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?

Black Sabbath

CSNY

Was going to say The Kinks but apparently Pete Quaife died 11 years ago and nobody told me.

The five original members of Manfred Mann, who formed in 1962, are all still alive.

All eight original members of Blood Sweat and Tears (formed 1967) are still around, and none of them have been in the still-existent group since 1977, though I guess their "classic lineup" (such as it is) debuted on the next album.

i had no idea Collins was in such bad condition, much less that he was doing the Solomon Burke stage show. He looks rough for 70.

Per wiki:

In April 2009, Collins had surgery to repair dislocated vertebrae in his upper neck, which arose while drumming on the 2007 Genesis tour. Following the operation, he lost feeling in his fingers and could only grip drum sticks if they were taped to his hands. In 2010, Collins alluded to feelings of depression and low self-worth in recent years and said he had contemplated suicide, but he resisted for the sake of his children. In 2014, Collins said that he was still unable to play the drums and that it was not arthritis, but an undiagnosed nerve problem. In 2015, he underwent a spine operation. In 2016, he said he was still unable to drum with his left hand. His doctor advised him that if he wanted to play the drums again, he would need to practice as long as he took it step by step. In his 2016 autobiography, Collins acknowledged that he had struggled with an alcohol problem following his retirement and third divorce. He also stated that he had been sober for three years.

In January 2017, Collins said he was a type 2 diabetic and had received treatment with a hyperbaric chamber after he developed a diabetic abscess on his foot that became infected. In June 2017, Collins cancelled two shows after he slipped in his hotel room during the night and hit his head on a chair as he fell, resulting in stitches for a severe gash close to his eye. The fall was caused by his drop foot, developed as a result from his back operation.

In 2017, Collins began to use a cane to assist with walking and performed on stage while sitting in a chair.

Please don’t tape drum sticks to Phil Collins hands, it’s not funny.

lol

The guy went from a workaholic so intense he barely drank to stopping work and realizing he had nothing to do all day except chug vodka.

Yeah, I get why people hate Phil, but there's something very sad about his slipping from the bouncing egomanic rock-star with Hollywood pretentions of the 80s, to old man Steptoe now. I mean, he obviously has made terrible decisions in his private life and seemed to have been an awful guy to be married to (or, at least, to be divorced-via-fax by), and his actions towards the Phenix Horns seemed unnecessarily spiteful. But he's aged so hard and so fast. And he was a brilliant drummer BITD, no matter what you think of the songs he wrote and sang.

Chances of him writing a late career masterpiece? Against all odds

But that's the chance he had to take

That song is the apex of "you dumped me but I killed myself, welcome to a life of guilt" songcraft. He's a dark little psycho on the quiet, is Phil. Fuck In The Air Tonight, that's his moment of peak evil.

I fucking love it, as well. There's a masterful self-pity at play in Phil's best work, and when he abandoned it he became as anodyne as his critics always claim.

I cringe every time I see a ‘70s or ‘80s clip of him playing. His posture is atrocious, which is damaging enough during the 90 minutes that he’s on stage, but where it really fucks things up is in the studio. It doesn’t matter how much time is spent actually playing; the hours of between-take discussions and adjustments mean hours of sitting slouchily at his kit waiting to play. Levon Helm and Charlie Watts apparently made adjustments in their posture — compare ‘70s footage to ‘00s — and Larry Mullen had back surgery in 1996. Did Phil just never get the memo? Or did he think he didn’t need to worry about it?

He was busy with larger personal problems

He's a dark little psycho on the quiet, is Phil.

He can wipe off that grin. We know where he's been.

If Australian folk band The Seekers count, they were formed in 1962 and their classic lineup is all still around.

You can tell everyone he’s a darn disgrace, drag his name all over the place, he don't care anymore.

I've never heard anything particularly negative about Phil Collins the person, do people have problems with him?

Alamo historians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY3sBIY0tls

In the UK there's long been an urban myth that he told The Sun he'd leave the UK if Labour came to power in 1997. He divorced a wife via fax.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2018/dec/10/aretha-phil-collins-faxes-famous-divorce-notice

Collins says the persistent rumour that he asked his second wife for a divorce by fax damaged his public persona and was a factor in his decision to retire from music. He insists that it is baseless – although he did fax his wife about their impending divorce. “I was in Frankfurt and sent her a fax because the phone kept going down,” he said in 2016. “I was arranging time to see the kids and referenced the fact that [the marriage] was over, but it was translated as me finishing our relationship by fax.”

