Defend Phil Collins

I like "Against All Odds", no matter how schmaltzy it may be, although it may be because I had a thing for Rachel Ward when I was a teenager.

He is a decent actor, and probably one of the top hundred-thousand drummers in the world.

I think that the fact the song has actually spawned an urban legend speaks to how powerful it is....

Don't know much else about his music and frankly don't care.

Sure, he's a good drummer, but I recall hating him for his skin-work on the re-made version of Howard Jones' 'No One Is To Blame' - the original was far better.

He is indeed pretty funny in interviews. Very self-affacting. I think he'd be an OK guy to have a pint with. Although the conversation with Peter Gabriel would be far more interesting. Sting can blow himself. (sorry - did an interview with Sting recently and I'm struggling BADLY to finish the article)

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/someair.htm

Fritz, I didn't know he was in a Bone Thugs video?? Which one??

Also, imagine the possibilities that appearance brings up in a game of "Six Degrees of Phil Collins"....it probably means you could connect say, Mase and Marianne Faithful in less than 4 degrees....like Bone Thugs worked with collins, they worked with Biggie on Notorious Thugs, Biggie worked with Mase, then Phil subbed for drums with Zeppelin at Live Aid (I think) and probably John Paul Jones did some arranging for Marianne I bet back in the mid-60s....(I'm not sure about all these facts, just speculating, but the possibilites like this are endless.)...

Isn't this what we praise Joy Division for?

This may not have been you, but I once head John say in an interview that Phil Collins had stolen the PiL drum sound! Apparently, after hearing the drum sound on 'Flowers' Collins requested the same engineer that PiL used and set up the drums exactly the same! Is this true? Was it you!

Yes, this is true, and it was me. John is correct but there is a bit more to it. I learnt how to get that "kind" of drum sound by watching Hugh Padgham record in the same Stone Room at the Townhouse. Hugh recorded Peter Gabriel's 3rd album and if you listen to a song called 'Intruder' you will hear what I'm talking about. When It came to doing the PiL album I used similar methods to achieve a similar sound. During the making of the 'Flowers of Romance' I bumped into Phil Collins in the corridor of the Townhouse, I had worked as an assistant on his first LP, and he was very inquisitive about how I was surviving working with the evil Johnny Rotten! I told him John was a top class geeza, and promised to introduce them if he was keen.

Later that day me and John went to the Townhouse canteen to eat boiled cabbage and mash, and in walked Phil so I introduced them. Much to all our surprise they got on like a house on fire! Anyway back to the drum story... Much later Phil was producing a Chris Bailey (of Earth Wind and Fire) album, and he wanted THAT drum sound, but Hugh was off working with the Police. Phil had by then heard snippets of the PiL album. So, the day we were in mastering the 'Flowers' single remix at the Townhouse cutting rooms next door, I got a call from Phil saying HELP! So I went in for an hour or so and dialed it up!

Pardon granted for: Squonk

There is lots of Phil Collins-associated music that I like, and lots that I loathe. I generally find him to be unbelievably smarmy, though, so it's hard to like even the good stuff.

(this, btw, would also fit into the ILE "funniest things said while having sex" thread)

"No really, Gail, he was there and John Martyn was on guitar, and he talked him into playing and John Stevens said halfway through one improv piece "Right you lot, Phil and I are gonna have a little chat on the drums now so the rest of you cunts can just shaddup, alright?"

"Yes, that sounds like good old John," sighed G. Four-second pause. "Dirty old man that he was..."

(according to G, every Brit improv legend is or was a "dirty old man" heheh).

Anyway, as a drummer the boy Collins dun good on the John Cale Island trilogy and also on Bob Fripp's Exposure. The latter, come to think of it, is not currently available on CD either except as an expensive and not recommended import.

