Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Phil Collins rehabilitation continues
Further to David H's comments in the Home Service feature of the new issue about coming across a vinyl copy of Phil Collins' solo debut Face Value and being reminded what a great record it was, I've been playing it on heavy rotation on Spotify and he's not wrong. 'In the Air Tonight' - surely one of the best album openers ever? Great cover of Tomorrow Never Knows as well, a Lennon tribute I presume, given that the album was released in 1981. If you listen closely in the track's run-out, he sings Over the Rainbow, which I found subtly touching.
I dimly remembered reading somewhere that Danny Baker chose a Collins tune as one of his all time favourite radio songs. A moment with Google confirmed this, an extract on his own Internet Treehouse site from an interview he did with, you guessed it, David Hepworth, for Mojo.
I ask him to name five great radio records and he comes back with Phil Collins' Heat On The Street ("it just is"), Brooklyn Owes The Charmer by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell's Free Man In Paris, Lee Dorsey's Eeny Meeny Mini Mo and Ray Charles's Mess Around. "I'm not trying to educate people or show off my record collection. These are just records that work like a steam train. Everything else can flag but those will always whip it up again."
I concur wholeheartedly with Danny's (and The Word's) anti-Guilty Pleasures stance.
- More from DougieJ.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Please No!!!
The advert with the gorilla was far more Phil Collins than I ever need to hear again. I never understood why he was so popular and it always made sense to me that he stopped selling records by the bucketload. I accept that he is a very good drummer but that doesn't mean we need to be subjected to his nasal whining as well. Awful, just awful!
No rehabilitation required?
Hasn't there always been general acceptance of the quality of first album - esp 'In The Air Tonight'. It's just all the dubious tosh that followed that kind of destroyed the man's reputation.
It's not In The Air Tonight....
...actually it was the swing in a tune like "I Missed Again" that impressed me.
His reputation isn't destroyed, no matter how many DJs make lame jokes about him. And he has always sold lots of records, regardless of what fashionable opinion thought. In fact in hip hop he's revered as one of the most influential white musicians of the last thirty years.
As noted by Dappy
Interviewed in the w/e papers, the lead rapper(?) of N-Dubz put him up, and without irony (given the interview read as he perhaps wouldn't get irony)as his main man, or whatever the youngsters call a musical influence of note these days.
I can take or leave much of his solo oeuvre but he really is a remerkable drummer; check out not only much of his Genesis thumping, but also his sessioneering with his chums John Martyn and Eric Clapton.
I recall an Ice-T interview
in the NME many moons ago. The interviewer discovered a full collection of Collins and tried to make some sort of pointed comment about it. Ice wasn't having any of it.
I tried Googling to see whether I could find any reference, and although I couldn't find that, I did find repeated (which may just mean copied, of course) reference to a TV interview with Ice-T in which a similar thing happened, which Collins himself relates as follows:
I remember reading...
...a magazine interview with some hip-hop-types in which their endorsement of Collins was challenged and they responded by stating they fully empathised with his lyrics - I believe the actual quote was, "we all be in the st-st-studio...", thus revealing that they'd got the wrong end of the stick entirely...
This is indeed a tune...
And it features a strong contender for 'best intro of all time'. Brilliant.
very much so.
I particularly like the drumming on the 'middle eight' (probably not the correct term!) around 1.35 - 'when it feels like something you want so bad...'
To answer DH
Good quality of music and high number of sales of records aren't connnected are they - though they might coincide sometimes? We know he's a great drummer but a lot of people think he made some pretty horrible records as the eighties went on - I'm one of them. It's not to do with whether he's cool or not either. Perhaps 'destroyed' is a bit final. Maybe damaged would be a better word. His music became really naff. Just my opinion.
Collins - our man abroad
Weird that one throwaway comment in Home Service has got everyone back on Phil... I've been listening to 'I Missed Again' all weekend having downloaded it after reading the mag.
