The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The final Genesis album with original front man Peter Gabriel, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is widely considered to be the band’s magnum opus.

The album was written in a unique way compared to the other Genesis works. In the other Genesis albums, the music and lyrics were often a group effort, with at least two or three members of the group taking writing credit for any given song. On this album, however, the band was split: Banks, Hackett, Rutherford, and Collins created the melodies in extensive jam sessions, then Peter Gabriel would write lyrics to fit.

At this time, Gabriel was going through intense personal and creative crises, which would eventually end up with him leaving the band and embarking on his solo career. The tensions in his marriage, in the band, and within himself were expressed as allegories in the album’s lyrics, which tell an intricate story about a disillusioned youth named Rael who is sucked into a strange Undertale-esque subterranean world full of strange creatures, and after going through many trials and tribulations attempting to escape, his body and soul are stripped away layer by layer until only his true, pure essence remains, at which point he becomes one with everything.