Foxtrot was the band's greatest commercial and critical success at the time of its release, reaching number 12 in the UK and receiving largely positive reviews. As with their previous two albums, Foxtrot initially failed to chart in the United States. The first track from the album, "Watcher of the Skies", was released as a single in October 1972. Foxtrot was reissued with a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix as part of their 2008 Genesis 1970–1975 box set.
By 1972, the seventh Genesis line-up of frontman and singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist and guitarist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins were on their 1971–1972 tour to support their previous studio album, Nursery Cryme (1971). The tour marked a growth in their popularity overseas after they secured returning gigs across Europe, including Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy, where Nursery Cryme had reached number 4 on the chart. The Italian leg of the tour in April saw Genesis play to large and enthusiastic crowds. The tour concluded in May that saw Genesis perform a set at the Great Western Festival in Lincoln where Italian reporter and future band photographer and biographer Armando Gallo "converted to Genesis". Upon returning home the group dedicated time to write and rehearse new material for a new studio album. Hackett considered leaving the band after feeling "fairly shattered" from the lengthy tour, but his band mates persuaded him to stay and reassured they had liked his playing.
Initial rehearsals were held in a rehearsal space at Blackheath in London before they relocated underneath the Una Billings School of Dance in Shepherd's Bush. Some of Hackett's material that was used for his first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, was in fact rehearsed by the band during the Foxtrot sessions but was not developed further. Material that became "Watcher of the Skies" and "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" was performed live in the time running up to the recording of Foxtrot.
Genesis recorded Foxtrot in August and September 1972 in London at Island Studios. They were set to record with producer John Anthony, who had worked with them on their new song "Happy the Man" earlier in the year, but escalating costs due to the slow progress of completing it caused disagreements among Anthony and Charisma Records, the group's label and a new producer was sought. Banks recalled Charisma were anxious for the group to make a hit recording, so they arranged for Bob Potter, who had worked with other popular artists and fellow Charisma group Lindisfarne, to produce with Bob Johnston as engineer. However, the band failed to establish a good relationship with Potter as he took a dislike to their music, in particular Banks's Mellotron opening to "Watcher of the Skies" which he compared to the soundtrack to the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and felt the song was better without it. Around this time, the band put an end to these unproductive sessions and underwent an Italian tour in August 1972 before resuming work on the album the following month. Another search for a new producer led to the arrival of Tony Platt, but the band's time with him proved unsuccessful due to personality clashes. Genesis then settled with co-producer Dave Hitchcock and John Burns as engineer, who would continue to work with Genesis on their next three albums. Banks felt Hitchcock was not the best replacement for the job and disagreed with him over the album's sound.
During the album's sessions Genesis got round to recording their longtime stage song "Twilight Alehouse", which had originated when founding member and guitarist Anthony Phillips was in the band and remained unreleased until it was put out as a limited single by ZigZag magazine and the band's fan club in 1973. A piece devised by Rutherford and rehearsed by the band in a 3/4 time signature was not used, but it was adapted by Hackett into "Shadow of the Hierophant" on Voyage of the Acolyte. Also attempted in the studio was a composition from Banks that was attempted but it failed to capture the band's interest. He worked on it over the course of the following year which became "Firth of Fifth" on their next album, Selling England by the Pound. When Tony Stratton-Smith, owner of Charisma Records, heard the album for the first time upon completion, he said to the band's friend and roadie Richard Macphail: "This is the one that makes their career". Stratton-Smith added: "I had to wipe a tear from my eye. Everything that one had believed about the band had come through". Banks was particularly pleased with Foxtrot which he thought contained no weak tracks.
The album's cover was the last of three that Paul Whitehead, a former art director for the London-based magazine Time Out, designed for the band having also done Trespass and Nursery Cryme. He gained inspiration from the lyrics to "Supper's Ready" which included references to the apocalypse, and wanted to present the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in an original way but it turned into something "a little more whimsical", with two horse riders being a monkey and an alien. The cover for Nursery Cryme had depicted croquet which represented the English upper class which Whitehead repeated on Foxtrot with the depiction of fox hunting. The croquet scene is also repeated, placed in the background which has the Victorian manor now replaced with a hole in the ground. Whitehead devised the album's title, which he had also done for Trespass and Nursery Cryme as he recalled the group were stuck for ideas. He had heard the word "foxy", an American slang term for an attractive woman, during a visit in the United States, and "Foxy Lady" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, which he used as inspiration to draw a female with a fox head. Whitehead's original illustrations for the three albums were stolen from the Charisma archives when it was sold to Virgin Records in 1983. Whitehead claimed that Charisma staff got wind of the imminent sale and proceeded to loot its office. The back cover of Nursery Cryme can be seen in miniature in the background to the back of Foxtrot.
The cover was not positively received by the band at the time. Gabriel felt less pleased with the design than Whitehead's previous works. Hackett felt "unsure" about the cover when he saw it for the first time, calling it a "strange" design that has made more sense to him over time. Banks thought it was the weakest cover Whitehead designed for Genesis. Rutherford felt the design was a decline in quality following the "lovely atmosphere" of the Trespass and Nursery Cryme covers, to Foxtrot which was "a little bit weak". Collins thought it was not "particularly special" and lacked a professional look.
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