More than any other band that started out within the prog rock genre, Genesis was able to switch gears as their career progressed and move in a mainstream direction. The band went about a decade without even sniffing the singles charts, and then proceeded to dominate in that realm for another decade after that.
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What’s fascinating is that the last U.S. Top-40 hit by Genesis is a song that all but their most diehard fans have likely forgotten. Any guesses? Read on to find out the trio’s last foray up the charts.
The Last Dance With Phil Collins
Top-40 success is kind of like a club. Until you gain membership, you just can’t seem to get in the door, even as a guest. But once they accept you, you have a good shot of returning again and again. Genesis might just well be the ideal example of this phenomenon.
Once they narrowed the band down to three and mostly left behind some of their progressive tendencies (around the same time as Peter Gabriel went solo), Genesis streamlined their approach and became consistent hitmakers. That continued their chart success all the way through the ’80s to their 1991 album We Can’t Dance.
Three of the LP’s first four singles all hit the U.S. Top 25, while the one that missed (“Hold On My Heart”) became an adult contemporary staple. But what about the fifth single, which would indeed be the band’s last-ever Top-40 hit in the U.S.?
Never Say “Never”
The song to which we’re referring is “Never a Time,” which peaked at No. 21 in the U.S. in 1991. Perhaps the reason it hasn’t quite managed to earn its way into posterity is the band did not film a video for it, as they had for the other hit singles off the album.
When Genesis made We Can’t Dance, they decided that since they had so much material in the hopper, each band member would cover individual lyrical duty on a third of the songs. They felt it would speed up the writing process. In the case of “Never a Time,” guitarist Mike Rutherford handled the words, while the entire band is credited with the music.
“Never a Time” muses on the regret we feel for letting opportunities slip by us. Collins gives it his usual impassioned lead vocal to put the theme across. If there’s one thing that stands out about the song, it’s Rutherford’s soulful lead guitar, which sounds like something you might expect from Eric Clapton.
The Aftermath
When all was said and done, Genesis posted four U.S. Top-25 singles from the We Can’t Dance album. It’s clear their commercial momentum hadn’t stalled at all entering the ’90s. That’s why it might seem surprising they never scored another big hit single.
The main reason: Collins decided he was more comfortable doing his own thing and left the group. In interviews after the fact, he admitted he was starting to get fed up with what fans believed Genesis should sound like, and he felt his solo work offered more artistic freedom.
Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks tried one more Genesis album, enlisting new singer Ray Wilson to take over for Collins on the album Calling All Stations. But that move was a bridge too far for fans, and no singles from the album threatened the U.S. charts. Collins has toured with Genesis since, but the trio never released another studio LP. That means “Never a Time” proved to be the end of an era.
Photo by Holger Hollemann/picture alliance via Getty Images
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