My introduction into Genesis in the mid-to-late 1970s came from a combination of my older brother listening to them (on the recommendations of some of his schoolmates), and hearing them being played on a show called Your Mother Wouldn't Like It, with Nicky Horne on London Capital Radio. It's all a bit vague but I can remember the two bits of music that hooked me in: the closing section of The Musical Box, and Carpet Crawlers. Those planted a seed in my mind that very gradually grew over the next 2-3 years. I vaguely remember Trick and W&W being released and liking them, and listening to the Spot The Pigeon EP a lot. I must have incrementally become enough of a fan to be shocked when reading the article in one of the music papers (probably Sounds) "Genesis Down To Trio As Hackett Quits" and wonder what they were going to do.
At school, people were generally rock fans, soul boys, 'rude boys' or punks. I wasn't much interested in soul or ska, but was a rock fan who also got into punk and new wave. The other Genesis fans and rock fraternity members were dismayed at my new-wave leanings, while the punks and new wavers (who, come to think of it, were essentially just Peter Kelly) sneered at my rock fandom (though Kelly admitted he liked Squonk). My musical aberrations were tolerated, some say pitied, by each camp.
Even within the rock clique, my rock tastes raised eyebrows as I was the only Genesis fan who liked Abacab and didn't mind Rush's new direction post-Hemispheres. These were the kinds of guys who complained that such bands were no longer doing songs longer than about 5 or 6 minutes.
While they went off moaning about Genesis doing poppy stuff and having chart hits and other such unthinkable horrors, I managed to find something to like about each album as they came out. Post-Invisible Touch and seeing them on that tour, I sort of lost interest. I was very unengaged when WCD was released and toured. I hadn't gone off them as such, just became kind of disconnected from them. I taped the Knebworth 1992 gig off the radio and enjoyed it, though raised an eyebrow over just how squeezed the early stuff had now become - even Los Endos had bitten the dust.
I didn't listen to Genesis for probably about 12 years but my interest was rekindled by getting Archive 1 as a birthday gift. But it was still a very gradual climb back up to anything like regularly listening to them. I went to the UK shows on the 07 tour and from then I've been fairly regularly listening to them again. I hardly ever listen to whole albums though; mainly my compilation discs, individual tracks, live and archive stuff on Youtube, but occasionally the whole of The Lamb or Abacab.