I'd also add (I have Neapolitan on ignore but I see him quoted by you and would like to set the story straight on what he says I say about
Genesis, the album) that any real ire I have (being from Ireland I do have a lot of ire - take that!)
is reserved for
Abacab, which I consider a truly awful album and the nadir of what was then a pretty nosediving career anyway. But
Genesis has some very good tracks. My main gripe is that it sort of straddled two camps, on one hand trying to remain in the "new pop" version of the band which they dipped their toes into with
Duke, and on the other hand doing their best to remain true to the their old proggy fan base, and to my mind it fell between the stools.
Abacab is, imo, an awful album but at least it's unashamedly pop and doesn't pretend to be anything else.
Genesis fools you by kicking off with "Mama", so you think "Ah! The Genesis I know!" and then falls off a cliff as Collins sticks his hands in his pockets and comes whistling "That's all" (an apt title if ever there was one!) at you. You're still reeling from the shock of that when "Home By the Sea/Second Home By the Sea" reinstils the old faith in you, before Collins kicks you in the balls with the abysmal "Illegal Alien". The rest of the album is actually ok, but by then I've been so in shock that I'm unlikely to recover.
Invisible Touch went more or less back to the
Abacab format, they got a little back to basics with
We Can't Dance (though much of it is pure pop it's good pure pop, unlike the turd that is
Abacab) and then
Calling All Stations had its moment but was a poor shadow of albums like
Duke and
Wind and Wuthering, and it was probably best they gave it all up as a bad job at that point.
Tealdear: I hate
Abacab much more than I hate
Genesis, though I kind of dislike both.