Has no one noted what a brilliant 'video actor' Phil Collins is? Not every artist puts their *all* into their visual performance (nevermind exact proper lip-synching) as Phil Collins does. Like, in the video for 'Mama', he literally looks like he's going mad with rage, hatred and desire, and you really believe it, you can't take your eyes off him... It is hard to believe this is the same guy who's being all cheery and silly in some of his other videos. That's what I love about Phil Collins, he is so multifaceted, as well as multi-talented. I don't claim to love *all* his songs (some of them I downright can't stand) but I don't turn my nose up at him as a musical artist. It takes talent to write a good pop tune, and that Phil Collins has written so many well-loved hits is testament to his song-writing skill, on top of being a brilliant drummer, a very decent keyboardist, and emotive vocalist. Now that I think about it, Phil Collins was the first pop artist I ever got into as a teenager. Ah, memories! :)

Haha that was me, babbling about "Domino"!

So what about that New Toyota Ad with Phil Collins?

-- Fabrice

Yes. I used to have a copy, but I left it on my desk and it was the victim of office theft. It's hillarious, and again the word here is 'unintentionally'.

(I'm speaking of Trick of the Tail and Abacab)

Prog Phil is just too much for me to process, can’t enjoy it

Hello, I Must Be Gnoming

In sum, it doesn't appear that Phil Collins needs much defending.

He's no stranger to you and me

EPIC TOM FILL

Heard "Invisible Touch" in the car yesterday: embarrassed pleasure at the time, still sounds good (the grain of the voice and all that). I started thinking about the recent photos of Collins that occasionally pop up on my FB wall: a kindly old British gentleman surrounded by his grandchildren. That got me to doing that timeline game: we're as far from "Invisible Touch" today as "Invisible Touch" was from George Formby. That's how someone young would look at Phil Collins today, right? He's George Formby.

Well so is Nick Cave

I guess true of anybody from 1986, but doesn't Nick Cave still sort of try to look like he used to? (I looked at a few online photos.) He doesn't look very grandfatherly.

(And believe me, trying to look like you used to is not preferable.)

not to cause an existential crisis but yeah it's wild to think that the amount of time between Invisible Touch and say, Revolver is the same amount of time between now and "Float On" by Modest Mouse

Would any performer of Formby's generation have played to crowds in their 70s like those that saw Genesis a year or two ago?

The performers in their 70s, not the crowds (mostly).

These kinds of calculations always fascinate me. The thing they often lead me back to is that the music I loved as a kid, all the late '60s and early '70s pop, is still everywhere today. But I don't recall hearing Rudy Vallee and Harry Lauder and Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians when I was a kid. (I know--thanks, Boomer.)

(It was just a casual formulation, Halfway--I'm sure you can pick it apart a million ways.)

We're actually making the same point there.

I don't reject the formulation or calculation, but as you say it shows a change in how music lives on or is disposed of now.

The oldest music I remember from the "Adult Contemporary" AM radio in the 1970s was maybe the Andrews Sisters, less than 40 years old at that time, and maybe a handful of 50s leftovers.

They would have gotten a huge boost from Bette Midler's hit cover...I should clarify that if '20s music was being played in the early '70s, it would have passed me by anyway. All I listened to was CHUM on the AM dial.

Not sure what the radio format was where I heard "Invisible Touch" yesterday...FM dial, the kind of station that doesn't go earlier than the '80s, I think.

There has been that kind of thing before, as Dixieland trad Jazz was a fairly popular party music in the 50s and early 60s. In an interview I saw with bassist Steve Swallow he talked about playing with some early players who played with Bix etc doing some of these party’s in college.

Things definitely come back 50 years later that are clearly thought of as nostalgia or retro or whatever--thinking of that horrible Cherry Poppin' Daddies hit from the '90s. Not sure if something like "Invisible Touch" is heard or presented the same way. (Meaning, literally, I'm not sure.)

Which, if it isn't, contradicts my original post...this is just way too complicated.

Makes me think of when Lorde told Marc Maron how much she loved Phil Collins' music and he was incredulous.