Released on 6 June 1986 "Invisible Touch" was the 13th., studio album by the English rock band Genesis, the band reconvened in October 1985 to write and record Invisible Touch with engineer and producer Hugh Padgham.
As with their previous album, it was written entirely through group
improvisations and no material developed prior to recording was used. Invisible Touch was a worldwide success and reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 3 on the US Billboard 200.
It remains the band's highest selling album after it was certified
multi-platinum for over 1.2 million copies sold in the UK and 6 million
sold in the US.
Genesis became the first band and foreign act to have
five singles from one album reach the top five on the US Billboard Hot 100, with "Invisible Touch"
being their first and only song to reach No. 1 on the charts, others singles released were "Throwing It All Away", "In Too Deep", "Land Of Confusion" & "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight."
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."
Invisible Touch was recorded between October 1985 and February 1986 at The Farm, the band's private recording studio in Chiddingfold, Surrey. They were joined by engineer and producer Hugh Padgham, who had worked with the band since Abacab (1981) and produced the album with the group, with Paul Gommersall as assistant engineer.
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, a process Collins compared to as "close to jazz". The group considered their strongest songs were those arranged in this way, so they repeated this approach for Invisible Touch.
The album features Collins playing on a Simmons electronic drum
kit. In order to capture more of a sound from the Simmons kit rather
than feeding it directly into the mixing desk, Padgham also fed the
tracks through a mixer and into a PA system before playing it "very,
very loud" in the studio. Padgham later said that the Simmons sounded "a
bit thin and toneless." 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.
The lyrics to a track were written after the music was recorded, and
were penned by a single member as the group considered the individual
had a strong enough direction to carry the song's message through. 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"; Banks wrote "Domino" and "Anything She Does".
The group arranged a greater number of songs for Invisible Touch than before, which required additional time to select which tracks to release. This was not the case with Genesis, where strong enough ideas were more scarce; Banks said that "if a song was around, we put it on"
The album opened with the smash "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. 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. The basis for "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"
came about from Banks, who spent some time improvising with different
keyboard sounds over a rhythm Collins and Rutherford were playing. Similar to that of "Invisible Touch", Collins then came out with the
word "monkey" and explored it vocally which led to the song's working title to be "Monkey/Zulu". The rest of the lyrics were then written around the word.
The lyrics to "Land of Confusion"
were written by Rutherford, and they were the last set of words written
for the album. Rutherford was behind schedule to get the lyrics to the
song finished, but thought the "time was right" for him to write a protest song. The lyrics to "In Too Deep" were written by Collins after he was approached to write a song for the soundtrack of the British crime drama film Mona Lisa (1986). He wrote the chorus during some spare time at a hotel in Sydney,
Australia, but he was unable to write verses for it until the band were
recording the song in the studio. They had difficulty in writing a
chorus, so Collins suggested the part that he had written.
Banks gained inspiration for "Anything She Does" from pictures of scantily clad women the band would cut out and place on the wall of their recording studio. It features a brass sound that Banks sampled from "some tape" that he had; he clarified that the brass was not from the Phenix Horns, the brass section for Earth, Wind and Fire that were previously used on Abacab. "Domino"
is a track split into two sections—"In the Glow of the Night" and "The
Last Domino". Banks wrote the lyrics based on the idea that politicians
often fail to think through their ideas and the consequences of their
actions. Rutherford thinks "Domino" is "one of the best things" the band has done. He was aware that due to the popularity of MTV
and the increased pressure to deliver hit singles, people would often
forget about their longer songs like "Domino" in favor of the shorter,
more commercial hits.
"Throwing It All Away" developed from a guitar riff from Rutherford, who also wrote the lyrics. Collins described it as like a "one-note samba". It was a heavy guitar song in its original form, with Collins "drumming in a John Bonham style". As the chorus developed, its mood changed to that of a softer one "matched by the single love-song lyric". "The Brazilian"
is an instrumental based around a sample that Banks had recorded on his
E-mu Emulator playing throughout the track, which he achieved by
sticking a knife onto the keyboard. He realised he could have done it
electronically, but the knife "looks better that way."
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 album received a mixed reaction from music critics upon release by 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'. Others were not enthusiast 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". Althought things have changed in the years to come, originally the album has perceived 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".
Invisible Touch Track List:
1. Invisible Touch
2. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
3. Land Of Confusion
4. In Too Deep
5. Anything She Does
6. Domino: In The Glow Of The Night
The Last Domino
7. Throwing It All Away
8. The Brazilian
