Did people dislike him?

think sales of his last couple of albums had anything to do with it?

I think that what Mr. Collins is trying to say, is, "Take, take me home. 'Cause I remember."

About ten billion times.

Sounds like he's sick more than anything.

Having read a long interview a couple months back (I THINK it was Rolling Stone??), I think he may have a sense that a number (NOT ALL) of early Genesis fans (including myself) resent the direction the band went after Gabriel left.

Yes, they did make him feel unwanted, I imagine, Renny.

In an interview, he said he's trying to save what's left of his hands for "fixing my food and helping my kids make things." He finally found someone close to his age again and just started a new relationship not very long ago. He, Sir Paul and Michael Jackson are in that rare strata of 150 million plus sales. It seems to exact a tremendous personal toll, as I never expected the ubiquitious Phil Collins to express such self-reproach at the end of his career. In fact, "the Ubiquitous Phil Collins" was a big gag to him by the time of his 1990 tour, my first big show, so he already felt somewhat self-conscious. How rare---embarrassed by super stardom. It's telling how little accolades of that size can mean to the star, who would rather find in himself just one more cutting-edge creation that brings him happiness and tells him something new. He's not going out on work he is ready to defend.

The obit for his career is something deserving of a few more words than I can give it at the moment.

I wonder things like "the words and pain were necessary to hold together his smash solo take-off; but was it just the sound, or was it those words, that created that huge connection?" I think rejection's something common to adolescent and adult alike, creating an emotional state from which expression is crucially difficult. I find it a poignant bookend to his work, that he once again feels rejection. (This may be in part why he's attracted much derision---it may be seen as his indulgence.) Also, you can be a rocker but you can never take people back, in their minds, from a plethora of safe MOR adult contemporary vehicles, from which no star can return to relevance.

There's a reason Neil Young found himself in the middle of the road "so I headed for the ditch."

Billy may have lost his number.

But, in Collins' defense, at the time that Genesis(whether it was primarily Collins' idea or not) turned away from progressive rock(particularly on the album "Abacab", which was a jarring break with the group's past), Punk Rock was reigning in England, and audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were turning against progressive rock. Genesis obviously couldn't go punk, but they did incorporate some "New Wave" influences. The alternative, was to get washed away by the anti-Progressive Rock riptide and (at least temporarily) disband, the way groups such as King Crimson, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Procol Harum & Yes did.

But even I felt that the "Invisible Touch" album blurred the lines between Collins' solo music & Genesis. Then, after the "We Can't Dance" album, Collins' decision to leave Genesis was baffling, since his popularity as a solo artist had already peaked. Since leaving Genesis, Collins DID go too far into the middle of the road, not fully utilising the creativity of which he was capable.

While his recent audio & video projects of Motown cover versions may have been a heartfelt tribute, it is also true that Collins' continued problem with numbness and loss of coordination in his left hand blocks him from playing piano and, therefore writing any originals. The use of the left hand is crucial to Collins drumming, since he is a left handed drummer. You'll note, that, on the internet, opinions both vehemently for and against Collins music and Collins himself are split 50/50. Anyone who reaches Collins' level of success and saturation on the airwaves will eventually encounter a backlash. Paul McCartney encountered a serious backlash for years of refusing to release Beatles outtakes, but after he relented and permitted the "Anthology" projects, some Beatles fans accepted McCartney's solo music again, and importantly, he found new fans with the younger generation. Sometimes, an artist never really recovers from a backlash from the fans. For example, Peter Frampton.

Even if Phil Collins' physical (and apparently) mental problems mean that he can never make music again, he has nothing to be ashamed of. From the time of the lone album by his first group "Flaming Youth"(in 1970) to his latest album "Going Back"(in 2010), the man had a phenominally successful 40 year career, in a business where few performers are lucky to last more than a decade. Such a career can't last forever.

The very visible change in Phil Collins' personality, from a very outgoing "Bloke" to his recent grim, reserved persona, indicates that he is going through serious problems. Obviously, he is distraught over losing the ability to play musical instruments, but in his recent statements in interviews, he seems to be questioning whether his music or his life has any value or meaning, and questioning his desire to continue living. He has said that no one is going to miss him. The people who are saying really nasty things about Collins at this very moment on the internet, are clearly kicking this despondent man when he's down. Whether you like some, all or none of his music, there is no doubt that Phil Collins was a highly professional, capable musician who gave his all to entertain audiences for 40 years.

Can you imagine?

Wow, Phil that was well said. The comment about the left hand really rings home how his escape is cut off. I didn't realize, but suspected, he'd lost his piano playing ability, too. He's going to have to find some light into his being, outside of his achievements, so long the definition of who he is.

I've been writing my Phil Collins love letter all day, it seems.
http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2011/03/th ... nt-of.html is just the last of four posts assessing the impact he had on my own life and his place in the industry over time. He was my first real rock concert.


@Jeff: that's an interesting thought! Yah, that's way over on the playing spectrum, all right. Knowing
that lot, they gave it a try as a (professed) joke!

Anyone hear the story about Phil's meeting with Johnny Rotten in 1978?

Saw Genesis live on their "Mama" tour and Phil solo on his "But Seriously" solo tour, both at the height of his popularity and both were great shows. He, like other singer/songwriters, most notably Sheryl Crow, perform better to me when they have something to be angry about in their life, such as going through a divorce. Phil lost me when he started doing schlocky Disney soundtrack lovesongs. But he was king during the Abacab and self-titled Genesis albums and his first 3 solo cds.

