Genesis Foxtrot released

Foxtrot Genesis

Released: September 15, 1972 Peak: -- US, 12 UK, -- CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.2 UK, 2.0 world (includes US + UK), 5.24 EAS Genre: progressive rock

Tracks: Watcher of the Skies [7:24] Time Table [4:47] Get ‘Em Out by Friday [8:38] Can-Utility and the Coastliners [5:48] Horizons [1:42] Supper’s Ready [22:54] (6 CL) a. Lover’s Leap b. The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man c. Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men d. How Dare I Be So Beautiful? e. Willow Farm f. Apocalypse in 9/8 g. As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men’s Feet) Total Running Time: 51:13 Other Songs from This Era: Happy the Man (5/12/72, 31 DF) The Players: Peter Gabriel (vocals, various instruments) Steve Hackett (guitar) Mike Rutherford (bass, guitar, backing vocals) Tony Banks (keyboards, backing vocals) Phil Collins (drums, percussion, backing vocals)

Rating: 4.548 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album Peter Gabriel’s theatrical attributes fit well with the group’s live performances. He began extensively using “masks, makeup, and props in concert…[which] turned Genesis’ performances into multimedia events…Word soon began to spread about Genesis being an act that was worth hearing and, even more so, worth seeing in concert.” BE “Foxtrot, issued in the fall of 1972, was the flash point in Genesis’ history, and not just on commercial terms. The writing, especially on Supper’s Ready – another conceptual piece, this time taking up an entire side of the LP – was as sophisticated as anything in progressive rock, and the lyrics were complex, serious, and clever, a far cry from the usual overblown words attached to most prog rock.” BE Foxtrot was Genesis’s milestone at the time.” JP This “is where Genesis began to pull all of its varied inspirations into a cohesive sound – which doesn’t necessarily mean that the album is streamlined, for this is a group that always was grandiose even when they were cohesive, or even when they rocked, which they truly do for the first time here.” AM “Indeed, the startling thing about the opening Watcher of the Skies is that it’s the first time that Genesis attacked like a rock band, playing with a visceral power. There’s might and majesty here, and it, along with Get ‘Em Out by Friday, is the truest sign that Genesis has grown muscle without abandoning the whimsy.” AM Still, to some, “what sounded wildly innovative 35 years ago now seems endearingly goofy and all too overblown.” JP Unquestionably, “the bombast runs thick on this album, nearly half of which is devoted to the music-hall apocalypse of” JP “the epic 22-minute closer Supper’s Ready, a nearly side-long suite that remains one of the group’s signature moments. It ebbs, flows, teases and taunts, see-sawing between coiled instrumental attacks and delicate pastoral fairy tales.” AM “They’ve rarely sounded as fantastical or odd.” AM “If Peter Gabriel remained a rather inscrutable lyricist, his gift for imagery is abundantly, as there are passages throughout the album that are hauntingly evocative in their precious prose. But what impresses most about Foxtrot is how that precociousness is delivered with pure musical force. This is the rare art-rock album that excels at both the art and the rock, and it’s a pinnacle of the genre (and decade) because of it.” AM Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine JP Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07). Pages 118-9. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/3/2010; last updated 9/14/2025.

 

Yes Close to the Edge released

Close to the Edge Yes

Released: September 13, 1972 Peak: 3 US, 4 UK, 7 CN, 21 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.3 UK, 1.3 world (includes US and UK) Genre: progressive rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Close to the Edge [18:40] a. The Solid Time of Change b. Total Mass Retain c. I Get Up, I Get Down d. Seasons of Man And You and I [10:09] a. Cord of Life b. Eclipse c. The Preacher, the Teacher d. Apocalypse Siberian Khatru [8:55] Total Running Time: 37:56 Other Songs from This Era: America [10:30, 4:04 single edit] The Players: Jon Anderson (vocals) Steve Howe (guitar, backing vocals) Chris Squire (bass, backing vocals) Rick Wakeman (keyboards) Bill Bruford (drums, percussion)

