Flashback: Genesis Play ‘Invisible Touch’ Instrumental ‘The Brazilian’ at Wembley Stadium

The 1986 Genesis album Invisible Touch is the closest thing the band ever had to a Thriller. Not only did it sell by the millions to a wide demographic of fans, but it produced five huge singles (“Invisible Touch,” “Tonight Tonight Tonight,” “Land of Confusion,” “In Too Deep” and “Throwing It All Away”) that kept the album on the chart for a year and allowed the band to start headlining football stadiums.

“Anything She Does” and “Domino” weren’t singles, but the former still got a goofy video video starring Benny Hill and the latter has been a mainstay of their live set for decades. It’s also so beloved that they named their upcoming reunion tour The Last Domino?

The only song on Invisible Touch that can safely be called “obscure” is the instrumental “The Brazilian,” which they tucked away at the end. The song did appear in an episode of Miami Vice and was up for a Best Pop Instrumental Performance Grammy in 1987, but it lost out to “Top Gun Anthem” and has basically been forgotten ever since. (They haven’t played it since 1987. Here’s video of them doing it at Wembley Stadium that year.)

This made it all the more surprising when the filmmakers behind the new Andy Samberg/Cristin Milioti movie Palm Springs placed the song near the end of the movie. For those that haven’t seen the it yet, it’s a brilliant Groundhog Day-inspired romantic comedy about two guests at a destination wedding in Palm Springs, California trapped in a time loop. “The Brazilian” plays near the end when Milioti’s character lays out a complex scheme involving physics and math she hopes will free them from their purgatory. More than one Genesis fan probably heard it come on and were like, “Wait a minute, is this really…”

It’s taken 36 years, but “The Brazilian” finally had its moment. Genesis were supposed to launch their reunion tour in November, but the pandemic forced them to push it back to April 2021 — and don’t be surprised if they have to delay it yet again. There’s no word on a sequel to Palm Springs, but if they do it and need another 1986 Genesis instrumental to punctuate a key scene, we recommend “Do the Neurotic.” It’s even more obscure than “The Brazilian” and would work perfectly.