How did you get into Steve Hackett's music?

Got into him via the BBC broadcast of his Reading festival performance, which I taped, and still have. Strong stuff from Voyage through to Beyond, and Squackett, but, like you, his recent stuff is a disappointment, He seems trapped by the commercial success of Wolflight and GR2, I understand it, but it's a shame.

I started checking out Steve's stuff when I got into Genesis big-time around 1982, along with other members' solo works. At the time he had 5 albums out, but I started with VOYAGE. I thought it had a remarkably ugly cover but I liked it otherwise.

Favorite Steve albums include VOYAGE thru DEFECTOR, BAY OF KINGS, TILL WE HAVE FACES, MOMENTUM, GUITAR NOIR, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, DARKTOWN, TO WATCH THE STORMS, METAMORPHEUS, WILD ORCHIDS & OUT OF THE TUNNEL'S MOUTH. I'm only missing GENESIS REVISITED II and most of his endless list of live albums. I've also assembled a large (though incomplete) collection of studio oddities (reissue bonus tracks, Japan-only tracks, etc.) that weren't regular album tracks, and another collection of live miscellany (also including a number of reissue bonus tracks).

Some of his recent releases have tested my loyalty, but so far he hasn't managed to lose me totally.

Quote from foxfeeder

Got into him via the BBC broadcast of his Reading festival performance, which I taped, and still have. Strong stuff from Voyage through to Beyond, and Squackett, but, like you, his recent stuff is a disappointment, He seems trapped by the commercial success of Wolflight and GR2, I understand it, but it's a shame.

Same experience for me: hearing the August '81 Reading Festival performance which I think was maybe on the Radio 1 Friday Rock Show with Tommy Vance?

Just hearing Every Day ("a cross between Mantovani and Weather Report, bit of a mixture....") for the first time got me hooked.

I'm a huge fan of everything (rock, acoustic, classical) Steve has done up until the point that Roger King went berserk on the overproduction i.e. Wolflight onwards, in my view.

Would love for Steve to get back to a simpler and more melodic style.

When I got deep into Genesis in the late 70s, as with so much of my listening at that time it was through my older brother when he started listening to Hackett's work. I started with Spectral Mornings as it was the then current album, then went back to the first two which didn't click with me bar one or two tracks.

I won my copy of Defector in a competition in the music weekly paper Sounds, though they took ages sending it through. I'd already been to my first SH gig, a terrific show in which The Steppes made a huge impression on me, I still vividly recall the huge sound of the bass pedals making the walls and floor of Hammersmith Odeon shake.

That Spectral - Defector phase remains his high point for me. I like some of the stuff he's done since then but something about that 79/80 period stayed with me, probably as it was part of a special time in the development of my music interests, not to mention March to July 1980 being an exciting Genesis period for me - new albums by them, PG and SH, and my going to gigs by all of them in those few months.

Also, those and the following albums retained the varied textures and moods he was so good at back then. Whenever I hear his new stuff now, I feel that aspect of his work has been lost. It all sounds so clodhopping and thumpingly over-dramatic and overheated.

https://www.discogs.com/it/release/6735855-Steve-Hackett-Access-All-Areas

I only have this album and recommend it to anyone who wants to start!

Quote from Rising Sun

Same experience for me: hearing the August '81 Reading Festival performance which I think was maybe on the Radio 1 Friday Rock Show with Tommy Vance?

Just hearing Every Day ("a cross between Mantovani and Weather Report, bit of a mixture....") for the first time got me hooked.

I'm a huge fan of everything (rock, acoustic, classical) Steve has done up until the point that Roger King went berserk on the overproduction i.e. Wolflight onwards, in my view.

Would love for Steve to get back to a simpler and more melodic style.

Twas the earlier Reading gig (79) that hooked me, but it was also Tommy Vance that aired it. Twice!

It was a growing fanaticism for Genesis, learning about the band and a desire to get all their albums that naturally led me to want to check out some of the solo albums of the departed members.

Peter Gabriel only had two albums out at the time and Scratch was the first solo album I bought followed shortly by Car.

Then I moved on to Steve Hackett, learned that Phil and Mike played on Voyage and that was an added incentive to get that one first. I really enjoyed Voyage and then got the next two albums. I remember initially having mixed feelings about PDT but I really liked Spectral and thought it was the best of the three (still do).

It must have been 1980 at the time because not long afterwards I recall seeing Defector in the store for the first time and being intrigued by the title, wondering if it had anything to do with his 'defection' from Genesis.

Quote from Witchwood

It must have been 1980 at the time because not long afterwards I recall seeing Defector in the store for the first time and being intrigued by the title, wondering if it had anything to do with his 'defection' from Genesis.

That reminds me: I remember seeing a DEFECTOR poster in a record store when the album was new, at least a couple of years before I heard any music by Steve. This would have been around the time I first got interested in Genesis, and at the time I'm pretty sure I didn't yet know that Steve had been involved with them.

