During the early 1970s, after an inauspicious debut, the British group Genesis was one of the foremost bands in progressive rock, winning critical plaudits for elaborately constructed albums and a challenging live-performance style. By the 1980s, however, the group had transformed itself into a slick three-piece group playing large venues, with a middle-of-the-road formulation that helped make it one of the world's most commercially successful rock acts.
The group began in 1967 as the Garden Wall,...