How in the world did Genesis produce not just two superstar solo acts (including the drummer!) but become an arena filling act in its own right?

The importance (and ubiquity) of the "Sledgehammer" video cannot be overstated.

Prior to that, Phil had seen some top 40 success via his cover of You Can't Hurry Love from Hello I Must Be Going and several Genesis hits (That's All was a huge hit, and Illegal Alien was pretty big, too.)

I think the stage for Phil's super-stardom (which came with No Jacket Required) was set up by the one-two punch of MV's airing of "In The Air Tonight" and the "Against All Odds" theme.

It was during the great disenfranchisement of Crimson fans who didn't care for New Wave Bob's mucking about with Bowie, Blondie, League Of Gentlemen, and (worst of all) Daryl Hall when he really should have been assembling a new Crimson to address Unfinished Business. "Games Without Frontiers" was a weird-enough sounding single to get them to dig the album.

Anyway, I know "Miami Vice" made great use of "In the Air Tonight," but there's no way that song/album, plus its follow up, remained under the radar for three years, esp. with Genesis racking up hits. So was "In the Air Tonight" a steady but minor cult thing until "Vice?" Can't be. Not buying.

This is one of my main questions re: the thread: how is it that Phil's best-known solo hit didn't become a hit (allegedly) until four years (and two albums, and two successful Genesis albums) after it was released? Where did that hunk of pop history go? Who can help me sort this mysterious timeline? When was Phil a huge, capital 's" Star? Circa "Miami Vice?" Before that? Only after that?

http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/cont/awards/awards80.html

Best Single Another Brick In Wall, (part II), Pink Floyd
Best Album The Wall, Pink Floyd
Band Of The Year Genesis
Best Female Singer Kate Bush
Best Male Singer Peter Gabriel
Brightest Hope Saxon
Disco Single Upside Down, Diana Ross
Reggae Act Bob Marley and the Wailers
Guitar Ritchie Blackmore
Bass Mike Rutherford
Drums Phil Collins
Live Act Genesis
TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test

Outside the Miami Vice connection with "In the Air Tonight", Phil Collins also had a huge hit with "Against All Odds" as a title song of the movie of the same name. I'm sure Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" being prominantly featured in a scene within Say Anything also greatly expanded its popularity.

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/sounds.html

1982 both Gabriel [Melted face album] and Collins albums in the poll:

1982
ALBUMS

1. Combat Rock - The Clash
2. Too-Rye-Ay - Dexys Midnight Runners
3. New gold dream - Simple Minds
4. Songs to remember - Scritti Politti
5. Upstairs at Eric’s - Yazoo
6. Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello
7. Rock in a hard place - Aerosmith
8. Complete Madness - Madness
9. The wild ones - Cockney rejects
10. Lexicon of love - ABC
11. (3) - Peter Gabriel
12. Juju Music - King sunny Ade
13. Tropical Gangsters - Kid Creole and the Coconuts
14. Scarred for life - Rose Tattoo
15. Miami - Gun club
16. Highway song - Blackfoot
17. Hello, I must be going - Phil Collins
18. Call of the west - Wall of voodoo
19. Love over gold - Dire straits
20. Big science - Laurie Anderson

I've been reading a bit more about Genesis today, and what stood out was how being in Genesis put a massive strain on Gabriel and Collins's marriages. (I didn't see that much on Hackett, but when he was still with the band, he got divorced in 1974, the same year his son was born and just two years into his marriage.) Even Banks had to cut his honeymoon down to a single day because they were finishing Foxtrot. The rest of the band felt so bad, they paid for his wife's expenses to travel with them on tour. Life as a touring recording artist is obviously tough when you're raising a family, but Gabriel, Collins et al worked especially hard in the studio and on tour.

So to answer the original question, it involved the kind of dedication that can potentially destroy a marriage or two.

Banks I believe is still married to the same woman. I'm not Internet Marriage Councillor, but Phil Collins has had marriages that have ended poorly well after his time with the band.
In his book, Bill Bruford mentioned that when he played with Genesis in 1976, the entire group, their crew and families went together on a deluxe Christmas shopping trip. Though bored with their music, he was impressed by the dedication to a genteel, family-friendly lifestyle which was still atypical among rock bands at the time.

Of course, Gabriel left partly because of conflicts around his daughter's birth a couple of years earlier, so maybe this was a new development.

Ah, got it. One of the two anecdotes that stood out was Gabriel struggling with taking care of his family following a very difficult childbirth and how that pulled him away from the band when they were trying to record the new album. (Combined with a long commute, it sounded like it limited his time with the band, and that allegedly caused more pressure when they complained about it.)

With Collins, I guess it's the well-known divorce that inspired much of his solo debut. Apparently his version is that she was angry that he spent so little time with his family. He refused to compromise on an upcoming tour (I guess she wanted him to pull out of some shows and come home) so she told him she was leaving with their children and moving to Vancouver. After the tour, the band talked it out and agreed to a hiatus so that Collins could move to Vancouver to save his marriage. That didn't last long - months later she still divorced him, and they all went back to the UK. That seems to be the only version of the story that's been repeated over the years, but apparently his ex-wife broke her silence not too long ago and said she left him because of adultery more than anything else.