Defend Phil Collins

(arh, xx-pst)

He played drums for Eno.

politics-wise I've heard things, but since I don't check him - haven't investigated further (on the other hand, if I lived in the UK...).

anyone remember marcello's freejazz story?

I was too nice to the Postal Service though.

Ol' Dirty Bastard and lots of other rap and RnB stars to thread.

Also, Geir needs to be here.

Other than that, I still think his first three solo albums have gotten a bit too much criticism. Sure, they aren't quite in the league of Peter Gabriel's solo work (much less in the league of Genesis at their best), but there are lots of great tracks there too. From "But Seriously" onward it was downhill though, and "Dance Into The Light" is probably one of the worst albums ever.

Also, Phil Collins is a magnificent drummer. Maybe his best moment as a drummer is "Intruder" - the opening track on Peter Gabriel's third album.

'Mama''s quite a good song.

He was a big fan of The Action as a youth.

No, that's it. I've run out of good words to say for him.

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?

xp - yeah, if they just played the track straight thru while nodding their heads or something (and injecting an occasional “reaction”), I can see why it would be hard to defend as fair use.

lmao that is a great story

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/phil-collins-twins-reaction-video-in-air-tonight-hit-sales-1234730673/

But, of course, none of these charts don’t take into account the number of listens that “In the Air Tonight” is getting just from fascinated viewers enjoying Tim and Fred Williams’ reaction video — which, as of this writing, is up to 3.2 million views.

jfc hire an editor

Editors are expensive!

They should make reaction videos

Something in the Air Tonight

Rare Harrison / Collins collab

― vitreous humorist (Ye Mad Puffin)

they had to get together sooner or later, because the revolution's here

They should make reaction videos

― rob

that would be a fantastic pivot

“In the Air Tonight” currently sits at No. 3 on the iTunes song sales chart, trailing only the brand new releases “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion and “Beers and Sunshine” by Darius Rucker.

....

Another entry in the "News items from 2020 that would make utterly no sense to a time traveler from 2010" file.

Like "President Trump denies he's involved in getting Kanye West on the presidential ballot."

Darius Rucker has been having #1 country albums since 2008

"Beers and Sunshine" was a #2 stream...

also a cure for Covid-19

-Chuck D

Because Something In the Air Tonight is already meme-fodder.

― peace, man, Monday, August 10, 2020 10:32 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

See? It continues.

Not sure who to thank for this, but it’s brilliant. Volume up. pic.twitter.com/q4OjWl4XXx

— Mark (@markaduck) August 10, 2020

While we're at it with the Phil Collins pic.twitter.com/p1HD73DY4E

— 🏳️‍🌈 BLACK LIVES MATTER 🏳️‍🌈 (@politelyviolent) August 7, 2020

I find hairy/beardy Phil endearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duq_h2aboLI

I'm gonna assume y'all have seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=7ceT8tyxtq4&feature=emb_logo

or perhaps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ceT8tyxtq4

tipsy's clip catches an interesting moment - first, they are so totally miming that Phil starts late and (a bit too obviously) looks around in the hope that no one notices. Also lol at Mike and Tony pretending to sing backup.

Second, I am very pleased to see what must have been a pretty early live appearance of the mighty Chester Thompson. Just a few months before it would have, presumably, been Bruford.

Put well by my friend: "The best thing about these first-time videos is that they idealize how you always want someone to react when you play them a great new song."

I misread the thread title as "Defund Phil Collins" and I thought really?! I'm out.

He was, er, reacting to this, btw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XH5gXRnR2E

Man, Delp's vocals. I can't tell if Mercury in "Under Pressure" tops this in the arena rock vocalist reaching for the heavens category.

not sure about this, the prose is also annoying

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/magazine/the-racial-anxiety-lurking-behind-reaction-videos.html

We were just talking last night about how we Gen X'ers just don't get why people watch Twitch.

I think reaction videos fall into the same category. Maybe you need to have grown up with social media to be truly entertained by other people being entertained?

― enochroot

That doesn’t explain tv in japan where every show there has audience reactions.

I guess it’s like canned laughs. It heightens the “reaction” you should be feeling as an audience.

There’s no denying the Williams brothers’ charm, or the allure of Collins’s song. But is it a stretch to focus on the racial anxiety lurking behind reaction videos?

we can learn so much

Well, I have noticed that for whatever reason a lot of the reaction videos are from black listeners. But I have no idea if that's just what's being served to me.

