Music / From Genesis to Revelation

"And I think I've found a place to call my own."

"Revelation is the giving of knowledge to man. Genesis is the source of new knowledge."

—Tagline from the album's advertising campaign.

From Genesis to Revelation is the debut album of the rock band Genesis, released on 7 March 1969 by Decca Records.

Vocalist Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks and drummer Chris Stewart, then pupils of Charterhouse School in Surrey, were members of the band Garden Wall before reforming as Genesis alongside other classmates guitarist Anthony Philips and bassist Mike Rutherford (both formerly of the band Anon) in 1967. The demos the band released had caught the attention of Decca producer and Charterhouse alumnus Jonathan King, who paid the band forty pounds to release four songs in the late 1967 sessions. He was impressed enough with the arrangements submitted that he signed the band to a one-year deal.^note it was to be five, but seeing as the band members were still teenagers at the time, their parents talked him into reducing their deals out of concern

Genesis then had two recording sessions in December 1967 and August 1968. In the former, after releasing "Silent Sun", Stewart left the band to pursue his studies, so they replaced him with another Charterhouse pupil John Silver, with which they performed the rest of the tracks in the latter session. The band also discovered at the time that an American band went by Genesis, so they made their American name "Revelation" to give meaning to the title "From Genesis to Revelation". Upon release, the album sold poorly, not helped with record stores at the time placing those albums in the religious music sections. The band disbanded shortly afterward, before reconvening months later as a professional band with new drummer John Mayhew as they recorded Trespass.

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Tracklist:

Side One

1. "Where the Sour Turns to Sweet" (3:14)
2. "In the Beginning" (3:42)
3. "Fireside Song" (4:16)
4. "The Serpent" (4:36)
5. "Am I Very Wrong?" (3:28)
6. "In the Wilderness" (3:21)

Side Two

1. "The Conquerer" (3:44)
2. "In Hiding" (2:56)
3. "One Day" (3:16)
4. "Window" (3:53)
5. "In Limbo" (4:15)
6. "Silent Sun" (2:08)
7. "A Place to Call My Own" (1:57)

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Principal Members:

• Tony Banks – keyboards, backing vocals
• Peter Gabriel – lead vocals, flute
• Anthony Phillips - guitars, backing vocals
• Mike Rutherford – bass, guitars, backing vocals
• John Silver - drums (except "Silent Sun", with original drummer Chris Stewart)

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We're waiting for you, come and trope us now:

• Alternate Album Cover: The album has been reissued countless times over the years thanks to Jonathan King's attempts at capitalizing on spikes in the band's fame. Accordingly, these countless reissues were also given countless different album covers, which are too voluminous to list in full. Among these are In the Beginning, the first version of which depicted an orange snake coiled around the Earth, And the Word Was..., which depicts a photo of the band atop a blue marble backdrop, and a reissue under the original name by Varèse Sarabande in 2008 that depicts a photo of the band atop a solid black background.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Not only was this the only pre-We Can't Dance album not released under the Charisma Records label^note it went defunct in 1986, this is also a vastly different sound from what will become the Genesis we know of.
• Minimalistic Cover Art: Just a black background with the title on the upper left hand corner and record label on the upper right. Some subsequent reissues include the band's name in Gothic print at the center.

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