Foxtrot

Foxtrot is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Genesis and the second from the “classic” lineup of Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Steve Hackett.

The album was recorded and released in 1972 as the band’s career quickly gained momentum. Foxtrot was also Genesis’ first album to enter the UK charts, reaching # 12 and paving the way for a long and successful chart career for the band. Still, it failed to reach the US charts. It was not the first Genesis album to appear in the charts: Nursery Cryme reached #7 in Italy, making Foxtrot the second album to place in the charts.

Both Watcher Of The Skies, which is based on Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, and Supper’s Ready rank among some of the band’s most beloved works, and became live favourites.

Can-Utility And The Coastliners is based on the legend of King Canute, who supposedly ordered the seas to retreat to mock the sycophancy of his followers. An early, longer version of the song found it’s way into pre-album live sets; known as “Bye Bye Johnny”, it featured an extended instrumental section in which the haunting Mellotron string sound dominated. Sadly for some, this particular version never made it to the recording stage.

Horizons starts with the central idea of Bach’s Prelude of the first Cello Suite and then develops its own piece, baroque style. The song accomplishes the function of a prelude.

The title of the album may be a nod to the Mellotron Mark II used by Tony Banks at the time, which included foxtrot as one of the preset rhythms in its tapeset. The ‘fox on the rocks’ (a phrase itself reminiscent of the works of Dr.