Rating: 3.696 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings) Quotable: “A flawless masterpiece” – Dave Thompson, AllMusic.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: In 1972, Yes were coming off the one-two punch of The Yes Album and Fragile, albums which gave the band its most long-lasting album-rock classics with songs like “Roundabout” and “I’ve Seen All Good People.” The band were now “quivering on the brink of what friend and foe acknowledged was the peak of the band’s achievement.” WK The band responded with the definitive progressive rock album, Close to the Edge. It wasn’t an easy album to make. Drummer Bill Bruford, who considered the writing and recording of the album to be torturous, came up with the album title as a reflection of the band’s state at the time. WK He “was already shifting restlessly against Jon Anderson’s increasingly mystic/ mystifying lyricism, while contemporary reports of the recording sessions depicted bandmate Rick Wakeman, too, as little more than an observer to the vast tapestry that Anderson, Steve Howe, and Chris Squire were creating.” AM Bruford left the band after the album, joining King Crimson. The results, however, “represented the musical, lyrical, and sonic culmination of all that Yes had worked toward over the past five years.” AM The album was a top-5 hit in the US and UK and “dispatch[ed] Yes on the longest tour of its career so far and, if hindsight be the guide, launch[ed] the band on a downward swing that only disintegration, rebuilding, and a savage change of direction would cure. The latter, however, was still to come. In 1972, Close to the Edge was a flawless masterpiece.” AM Reissue The 2003 Rhino reissue adds the single version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “America,” the single edit of “Total Mass Retain,” an alternate version of “And You and I,” and an alternate version of “Siberian Khatru” known as “Siberia.” The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

America Yes

Writer(s): Paul Simon Released: single (6/7/1972), Yes Years (box set, 1991), In a Word (box set, 2002), Ultimate Yes: The 35th Anniversary Collection (U.S. version, 2003), Yes Singles (compilation, 2023) B-side: Total Mass Retain Peak: 46 BB, 44 CB, 38 HR, 16 CL, 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.61 streaming About the Song: In between the Fragile and Close to the Edge albums, Yes released a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” as a single.

Close to the Edge Yes

Writer(s): Jon Anderson, Steve Howe Released: “Total Mass Retain” as a B-side of “America,” (6/7/1972), Close to the Edge (1972), Classic Yes (compilation, 1981), In a Word (box set, 2002) Peak: 10 CL, 15 DF (“Total Mass Retain”) Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 9.31 streaming About the Song: This eighteen-minute-plus title cut is broken into four parts: (a) “The Solid Time of Change,” (b) “Total Mass Retain, (c) “I Get Up, I Get Down,” (d) “Seasons of Man.” Anderson was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, German novelist Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, and Jean Sibelius’ sixth and seventh symphonies. Howe had composed a song called “Close to the Edge” a few years earlier about the longest day of the year and he and Anderson joined their ideas. An excerpt of the song, “Total Mass Retain,” was released as the B-side to the band’s cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “America.”

And You and I Yes

Writer(s): Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Chris Squire, Steve Howe Released: single (10/28/1972), Close to the Edge (1972), Classic Yes (compilation, 1981), Yes Story (compilation, 1992), Ultimate Yes: The 35th Anniversary Collection (U.S. version, 2003), Ultimate Yes: The 35th Anniversary Collection (compilation, UK version, 2003), Yes Singles (compilation, 2023) Peak: 42 BB, 32 CB, 32 HR, 9 CR, 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 9.01 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The full ten-minute version was presented in four parts: (a) “Cord of Life,” (b) “Eclipse,” (c) “The Preacher, the Teacher,” and (d) “Apocalypse.” The song was originally a more folk-oriented song. When they tested it on tour, Jon Anderson gave it the working title of “The Protest Song.” Anderson later considered the song similar to a hymn. An edited version of the song was released as a single, just missing out on the top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. “Typically, Yes songs are so open to interpretation that they could be about anything. This blending of sundry Christian and eastern creation myths, however, remains one of the band’s most powerfully focused.” DT

Siberian Khatru Yes

Writer(s): Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman Released: Close to the Edge (1972), In a Word (box set, 2002), Ultimate Yes: The 35th Anniversary Collection (U.S. version, 2003), Ultimate Yes: The 35th Anniversary Collection (compilation, UK version, 2003) Peak: 17 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.57 streaming About the Song: Siberian Khatru grew out of an idea Anderson initiated on an acoustic guitar. Lyrically, he described the song as a collection of “interesting words, though it does relate to the dreams of clear summer days.” WK Anderson claimed “khatru” translated to “as you wish” in the Yemeni dialect of Arabic, but he had no idea what it meant at the time until asking someone to look up its meaning. WK

Resources and Related Links: AM AllMusic.com review by Dave Thompson DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 31. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/25/2008; last updated 9/21/2025.