Collins doesn't need to apologize for his success, but when it comes to his critics -- professional or otherwise -- it's hard to deny a lack of essential material (and yes, the word "schlock" does come to mind at certain points) for the past 20 years or so.

"schlock" is a good word.

Having said that, Collins' physical ailments are a cause for sadness. The man is a musician, and that has apparently been taken from him for the rest of his life.

I wouldn't say Phil Collins is the equivalent of John Lennon, but he wrote some good music
over the years. Will he listen to anybody who actually LIKED his songs, or is only reading
snarky posts from his critics?

Like Rodney Dangerfield, the Collins-era Genesis don't get no respect, but any group that could come up with "Land of Confusion" can't be all bad.

A pop masterpiece.
Not many things are more cool than singing about an unbelievable girl who's too hot to hold, and few things on MTV were as unpretentious as the above video. EWF's Philip Bailey is SO awesome here, just an unadulterated tenor with rhythmic flourish that never loses the sense that he's really singing about something that matters.

Cool-as-uncool: the hip-t0-be=square mid 80s. The idea couldn't have asked for a better icon than Phil Collins. You can have a lot of fun poking at his un-rock star look, but when I looked in the mirror those days, I wasn't exactly looking at Rick Springfield or David Bowie myself. His image was, "I'm not going to bother with an image. I'm a tiny bald Englishman who looks like he could be picking up half his fans in a Chevy Astro van after school." He beat you to the joke---or maybe God did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYFw9w_t ... r_embedded from the briefly-lived Insiders TV show, and the album GENESIS.

I guess at worst you could take that as smug, but really, he had the goods: soulful, unique voice, jazz and world music infused rhythms, and an ear for a hook you just couldn't get out of your head. He frankly had too much talent to sit on the sidelines just because he didn't look like Roger Daltrey. But what I think was happening was that punk and individualism and Do It Yourself had touched the mainstream in a cartoony sort of incarnation, and like with any rebellion that fails to change the world in more obvious ways, it left a jaded wake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... uXh3M7bCs4

While Prince was questioning sexuality and spiritual values and Madonna was becoming the It Girl of pop fashion and Bruce Springsteen was just kinda selling out, Phil was delivering the goods in a "new Motown" sensibility, worshipping popular Black music of the late 60s and early 70's. Maybe you looked uncool or unathletic or normal to the point of mediocre, maybe your rebellion wasn't worn on your sleeve, maybe you worked a long job just for the privilege of the occasional lost weekend night. That didn't mean, in some sweet part of your inner world, you do not rock. That you do not have the words for your jealousy, or your overwhelmed feeling the girl you can barely talk to gives you. It's inside you, and that's all that matters.


I think the music scape of popular culture changed a lot after that. It's not just Phil making dentist office music for middle-aged affairs of the heart. He actually self-created in entirety an album called "Both Sides" that came just a little too late for me to get excited, after leaving home and maybe trying to sever the inertia of life as I'd known it, which I thought would lead towards such promises of "normal" success, until I ran out of tests to ace and felt torn towards my daydreams that far outlapped my developed talents.

"Both Sides" is the personal record that would've won a whole new generation of fans, besides the harried couples purchasing Tarzan Happy Meals for the soccer team. The wholesome veneer, and also the heavy identification with the times, meant change would have to sweep it away. Only a complete reinvention keeps an artist caring about their own work; as Bob Dylan put it, "he who isn't busy being born is busy dying."

I don't know if the message really got out to all its listeners---ask Jim Morrison about that one, right---but the style suddenly required the young to try to look outlandish again, and not like your Mommie dressed you. (Though that's how some Mommies dress their kids.) The music was loud still, but disturbing in a more psychotic way, a mix of social consciousness, self-righteousness, and abandoned hope as we watched the wickedness that brought power into the hands of the fewer and found a long list of boring, heartbreaking compromises that awaited our attempts at sanity and success. The lyrics became absurd and pointedly ironic, mocking the formulae of the industry for ITS absurdity---that the business of inspiration and feeling could be relegated and monopolized by focus-group-informed professionals.


For me, the importance of somehow not selling out, of clinging to some sweet bit of freedom and ideals and fun and very serious desire for change, the D.Y.I. ethos I tried to imitate, until I could really no longer live the ordinary life without a non-ordinary way. It meant putting aside the safe and expected to touch the genuine infusion of art touching earlier music, to glory in the risks that seemed now to be the blue print for those who create. It meant trying to hop onto the wave of hot music, getting in the know, staying current, staying as excited about a new cd I'd found as I could possibly be about anything in my life. I had to pose, but I was adamant in that pose.


Maybe I wasn't a suburban Oregon kid with all the latest bootlegs and demos, but I had a sincere yearning that would force me to try, however long it took to complement that desire with accessible performances, and the poverty and the brains to make it truthful and the phrase well-turned... even if almost no one heard it. To this day, it is really all I've got.



I think, for Phil Collins then, he doesn't have that. I would just argue with anyone who said he never did. There WAS a point. He was the rock star of our awkward phase, the appeal to boomers and their children to co-habitate in the same room or car. Maybe his attempt to cash in on his rising star in a fashion we consider the American Dream left open a sensitivity dating back to the days when he waited through 400 auditioners to finally become the new singer for Genesis after brilliant Gabriel left. What we really are, we hardly ever know, but when what we think we are gets too entangled with what others say we are, there can be harsh pains indeed.

But what he came from, I think, was interesting music indeed.

From Billboard.com...

http://www.billboard.com/news#/news/phi ... 1912.story