Collins definitely strikes some kind of chord with groups who otherwise seem to listen exclusively to hip hop (the 'NY cab drivers blaring out Separate Lives' thing is fairly well documented). Perhaps the most extreme reaction I've ever seen a record get in a nightclub was in Nairobi about six years ago - almost entirely black African crowd, mainly dancing to hip hop. DJ suddenly throws on Easy Lover and the place goes BATSHIT. All these guys dressed like Tupac Shakur jumping on tables, furniture getting swung round. DJ sticks 'Sussudio' on straight afterwards and it's a done deal...
And now Sussudio is in my head
What a most odd song; made up words, it sounds like Prince, never hear it on the radio anymore. It's a fine piece of 80s pop though. I'm off to download....
If you can find the Idjut Boys
re edit of I'm Not Moving, well then you'll have found yourself a very brilliant re-edit indeed.
also... http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jan/13/phil-collins-non-i...
That video of Heat On The Street
Is that Seasick Steve playing bass and Bonnie Prince Billy on lead guitar? Or am I Pissed Again?
I don't mind him...
...but that kind of music above is possibly my least favourite style of music going - not sure what it's called, 'blue eyed soul' or something? See also Hall & Oates.
What is it...
you don't like about it? Just curious...
Dunno really
It's kind of fresh in my mind as there is a single out at the moment that I hear a lot that reminds me of H&O (can't think who or what it is) and I heard Sharlene Spiteri on Chris Evans today and now this one. Something about that try-hard-to-be soulful voices combined with horn sections that grates. Sorry, not an eloquent answer I know.
Gosh yes,
A cover of Xanadu by ELO folks by Sharleen Spiteri-it's 1980 all over again, managed to make a not bad song reach astonishing new levels of mediocrity.
I like Phil C. First thing I ever heard on a Walkman was his cover of "You can't hurry love" walking to my mate's house on my 13th birthday. The streets were singing to me.
Not sure Daryl Hall has to 'try' to be soulful :-)
Errr
No.
He was and always will be terrible.
That cover of Tomorrow Never Knows sounds like some pressing the demo button on a Casio keyboard from 1987 and getting their accountant to sing over the top.
If you are ever tempted to 'rehabilitate' Phil Collins (which surely must be urging him to sit on his hands for eternity), have a listen to 'Another Day In Paradise' and move on.
But, but, but...
there is a huge difference in quality between his first couple of solo records and the ones that followed. Face Value and Hello I Must Be Going have some wonderful tunes on them... it was only later on that the saccharine started to outweigh the groovy.
You'll no doubt be delighted to hear that
he's reported as now being unable to play drums or piano due to a back injury which has affected the nerves in his hands. :-(
No
of course not - I wish no harm on the man, I just don't want his music anywhere near my ears.
Blimey.
I thought I'd caused enough of a stushie* when I recently posted a thread questioning the basis for catastrophic man-made climate change, but clearly suggesting the bold Mr. C might be due for a reappraisal is truly beyond the bounds of civilised society ;-)
*Scottish for kerfuffle
Have to agree
I used to think he was the Antichrist - ruining Led Zep's set at Live Aid, overrunning so Sabbath only got to play one song (or so my memory told me), those bland nasally sung songs he carpet bombed the 80s and 90s with, the direction Genesis took after he started to get a bit of confidence (it's a long way down from 'Can you tell me where my country lies, said the unifaun to his true love's eyes' to 'I waited in the rain for hours, And you were late') plus he even managed to ruin my favourite artist John Martyn - replacing the inventive experimentation with bland MOR smoothness.
But, as the memory of the nasal songs dims, I too have reassessed. His first two solo albums are great. I personally think his take on Tomorrow Never Knows is not only brave, but surprisingly good. He pretty much introduced my generation to soul music, 'cos God knows it wasn't getting any play/air time back in the 80s, and as a Gabriel-era Genesis fan who bemoans their now permanent lack of credibility, I even have to admit that the albums immediately post-Gabriel (and pre the hits) are great.
