Hawaiian shirt, balding mullet, pal of Prince Charles, writing songs for Disney… Phil Collins is, on the face of it, a deeply uncool man. However, we believe that he may now be so uncool that he has come full circle, and this – coupled with his brilliant music for Genesis when they were still a blinding prog band - make him our guilty secret this month.
Firstly, respect is due the man for Genesis. Younger readers may think immediately of a bunch of dodgy middle-aged geezers doing a sort of awkward Madness waddle on 1991’s ‘We Can’t Dance’, but back in their day, Genesis were an exciting, revolutionary and brilliantly inventive band.
Their first efforts (From Genesis To Revolution) had been pleasant enough, folk-influenced, mild psychedelic rock, but they were neither heavy enough for some nor poppy enough for others. Trespass (1970) was a stronger record and gave a hint of the prog beat to come, but it was the arrival of Collins (along with Steve Hackett on guitar) that gavethe band the new lease of life and new urgency to drive their songs forward.
On Nursery Cryme – on which Collins sang one lead vocal – the band really found their feet, with a dark and expansive, almost concept, album, about childhood and murder. Their stage shows, lead by Peter Gabriel’s exquisite taste for the bizarrely theatrical, were really starting to happen, as well, and the release of Foxtrot in 1972 established them as a major force. A Live album the next year – check out Watcher Of The Skies – captured some of their stage glory. Pete glorious in a red dress and foxes head. Selling England By The Pound was an excellent record, and a quintessential Genesis mix of the pastoral rock and folk. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway divided opinion, some loving the journey Rael goes on, others thinking it was overblown even by Gabriel’s own brilliantly opulent standards.
Throughout this whole period, Collins grew into being one of UK’s finest drummers- capable of powerhouse playing up there with the best of them, but also showing a jazzers head for wonky time sigs andclever embellishment. You couldn’t survive in Genesis unless you had serious chops.
It was after Gabriel’s exit that Collins really came into his own as the lead singer, and the defacto leader, of Genesis.
The Trick Of The Tail album marked his debut out front and it is one of the bands most satisfying performances.His vocals on gorgeous ballads such as Ripples brought a whole new audience to the band - women! And yet when it came to the fables and story telling on things such as the title track or the staggering achievement that is Dance On A Volcano, he proved he could handle that very well too. Musically, he was on top form – just listen to his playing on Los Endos man, bloody hell!
It was also around this time that he hooked up with jazz rock musos Brand X and played onsome of their albums – the best of which Livestock – a brilliant live album and Moroccan Roll, are some of the finest in that genre. Here he got a chance to really play technically brilliant, difficult music. It was a counter weight to Genesis because as the band evolved away from their trench coat and beard core, his vocal talents and performance skills drove the band to new heights of commerciality.
A string of strong records and huge tours followed, until eventually Collins solo efforts, as well as his attempts to save his marriage by spending time in her native Canada with his then-wife, saw the band take a back seat.
He released his first solo LP in 1981, and the solo career path that would carry him to superstardom began. His drum sound was no instantly identifiable. A massive, reverby, cavernous sound it was too.
So, yeah, he was a key figure in an awesome band. But what about the second half his career?
Hit after hit, movies – oi, we thought Buster was alright – propelled Phil Collins to the star stratosphere, and he lived the dream. Even charidee was an opportunity for Phil to show off his awesomeness, flying as he did from Philadelphia to Wembley in order to be the only performer to play at both 1985 Live Aids.
That Special Concorde flight he took to play at both morning and evening gigs saved literally billions of African lives. Well not really. But look, this is before the environment was invented, okay? Future generations: we never knew about the polar bears then.
Bob Geldof reckoned that “Phil is a magnificent soul, he has touched the world through his music and he continues to fight against world poverty. He is one of life's true heroes.” And who are we to argue with the angry former Boomtown Rat?
He also agreed to appear in The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Celebrations and has done a lot of work for the Prince’s Trust, but we happen to know for a fact that he is only doing that to smash the system from the inside, and that each time he goes to Buckingham Palace, he is sure to do a massive jobby in the downstairs loo, air drumming his excellent part from ‘Dancing With The Moonlight Knight while he poos, subversively.
Phil has, of course, become an unlikely hero to the rap singers, who have sampled his drums left, right and centre. Indeed, Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony remade ‘Take Me Home’ from his No Jacket Required album. So enamoured were the Bone boys of Phil, they named him an honorary member of the band, bestowing on him the nom-de-bone ‘Chrome Bone’.
Reaching out even further to a younger, and presumably slightly mystified, generation, Phil featured quite substantially on one of the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ computer games, in which the player had to defend Phil from murder (assassination?) at a concert, shooting away baddies while Phil bashed out ‘In The Air Tonight’. Very, very weird.But we quite like that. And who doesn’t love the drum sound in that song? Epic.
He’s even had a recurring role in Miami Vice – as a conman called Phil The Shill – for God’s sake, while respect is due to Phil for his long-time work with PETA, notably in their long-running feud with KFC. Phil donated drumsticks (seriously) to be auctioned for the charity.
From prog pioneer to rap legend to chicken saviour, Collins has had a career of doing it his own way, and has produced some great tunes along the journey. A career as long and varied as his has been is bound to vary in quality but what other player can point to such a huge breadth of music, such huge global sales and such influence? It is a sad testimony to our image and trend obsessed country that a man of his class and achievements is spoken of, in some circles, in such derogatory tones by those who have achieved but a small fraction of what Mr Phil has done.
We love him. And we don’t care who knows it.
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