Invisible Touch

In February 1984, the band completed their 1983–1984 tour in support of their previous album Genesis (1983), which became their biggest selling album at the time of release and spawned the UK top five hit "Mama". The group followed this with a period of inactivity to allow each member to continue their respective solo careers; Mike Rutherford formed his group Mike + The Mechanics and had success with their debut album, Tony Banks concentrated on film scores and released Soundtracks (1986), and Phil Collins released his third solo album No Jacket Required (1985), which was a major worldwide commercial hit. In the summer of 1985, towards the end of his solo tour, Collins confirmed that Genesis had agreed to start work on a new album that October. This put an end to a false announcement that aired on BBC Radio 1 suggesting the three had split. Rutherford felt that the break affected the group's musical style: "We had done so much work outside the band, it seemed we had gone through a lot more musical changes, although the development is largely unconscious." ==Writing and recording==

Invisible Touch was recorded between October 1985 and February 1986 at The Farm, the band's private recording studio in Chiddingfold, Surrey. Earlier in 1985, the studio was upgraded to a plan supervised by Masami "Sam" Toyishima. The group approached the writing sessions for Invisible Touch with a greater sense of confidence, as they had now become a big live act in the US and had reached a new level of commercial success worldwide. As with Genesis, they entered the studio with no preconceived ideas and developed songs from recorded jams and improvisations, Collins also used a Roland Pad-8, an electronic pad that triggers percussion sounds from the MIDI instruments used on the album, including a Roland TR-707 drum machine with Latin-inspired samples and Collins' own E-mu Emulator. After several jams had been put down on tape, the band listened back to them and picked out the strongest moments with the aim of arranging them into a song. A drum machine was used to create a guiding rhythm, before the guitar and keyboard parts were fully arranged and re-recorded before Collins would replace the drum machine with his own drums last. The band discussed a song's potential length, and whether to write lyrics for it or keep it as an instrumental. Collins wrote the words for "Invisible Touch", "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight", and "In Too Deep"; Rutherford wrote for "Land of Confusion" and "Throwing It All Away"; Rutherford noted that Genesis had a dark mood to it, yet Invisible Touch had a bigger energy. During the writing sessions Collins realised the band were coming up with fresh and unique material that it had not done before, "which is not easy after 15 albums", and considered them stronger than those on Genesis. Banks maintained this view, thinking the shorter tracks on Invisible Touch were stronger than the previous album. ==Songs==

Side one "Invisible Touch" originated as the band were working on "The Last Domino", the second part of "Domino". During the session Rutherford began to play an improvised guitar riff with an added echo effect, to which Collins replied with the off-the-cuff lyric, "She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah". This led to Collins writing the lyrics to the song, with his improvised line becoming its chorus hook. He wrote the lyrics based around a person who gets under one's skin which he had "Known a few. You know they’re going to mess you up, but you can't resist". Collins later said that "large chunks" of the lyrics are about his first wife Andrea Bertorelli, to whom he was married from 1975 to 1980. The group wanted to keep the song simple in structure, but thought an eight-bar bridge with a key change and using a sequenced keyboard part complemented the arrangement. Banks produced eight different versions in step time, some ideas for which he had thought of ahead of time while others were a rough improvisation. The chosen version was the "most random" one. As the band performed "Invisible Touch" in a lower key on tour, Banks had to produce a new sequenced section which was "a real drag" as he was unable to make one as strong as the one on the album. Collins recalled it was put together when the group were "fooling around" in the studio, and he had been experimenting with sounds that could be programmed into his Simmons kit. Additional material Three additional songs - "Do the Neurotic," "Feeding The Fire," and "I'd Rather Be You" - were recorded during the album's sessions but were cut from the album's final track selection. They were subsequently released as B-sides across the five singles released from the album. The tracks were included in the 2007 box set Genesis 1983–1998 as well as the 2000 box set Genesis Archive 2: 1976–1992. ==Artwork==

The cover art was designed by 26-year-old David Baker (known as "Baker Dave") of Assorted iMaGes, who had previously designed the sleeve for No Jacket Required and several of Collins's singles. The band had no music prepared and no title at the time of the first briefing, but wanted a design that combined the personality of each member and the outer sleeve to not contain a group photograph. Baker produced several rough designs and presented them to the band for feedback, by which point some music had been put down and the album's title had been agreed upon. Baker took the themes suggested by the title and produced fifteen ideas, one of which was a graphical representation of how the inner ear takes in sound. Another was the image of a transparent hand which all three members liked, and Baker used that with a schematic design of a sound wave pattern with an image of a nuclear family in the background. ==Release==

Invisible Touch was first released on 6 June 1986 in the US by Atlantic Records; its release in the United Kingdom followed on 9 June 1986 by Charisma and Virgin Records. The album reached number one on the UK Albums Chart for three weeks from 21 June 1986 during a 96-week stay on the chart, and peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200 during an 85-week stay. Genesis released five singles from Invisible Touch from 1986 to 1987: "Invisible Touch", "Throwing It All Away", "Land of Confusion", "In Too Deep" and "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight". All five reached the top five on the US Billboard Hot 100, making Genesis the first group and the first non-American act to achieve this feat. The band equalled the record of five top-five singles from the same album set by Michael Jackson, and later matched by Janet Jackson and Madonna. In 1987, Genesis received an American Music Award nomination for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group. At the Brit Awards in 1987 co-producer Hugh Padgham was nominated for British Producer, while Collins was nominated for British Male Artist for his contribution to the album. In 1988, the band received one of the only two Grammy Awards issued for the short-lived Best Concept Music Video category for "Land of Confusion". It was also nominated for MTV's Video of the Year Award, but lost to their former lead vocalist Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer". "The Brazilian" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, but lost to the instrumental rock piece "Top Gun Anthem" by Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens. In 2007, the album was reissued with a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix. ==Critical reception==