There’s no denying the Williams brothers’ charm, or the allure of Collins’s song. But is it a stretch to focus on the racial anxiety lurking behind reaction videos?

He writes this in the penultimate paragraph, but doesn't actually "focus" on it (if he believes it's not, in fact, a "stretch"). This is the kind of piece that gestures towards a possible point without actually making it.

that's called "clickbait"

I thought it did, and it reminded me of white people on Twitter posting bug-eyed gifs of Black people for the sake of a dumb point.

i.e. I thought the piece worked. Then again, I know him well so I may have a bias.

i always get JR and JBR confused

We were just talking last night about how we Gen X'ers just don't get why people watch Twitch.

Just picking this up since Moka quoted it, but people watching Twitch is just about the only fully comprehensible part of modern weirdness for this Generation X'er. A big part of the 80s for me was standing round in the arcade waiting my turn/watching other people's turns. One of the first things I remember doing when YouTube came along was looking at videos of 80s videogames I could never complete being completed. So this stuff seems totally natural.

this video rules

At some point in the 80s, I stumbled across Chester Thompson. He was backing Frank Zappa at the time but he was so good he wound up getting tapped to tour with Phil Collins' drumming-centric solo tours. https://t.co/IA0q2uukJ2

— Timothy Hensley (@geistweg) September 1, 2020

Yeah Thompson was/is a fine musician in his own right, as well as a very skilled interpreter of Collins's drumming. I understand that he didn't audition - Collins just called him up and asked, and he had that gig (Genesis/Collins) for like 30 years. There are a lot of really good drummers who wouldn't have fit as well in the role. Bill Bruford is good, but too different in style.

Anyway, map, I've watched that clip several times before and it's very satisfying. A couple things stand out.

At the beginning, Chester is playing that tuned-percussion ostinato live, with a real instrument, whereas it was most assuredly programmed on the record. I guess it makes sense that a band of that size, in a live setting, might not want to be chained to a sequencer. A human performer can adjust. It's cool, but almost sad when he stops playing it. (Could no one else on that stage have played it?)

The main floor-tom-based line is Very Phil; Chester is so focused on bringing it across with power. Mad respect, but there is also a longer, more sneaky fill (phill?) that starts on the higher toms and crosses the bar line - it's the one that ends on the china cymbal. The recording has it like twice; Thompson pulls it out rather more often - but with such assurance that the overall pulse never wavers.

And - BONUS SKLAR!

The Sklar the merrier.

There are few drummers quite as melodic as Phil Collins.

"Feed The World (Do The Know Its Christmas?)" is on a whole nother indefensible level but... I always liked Collins' drum track. There's a clip of him recording the final segue out of the bridge into the final chorus/outro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZnZfxGKvg

Always loved the sound of those big bottomless Gretsch toms.

He used to be a Premier guy (same concert tom configuration and everything)...not sure why he switched to Gretsch.

He has such a great sound and approach, but watching him sit with his shoulders slumped, arrrg, Phil, sit up straight! Otherwise, you’ll have major back problems in the ‘00s!

That "Do They Know It's Christmas" song was apparently a first take from Phil!

I think it was because of ilx - maybe this thread, I dunno - that I bought (and even freaking READ) his cutesy-poo autobiography.

And I'm not even mad.

Dude is, probably, corny and choochy as fuck. But in his prime(s) he certainly brought something. That "something" will always be bracketed by "if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like."

He has been supremely lucky, but to deny that he was gifted is churlish in the extreme.

I put his 80s ubiquity - and the reason why people got sick of sight of him - is that he just never said “no” to anyone. And was generally an affable guy who got on well with pretty much everyone inside the industry

(Granted, the Genesis and solo stuff is on him, for better or worse)

xpost I mean, you sort of hit on it inadvertently.

But in his prime(s) he certainly brought something.

And what was it someone observed/noted about Genesis? How each album sold more than the one that came before it? That's a pretty impressive feat.

Sorry to have put it that way, Josh. I shouldn't have taken the diminishing tone - I totally stan for phil as an artist and musician.

That downplays so much! In his prime he: played with Genesis, sang with Genesis, had a solo career,

Imagine how insane his resume would have looked if in addition to all of the above he also joined the Who and Zeppelin. Though I guess he did sort of do the latter.

I think he mentions in his memoir that Eric Clapton really had no idea who he was or that he was already a successful musician when he hired him, just that he was a good drummer and neighbor.

this is pretty intense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYV6KZpnEak