INVISIBLE TOUCH

1980s Genesis really needs to be marked on a different scale from the 1970s group. Whilst up to Duke they were still largely in the prog realm, from Abacab onwards they were very much on a pop kick, with Tony Banks' synthesisers switching from being delivery mechanisms for carefully composed classically-influenced solos to becoming devices for offering a certain art pop texture to things.

Yes, Invisible Touch is undoubtedly a pop album - and a very successful one in pop terms, given the crop of hit singles it spawned. But let's not pretend that it's simplistic, vacuous bubblegum pop. Here, the band have hit a careful balance between the deployment of killer hooks on the one hand with adding their own personal twist to proceedings on the other. Let's face it: an 80s pop group who only cared about hit singles would have never produced something like The Brazilian or Domino, extended art pop pieces which, whilst they don't go full prog, are just a bit too eccentric to be full pop either.

Out of all the prog bands who went pop in the 1980s, I think Genesis might have pulled it off the most successfully, in part because they didn't fall into the trap of abandoning their personality entirely - they're still the quirky bunch you remember from the 1970s, it's just that this time they're hanging out at a Miami Vice-themed cocktail bar. If that sounds like an utter nightmare to you, you're hardly alone, but if that sounds like the sort of thing which would be a lot of fun when you're in the right mood, then you might find the same is true of Invisible Touch.