The “neurotic” prog-rock band Phil Collins always hated: “I don’t like the music”
Although former Genesis drummer Phil Collins is considered something of a dubious character when it comes to rock music, his contributions to 1980s pop hits don’t outweigh his early contributions to the progressive rock movement he helped mould. But it did diminish it a little.
No matter how wild and weird prog-rock could get, Collins’ pop hits, white trainers and stonewash blue jeans, were certainly capable of tarnishing any unique appeal he had on the rock genre. But Collins has always loved the genre, pioneering some of the most popular prog sounds on A Trick Of The Tail following the departure of Peter Gabriel from Genesis.
Throughout his career, Collins has often touched the bands that influenced him most, from The Action to The Beatles, but bizarrely, it was his prog contemporaries that mystified him most, once mentioning a key band to come out of the genre that he never understood.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer formed in the same year Collins joined Genesis, and that’s about as far as their connection goes because Collins’ verdict on them was summed up by the somewhat dismissive confession they were “not for me, musically”.
Made up of drummer Carl Palmer, keyboardist Keith Emerson, and bassist and singer Greg Lake, the power trio turned the niche prog sound into a stadium-filling spectacle. But Collins remained unimpressed, once saying in an interview: “I don’t like ELP. I don’t like the way they are, as people. Emerson’s alright. I don’t like Carl Palmer’s drumming. I don’t like the music.”
But that doesn’t seem to matter to all his Genesis bandmates. Tony Banks, in fact, claimed that Keith Emerson was the only true “prog God” after watching Rick Wakeman receive a similarly deified notoriety at an awards show. But not all bands are completely aligned on what they like and dislike.
“It wasn’t just that Keith was an accomplished musician, which of course he was, but the fact that he was doing things nobody had ever done before,” Banks wrote, eulogising the late musician in a 2016 issue of Prog Magazine. “In that sense, his impact was comparable to that of Jimi Hendrix.”
Collins reasoned that it was “much too neurotic” for his tastes, adding it was also “too on one level”, which was a familiar criticism for prog bands. For listeners outside the genre, its rambling run times and conceptual themes could come off fairly one-note, which was very much the case for Collins.
He compared the breadth of their output to Brain Salad Surgery’s ambitious 30-minute ‘Karn Evil #9’, concluding: “I like new rock and roll, I like Mahavishnu neurotic. It seems to be done with taste.” Mahavishnu, meaning the jazz fusion orchestra formed in New York City in 1971, were a far bigger hit with the Genesis drummer than ELP’s expansive oeuvre ever was.
However, this could be down to the fact Collins hadn’t listened to them that much, which he freely admitted in the same interview he was quick to dismiss them in. “To be fair, I haven’t listened to that much ELP,” he said. “But what I’ve heard, and I’ve seen backstage. I just don’t like them.”
But in a diplomatic turn, Collins did say he never doubted that the trio were “excellent” musicians. “I don’t like the kind of things that [Emerson, Lake & Palmer] did. But the sound on the record is a fine sound. And of the three of them I like Emerson, mainly because he used to say nice things about us,” he said.
For all of Collins’ criticisms of ELP, and particularly Palmer’s drumming, the pair were reportedly good friends in 2021, with Palmer praising Collins’ son, Nic, and his drumming ability. Clearly, saying nice things is the way to go when it comes to a Collins compliment.