The album received a mixed reaction from music critics upon release. J. D. Considine gave it a positive review for Rolling Stone, stating that "every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook. Much of the credit for this belongs to Tony Banks, whose synth style has never seemed more appropriate; it's his keyboards that set the mood for 'In the Glow of the Night' and maintain the tension in 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight'." Daniel Brogan of the Chicago Tribune was not as impressed, saying the album had "none of the inventiveness, illumination or power" of former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel's album So, released the prior month. He thought the contributions from Rutherford and Banks "seem far less apparent than usual", and that the first side of the album "could almost pass as outtakes from No Jacket Required". He concluded: "Will the Free World ever tire of Phil Collins?" Several of Brogan's criticisms were mirrored in a review from Steve Hochman of the Los Angeles Times. Hochman asked "Was this record really necessary?" and stated the album "could easily pass as a Collins album. His thin voice and familiar MOR&B songwriting dominate, with only occasional evidence of input from Rutherford and Banks". He also suggested the record "was made to provide material for the next season of Miami Vice". Associated Press writer Larry Kilman disagreed, who opened his review with "Genesis have come up with an irresistible Invisible Touch ... This is far from a Collins solo effort. The band's material is more complex than Collins' pop sound". He complimented the album's "great variety", picking out "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" as a highlight which reminded him of "the spare, art-rock sound of the early Genesis". In a retrospective review from Stephen Thomas Erlewine for AllMusic, the album received three stars out of five. He commented that "Invisible Touch was seen at the time as a bit of a Phil Collins solo album disguised as a Genesis album ... Genesis' poppiest album, a sleek, streamlined affair built on electronic percussion and dressed in synths" and he said "the heavy emphasis on pop tunes does serve the singer, not the band". He said that "[the] songs had big hooks that excused their coldness, and the arty moments sank to the bottom". In 2014, Stevie Chick, writing for The Guardian, said the album's "bright, polished pop title track, the baby boomer agit-rock of 'Land of Confusion', the genuinely affecting ballad 'Throwing It All Away' – could have easily fitted on his [Collins's] solo albums". Chick reserved particular praise for "Domino", saying the track "proved a final gasp of brilliance before the blandness of 1991's ''We Can't Dance'' and 1997's inexplicable, Collins-less Calling All Stations". Ultimate Classic Rock ranked Invisible Touch as the 13th best album by Genesis, stating "On the dark day in Genesis history when this record was released, the band fully transitioned from art-rock glory to radio-ready piffle, replete with all the worst that '80s overproduction had to offer. The fact that just the tiniest bit of the 'old' Genesis is discernible in a couple of tracks is the only thing that edges this album a notch ahead of ''We Can't Dance''." ==Tour==

The Invisible Touch Tour consisted of 112 shows between September 1986 and July 1987. The core trio were joined by their longtime touring musicians, drummer Chester Thompson and guitarist/bassist Daryl Stuermer. Every song on Invisible Touch was performed live during the tour, except for "Anything She Does" which was used during the show's introduction. The 1986 dates included a Genesis medley that included the final two sections of "Supper's Ready" from Foxtrot (1972). The stage production included 400 Vari-Lites which required five lorries to transport. The tour opened with a sold out North American leg which included five nights at Madison Square Garden and also five at the Los Angeles Forum. Each date on the leg grossed an average of $300,000. The US legs were sponsored by Michelob beer. It was followed by the band's first and only tour of Australia and New Zealand; the former dates saw Genesis perform "Your Own Special Way" from Wind & Wuthering (1976) with a string section. A Chinese leg was announced, but later cancelled. The tour ended with four sold out shows at London's Wembley Stadium, totalling 288,000 people in attendance, which set a new record. The final show was a benefit in aid of The Prince's Trust and attended by Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales, a fan of the group. Recordings from the tour were released on the live albums The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts (1992) and Genesis Archive #2: 1976–1992 (2000). The Wembley shows were filmed and released on home video in 1988 entitled Invisible Touch Tour. In 2003, it was reissued on DVD and renamed Genesis Live at Wembley Stadium. ==Track listing==

All music written and arranged by Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford. == Personnel ==

Credits are adapted from the album's sleeve notes. Genesis • Tony Banks – keyboards, synth bass • Phil Collins – drums, percussion, vocals • Mike Rutherford – guitars, bass Production • Genesis – producers • Hugh Padgham – producer, engineer • Paul Gomersall – assistant engineer • Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York, USA) • Geoff Callingham – technical assistant • Assorted Images – CD artwork production • Baker Dave – CD artwork production • John Swannell – photography ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications==

Notes Citations Sources • • • • • ==External links==