Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - The Invisible Miracle Sledgehammer Edition
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Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2019
⏱️ 82 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
When a band member leaves to go solo, usually it means the band’s best days are over. That’s what everybody thought when Peter Gabriel left Genesis in the ’70s. Except not only did the band survive—fronted by drummer-turned-singer Phil Collins, they got bigger. Then Collins went solo…except he didn’t ditch Genesis. In fact, his success made them bigger—one of the definitive pop bands of the 1980s, as Collins’s monstrous drum sound took over pop music. By mid-decade, current and former members of Genesis—even side projects from its guitarists—were all competing head-to-head on the Billboard charts. On Hit Parade, we explore the knotty family tree of Genesis, the unlikeliest group ever to become a Hot 100 juggernaut.
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening Ad Free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.6 | Before we get started, I want to let you know about Slate Day, which is a full day of live shows and fun experiences in New York City on Saturday, June 8th. |
| 0:15.0 | We're closing the day with a hit parade dance party where I'll be picking all the music. |
| 0:20.5 | There will be great company, |
| 0:22.1 | and food and drink will also be provided. Fans of Hit Parade might want to come for the live |
| 0:27.6 | edition of the Culture Gab Fest and stay for the dance party. For more information and tickets, |
| 0:34.0 | go to slate.com slash live. |
| 0:44.1 | Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from coast to coast. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song |
| 0:50.4 | Number One series. |
| 0:51.9 | On today's show, in the high-stakes world of popular music, bands |
| 0:57.0 | break up all the time. You might call it an occupational hazard. And what's more, |
| 1:03.3 | solo careers and spinoff projects are far from a guaranteed prospect. Front people as famous as |
| 1:10.1 | Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, and Debbie |
| 1:12.3 | Harry found it difficult to gain traction as standalone recording artists. But most unusual is when |
| 1:19.7 | one group not only spawns soloists, spin-offs, and supergroups, all of which score hits, but the |
| 1:27.4 | original group stays intact. |
| 1:30.3 | Rarer still is when that original group is actually strengthened by this side activity |
| 1:35.8 | and scores bigger hits of its own. |
| 1:39.1 | Rarest of all is when former members and current members of the group are competing head to head on the |
| 1:46.0 | billboard charts. Friends meet Genesis. |
| 1:50.0 | While they are now largely remembered as a synth-rock band of the 1980s, |
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