Sounds like ex-wife's lawyer angling for an advantage in divorce proceedings tbh.

In the UK there's long been an urban myth that he told The Sun he'd leave the UK if Labour came to power in 1997.

according to the bbc he did: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-32590242

I don't think the BBC have that right - Phil moved to Switzerland in 1996.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if Phil had said he'd leave the UK if Labour came into power, but he's subsequently denied it, and I've never seen anyone actually come up with the Sun story where he said that, which makes me skeptical.

Collins’ biggest regret (apart from covering the sappy Mindbenders hit A Groovy Kind of Love) is talking to the Sun about politics. “Anything!” he clarifies. “I regret talking to the Sun about anything.” On the day before the 1992 general election, Bizarre columnist Piers Morgan quoted Collins as saying: “If they put up taxes, I’d consider going abroad.” This single line, mutated via Chinese whispers into a cast-iron vow to emigrate if Labour won, proved disastrous. “I remember getting letters from nurses saying, ‘That’s it, I’m not buying any more of your records,’” he says glumly. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

Did he ever vote Conservative?

“I didn’t vote, actually. And that’s not something I’m proud of. I was just so busy that I rarely was here.”

There's always been stuff about him supposedly moving to Switzerland to avoid taxes, but his (then) wife was literally Swiss. He said at the time, "Her father was dying of cancer, and her grandmother and grandfather were dying from cancer. So I wasn't going to pull her away from them. So that's why I live here. And the only reason I still live here is because my sons are here." Also, even if true, Collins would only be one in a long line of rich Brit rock stars leaving the country over taxes.

Labour supporter Noel Gallagher was quoted: "Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here. And let's face it, none of us want that." However, Collins has since stated that although he did once claim many years earlier that he might leave Britain if most of his income was taken in tax, which was Labour Party policy at that time for top earners, he has never been a Conservative Party supporter and he left Britain for Switzerland in 1994 purely because he started a relationship with a woman who lived there. He said of Gallagher: "I don't care if he likes my music or not. I do care if he starts telling people I'm a wanker because of my politics. It's an opinion based on an old, misunderstood quote.

pretty sure the Stones didn't live in France just for the baguettes

when pressedf urther Collins merely replied "Fuck You Fuck Me"

...the "gangsta" way he dealt with his wife's affair with his decorator (ie, an ultra-spiteful appearance on TOTP with a tin of paint on the piano).

I went looking for this (from 1981) and found that he repeated this performance, including the paint can, on a special edition of TOTP in 1989.

did Phil Collins kill someone?

y/n

If not him, who dunnit?

He's got a name, he's got a number, he's got a line on you

he said he saw a gorilla running from the scene of the crime.

i bellowed loudly WOT GORILLA?

You misspelled cryme

"Chinese whispers"?

I think he was talking about the Cure EP.

It's what Americans call "telephone" or "whisper down the lane," i.e., a message getting diluted/distorted by repetition, or a self-replicating (ahem) misunderstanding

Please don’t tape drum sticks to Phil Collins hands, it’s not funny.

― Alba, Sunday, September 12, 2021

Not infrequently, the funniest thing I hear all day is on ILM. Today it was this.

"Chinese whispers"?

Yeah, bit surprised the Guardian was using that phrase as late as 2016.

xpost!

Q: What did Phil Collins say when Mike Rutherford was offering the cocaine around at the reunion rehearsals?
A: I'll 'ave plenty! (Aisle of Plenty)

that must be what happened on the way to Heaven

he knows what he likes (in your wardrobe)

Nothing like being in a hardware store in the afternoon with “in the air tonight” playing

I can buy a trowel in this store today
oh lord

If you told me you were leaking
I would not lend a wrench

She calls out to the man in the store
"Sir, can you help me?
My toilet's old and it's starting to leak
Is there something you can sell me?"

They seem to have an acetylene torch yeah

Lol