The sessions for Genesis's fourth album were already falling apart when the producer compared their new song to a film soundtrack. Bob Potter, brought in to oversee the record that would become Foxtrot, didn't hide his dislike for the band's music. The English progressive rock group had spent years touring Britain without a hit, and now the man hired to capture their sound was mocking it.
A producer replaced mid-session
Genesis had reason to feel fragile. After hundreds of concerts and three studio albums, they still hadn't cracked the UK chart. Their guitarist, Steve Hackett, was so drained by touring that he considered leaving the band. He was talked into staying, but the tension spilled into the studio. Potter's sessions grew so strained that the group replaced him mid-recording with Dave Hitchcock, a producer known for handling long, ambitious pieces.
What emerged from that chaos was the first Genesis album to reach the British chart, climbing to number 12. It also contained the longest track the band ever recorded: the 23-minute 'Supper's Ready', a seven-part suite about good against evil. The song grew from Peter Gabriel's strange experience at Kensington Palace, where his then-wife reportedly fell into a trance and the windows flew open. Gabriel compared it to a Hammer horror film.
Building the 23-minute suite
The band hadn't planned anything so sprawling. They initially wanted an acoustic piece like earlier songs, but Gabriel suggested a piano idea that became the section called 'Willow Farm'. Tony Banks later said that shift pushed the song 'into another dimension'. To record part of it, the members went outside and picked eight children, paying each one ten shillings to sing on the track.
The album's cover caused its own argument. Artist Paul Whitehead, who had designed the two previous Genesis sleeves, chose the title after hearing the American slang word 'foxy' and Jimi Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady'. He painted a woman with a fox's head in a red dress, riffing on the fox hunt from the Nursery Cryme cover. The band disliked it. Gabriel found it weaker than Whitehead's earlier work, Hackett called it strange, and Phil Collins thought it lacked a professional look.
Yet the music inside convinced people who mattered. When label boss Tony Stratton Smith heard the album, he declared it the one that would make their career. He was right. Foxtrot became the group's highest-charting record at that point, spending seven weeks in the UK chart and earning a silver certification for shipments of 60,000 copies.
When label boss Tony Stratton Smith heard the album, he declared it the one that would make their career.
The stage show sealed the album's reputation. Gabriel began wearing the fox dress and head from the cover during concerts, a theatrical touch that drew press attention and made Genesis a must-see live act. The band members themselves pointed to one studio moment as a highlight of their history: when Gabriel sang over Banks's organ solo in the 'Apocalypse in 9/8' section of 'Supper's Ready'.
Fifty-four years after its release, Foxtrot stands as the album where Genesis stopped being a cult act and started being a force. The record was made under pressure, with a producer who didn't believe in it, a guitarist nearly out the door, and a cover nobody liked. None of that stopped it from becoming the turning point the band had been chasing since their first concert.