Writers: Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford
Producers: Genesis and Hugh Padgham
Recorded: Summer 1985 through early 1986 at The Farm in Surrey, England
Released: March 1986
| Players: | Phil Collins — vocals, drums Tony Banks — keyboards Mike Rutherford — guitar, bass |
| Album: | Invisible Touch (Atlantic, 1986) |
“Invisible Touch” was Genesis' first Number One hit on the Billboard Hot 100, spending one week at the top of that chart. It was also Number One for three weeks on the Airplay charts and spent another three weeks as Billboard's Number One Album Rock hit.
In the U.K., “Invisible Touch” reached Number 15 on the singles chart.
Describing the song's genesis, singer-drummer Phil Collins said, “We were working on another song, and Mike (Rutherford) started playing that guitar riff… As soon as he started playing that, I started singing, 'She seems to have an invisible touch.' At that moment, we just knew we had a great hook, and then we just sort of wrote a song around it.”
Keyboardist Tony Banks recalled that the other song “Invisible Touch” came out of was “The Last Domino,” another track on the Invisible Touchalbum. “We started playing this riff which… seemed to be good on its own and had a different character from what we were going for on the rest of it… At one point (we were) thinking of incorporating the two, but I'm glad we didn't because 'Invisible Touch' makes a nice, concise piece.”
Although Genesis had several hit singles before “Invisible Touch,” Banks noted that there was a marked difference in having a hit of that magnitude. “That was the advantage of a hit like 'Invisible Touch' — it attracted more people to hear all of our music. Every week hundreds of albums come out, and you can't expect people to listen to all of them. But we felt very strongly about this album, and everything from the cover art to the designs was bold and striking. We were confident we had done something really good.”
The Invisible Touch album peaked at Number Three on the Billboard 200 and sold more than five million copies.
The album debuted at Number One on the British chart.