It's just too easy to stay in the hate camp. I have had to recognise that the guy deserves a break, and if he has a fault, it's in appearing to pander to some idea of what his public wanted when he was successful - storing up the eternal emnity of many of us in the process.
Well...
...the poor love will move back if Dave gets in.
He says that 's
based on a misconception, albeit an understandable one.
Collins said something about moving abroad if the government were to take more of his income than he did, but he claims he didn't intend to make a party political point per se; it just happened Labour were the opposition at the time, and he would have said the same about the Tories.
But he's unquestionably stated he's not a Tory many times since.
Presumably, he made his many...
..."I'm not a Tory" statements while sitting in his golden castle in Switzerland...
Does it matter?
He's not a politician - he's a musician.
Just like Weller, Clapton, Costello, Bragg etc, his job is to play his instruments as well as possible. Their personal beliefs are, surely, irrelevant to this?
Have you SEEN the size of Billy Bragg's lovely big house in Dorset? :-)
very good point.
It's always been a false choice between the supposedly worthier than thou on one side and the supposedly 'considerably richer than yew' on the other.
Your mention of Weller is also apt. He was of course castigated as a callow youth for saying he would vote Tory (as if that was unheard of in Woking!) before he 'repented' very publicly and aligned himself with Red Wedge. But he himself acknowledges that he has always had a massive chip on his shoulder, and there has always seemed to be a large element of bitterness to his views.
I don't know either of them, but I have a more favourable impression of Collins as a person than Weller, and these days, what with Weller's wealth and privately educated kids, there's very little difference in lifestyle between them.
And like Weller
He has been a champion of The Action. And as Weller has had bland, lumpen, traditional fallow periods in his solo career (97 to 06 with the odd exception) as has Collins. Clearly it's his whole solo career for me so this thread is not going to change my mind and apologies for the intrusion. Does anybody want a hard copy of my apology on fax?
I'm not aware Phil Collins was ever dehabilitated
Chez Stimpy he's always been respected as a drummer of the highest order.
I lost track of his solo career after the first two or three albums but he always seemed to come across as someone who loved playing music. Genesis, Brand X and a thriving solo career - he must have been doing something right.
Here's hoping he recovers soon and can get behind the traps again.
In Britain
we are guilty of turning our backs on artists who become too successful. I've done it with McCartney without having a reason other than his omnipresence, I just never thought it through. Simply Red, Dire Straits, Status Quo and more recently Coldplay, what the hell even Keane and Snow Patrol are built up, overplayed then rounded on. We do the same with sportsmen, actors and performers in general. Can you remember your first thoughts on hearing "In The Air Tonight", "Holding Back The Years", "Sultans Of Swing" or even "Yellow"? Be honest you liked them all then, but I'd wager some of you wouldn't admit to it now. Nothing wrong with a bit of Phil Collins, never was, it's "A Groovy Kind of Love"!
Up to a point
In some cases they just suffer a lapse of taste leading to some horrors so severe as to require a decade or so to be got over before we can remember they can be pretty great, or they just get worse as they come to appeal to the lowest common denominator and do the same old thing over and over, or they were always pretty awful anyway - hello Simply Red. A point well worth making though - the tall poppy thing does go on.
I remember
In The Air Tonight - Dreadful nasally whine by the Genesis drummer
Holding Back the Years - another dull song by the person that murdered Money's Too Tight To Mention
Sultan's Of Swing - Loved it - still do despite Money for Nothing & Telegraph Road.
Yellow - Liked it a lot but hate it now.
I think my main problem with Phil Collins, apart from just thinking his records are a bit naff, is what he did to "Can't Hurry Love" it was and still is a crime that should not go unpunished.
Even Collins' himself has said that he doesn't know now
why he recorded You Can't Hurry Love - he made special reference to the strings plastered all over it.