I was already into Genesis, saw him play with them at Earl's Court in 1977, and I'd heard 'Voyage of the Acolyte' a few times when I was at uni, as my flatmate would play it sometimes, but I didn't listen to it properly at the time.

What really made me take notice was seeing a live performance of 'Clocks' shown on the Old Grey Whistle Test, around the time 'Spectral Mornings' was released. Went out and bought the album soon after. It remains one of my top five favourite albums. Within a few months I'd also bought 'Voyage of the Acolyte' and 'Please Don't Touch', and saw him live at the Hammersmith Odeon on the 'Defector' tour. By that time I was growing increasingly disenchanted with what Genesis were doing and much more interested in Hackett and Gabriel.

Lost touch with Hackett for a bit in the 1980s, after 'Highly Strung' (distracted by small children), but saw 'Guitar Noir' whilst browsing CDs in an HMV store one day in 1993, and took a chance on it.

Since then, my late wife (who was also a fan) and I have seen him live on almost every tour, and bought all of the albums, but like others here, I've been disappointed by his most recent albums, although I felt that the few tracks from them that he has played live, came across much better on stage.

Steve was always one of my main interests when I discovered Genesis in the 80s (backwards....) and my first favorite album was "Please Don't Touch", probably due to Richie Havens' involvement. Then I lost interest a bit (mainly because I didn't really like Steve's output in the 80s), but when "Guitar Noir" was released I became a fan again.

Like most of you, I am not the biggest fan of his most recent output, but "The Night Siren" and "Surrender Of Silence" are okay (but not as strong as "Guitar Noir" or "Shrouded Horizon".

I really didn't dig into Steve's music when I became a Genesis fan, which was around 1989/1990. But then in 1993, during a class trip to Vienna, I saw Guitar Noir in a record store and bought it. Still one of my favorite Hackett albums. Back home, I wasn't sure which album to buy next, so I just picked two, which were Highly Strung and Please Don't Touch.

Took me a couple of more years until I finally saw him live (in Cologne during the To Watch The Storms Tour) and his manager took me backstage. it was a fine show and a great evening.

I always enjoy to see Steve live. I am not that enthusiastic about his recent albums, but on each of them are some tracks I really like. I also wish he did something new regarding his sound and arrangement. I just don't think this will happen ....

Mid 1980s and a friend gave me a cassette with some Genesis bootleg bits [cue my bootleg query thread, which it looks like I won't get an answer to here] plus Spectral Mornings on it. I really loved that track, it instantly made me think about W&W era Genesis (sorry Steve) so I picked up some other Hackett albums and singles from there.

To be honest I generally preferred his acoustic material, it kind of stops him from throwing 10,000 clashing ideas into a 6 minute assault on the senses, and I really enjoyed seeing him live on the Momentum tour.

His more recent stuff doesn't work for me. Now it's 20,000 clashing ideas thrown into 5 minutes with an odd vocal on top. Arrangement is not his forte. For me there was a lot to like up to Defector, there is still a lot to like on the acoustic / classical side (I really enjoyed Under a Mediterranean Sky) but I always felt his talent was in creating atmosphere (Spectral Mornings being a great example) and I wish there was more of that than "look how totally unique and clever I am."

It was when I started looking on progarchives for Genesis members' solo releases, the player had Star of Sirius as the only track which was a good start as it sounds a lot like classic Genesis. Then I found Voyage of the Acolyte and Spectral Mornings in a second-hand vinyl store, got them and loved them right away.

A school mate got me into Genesis in 1978/9, not long after he saw them at Knebworth. In 1979/80 we saw Genesis, Gabriel and Hackett on their tours and I was hooked for life. Bought Spectral Mornings which was his current album and loved it, picked up cassettes if Voyage and Please Don’t Touch. Then Defector and then Cured - a disappointment. I saw the next couple of tours and then lost touch with him a bit, (went to uni and listened to a lot of punk and new wave and then got stuck into work and brining up children so no money or time for much music…)apart from acoustic and classical albums until his live tours around 2009, when I picked up again with my teenage son and we’ve been to every tour since. Met him three times and he is a gentleman and always very encouraging to my son and his guitar playing. I’ve kept up with all new releases and filled in just about all the gaps now. Those early days of discovery of my own music tastes are still exciting to look back on and those early albums, plus everything Genesis and Gabriel did up to that point and most they did afterwards stilL form the core of my listening.

Steve's solo stuff is still on my Genesis "bucket list". I own a couple of his albums and follow what he does, I saw him live a couple of times but I wouldn't say I am a fan or know his stuff. Especially some of his later stuff is something I need to discover (post "Cured").

Based on what you have posted, "Guitar Noir" plus some of the albums that came later might be a good start ...

I did not get into Steve's music until I joined this forum. To date I only have the albums from The Night Siren onwards but I have heard some live versions of earlier tracks, plus we have The Unauthorised Biography which amounts to a greatest hits. I tend to think it's too late to go back & buy all the older albums.

Quote from FeelItComing

I tend to think it's too late to go back & buy all the older albums.

Never too late for that; you should definitely get his first 4 albums as number one priority. You won't regret it.