next set, Nursery Cryme, made it into the British album top-40. As they gained more and more of a following among British rock enthusiasts with their expansive landscapes of sound, their fifth studio set Selling England By The Pound in 1973 gave them their first pop hit in the titular country, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", a top-20 success. After that blip, the band trudged on for three more well-selling studio sets before Gabriel left for a solo career (as he dramatized in his song "Solsbury Hill").

After auditioning for a new singer to replace Gabriel, Genesis finally settled on Collins taking the mike (Yes' Bill Bruford subbed in for Collins on drums on tour). Their 1977 album Wind and Wuthering (calling up the Bronte novel) contains their first minor American chart hit, "Your Own Special Way". However, after a couple more studio albums and a second live set, Steve Hackett also departed, leaving a core of just Collins, Banks, and Rutherford.

The album that followed that shift, ...And Then There Were Three..., was deliberately more pointed into a mainstream rock direction, and the results were their first top-10 single in England as well as top-40 hit in America, "Follow You Follow Me". After that in 1980, came Duke, which was even more honed to a pop mentality, and gave them another British top-10 ("Turn It On Again") as well as "Misunderstanding", which made the US top-20 and topped the Canadian singles chart. The album also was their first #1 album as a group in the UK.

Before recording Duke, the trio took time out for individual projects, and Collins not only toured with fusion outfit Brand X, he recorded his first solo album, Face Value, which was released in 1981 (after Duke). That album, which delved into more personal and romantic themes, and incorporated R&B elements, including the horn section of R&B group Earth, Wind & Fire. That album outdid even any of Genesis' albums up to that point, becoming a #1 album in the UK and top-10 in the US.

Taking the lessons from Face Value, their next released album together, Abacab, brought the horns and the R&B/pop/hybrid to the party, and produced another British top-10 single (the title track), while that one and "No Reply At All" were top-5 US rock radio hits, and add in their spring single "Man On The Corner", which made the US pop top-40 in May, and the group pulled a hat trick of pop hits in America for the first time. (It also remains my favorite Genesis album.)

After touring behind Abacab, the band released their third live album, the 2-record set Three Sides Live, in the summer of 1982. While in Great Britain the collection had four sides of live material, including four of their big hits at the time (including their three aforementioned top-10 UK hits), the American release's fourth side included tracks recorded during the Duke and Abacab sessions. The three from the latter were separately released in England on their 3X3 EP. One of those songs, "Paperlate", was also released as a single, and again the band brought the EWF horns to the game...

The song became their fourth top-10 in their homeland (at #10), while it was their sixth pop top-10 US hit, and also was huge at rock radio, matching their best to that point at #2. I got to say, at the time I hated this song, I guess because it sound a little childish on distracted radio listening. However I've really grown on it, and it's crazy that it's a mess trying to find the song on CD before mp3 came around, since different versions of Three Sides Live were released, most without the studio tracks in there. Now you can grab them on their Platinum Collection box set or the tour edition of their Turn It On Again greatest-hits CD, or of course a la carte on Amazon or iTunes.

After this, Collins released his second solo set, Hello, I Must Be Going! (coincidentally, one of my favorite albums of all time), before the band came back in 1983 with Genesis, and their first US top-10 hit, "That's All".

Up tomorrow: a Philly blue-eyed soul duo score their fourth top-40 hit from Private Eyes.