I think it was on the Face Value 'Classic Albums' programme
Shows how out of touch
with the young people I am - I had to search on last.fm to find that "Yellow" is apparently by one of those modern beat combos called Coldplay...
I'll play it later, if it's on spotify, and let you know what my first thoughts are.
First thoughts on "Yellow"
Plodding and unoriginal stadium rock. And the singer has a f***ing awful voice.
In The Air Tonight
I didn't like when I first heard it. Thought it dull. I remeber railing against it at school. I like it more now (I assume that its a grower...).
Holding Back The Years. Nope. Never (so I assume its not a grower).
Yellow and Sultans of Swing - liked both then as I do now.
Prog & Pop
I think PC's main perception challenge is that he was a noodling progster and he then became an over produced popster. There was, clearly, a lot of good stuff inbetween. Prog is also a difficult genre for many to love it seems. Most of it passed me by (I was born in 1967) and my main prog memories where doing musical movement to Rick Wakeman lps. I don't own any 70's prog and don't feel inclined to start buying it anymore than starting an interest in the NWOBHM.
PC does have some poor acting on his CV (Miami Vice & Buster being the two that spring to mind) and his later solo work (and that with the biggest sales) certainly didn't enhance his reputation.
But he doesn't need rehabilitating -
As a seasoned
crate digger his main crime, in my eyes, is the sleeve of the Buster OST. I have lost count of the times I have seen that stereo logo on the top right hand corner sticking out of a pile of LP's. Heart leaps thinking it is one of EMI's ASD classical series, heart crumbles when the realisation hits that it's Phil Bloody Collins again.
Changing fashions
have allowed many artists to be favourably reappraised over the years. I owned the first 4 solo albums on vinyl but got bored. The first 2 are certainly very good indeed but subsequent to that he used the formula that had earned him colossal amounts of success to maximise his earning potential. Which other star have done the same? Certainly Rod Steward, Chris De Burgh, Dire Straits, Bad Company - hundreds over the years that started with great material but watered it down to please the bank manager and to buy themselves the mansion on the hill. It's no big deal and I dont see how he can be criticised for wanting to prevent the govt taking too large a chunk of his income. Politicians have been cooking the books tto achieve the same ends and they are not even entertaining.
John Martyn
I'm a big fan of Collins' work drumming and singing on JM's Grace and Danger LP, and reprising these chores, along with knobtwiddling on the hugely underrated Glorious Fool.
Had the pleasure of seeing PC come on to drum for the encore at a JM show (Hammy O, November 1982) and was astounded at his ability as a drummer.
Rather keen on "In the Air Tonight " too....
...But Seriously
Come on guys, is it just the English rounding on one of their own again because of the huge success and ubiquity? How come these artists are way more popular abroad than in their own country. It's not just the first 2 albums that were good. 1989's ...But Seriously is a cracker all the way to the end (I enjoyed every minute of it on a recent 2 hour drive). Huge sales equals quality songs in this case. PC could always pull off a decent cover version in my book.......Groovy Kinda Love, Can't Stop Lovin' You. Me, I'm looking forward to his soul covers album supposedly coming out this year....
He'll always be alright in
He'll always be alright in my book, if only for his brilliant drumming on Adam Ant's "Puss In Boots".
The Cinema Show
Collin's drumming on this is great. I used to think this was a shite album (SEBTP), to the extent I cut off my nose to spite my face and stubbed cigarettes out on it when I bought it. Love it now. (Apart from 'Firth of Fifth' which no-one can convince me isn't bollocks)
Firth of Fifth
'The path is clear' - ok, that bit is bollocks, but once the song turns into a glorified instrumental, the build up to - and execution of Hackett's solo is GLORIOUS - no? Seconds Out version too, if you find Gabriel's vocals a bit mannered.
FoF
I love the piano intro section as well. Can't hold a light to Cinema Show but that's nigh-on impossible.