“Along those lines”: The band Phil Collins always wanted to sound like
There are still members of the rock faithful who would gladly burn Phil Collins at the stake for what he did to Genesis. As much as he could lay down a fantastic drum solo whenever he could, his way with pop melodies was what many fans saw as the reason why one of the greatest prog bands of the last century became neutered beyond recognition in the 1980s. If Collins had had his way, though, his career as a solo artist would have never sounded like ‘In the Air Tonight’ or ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.
At the same time, it’s not like Collins didn’t know what paid the bills back in the day. There were still plenty of prog rock acts trying to muscle their way into the 1980s, but the fact that the drummer had no problems playing pop music was half the reason why the band was kept afloat when working on albums like Invisible Touch and Duke.
And when Collins did manage to go solo, it was not in the way that he intended. He knew that his marriage was falling apart, and if he was going to save it, that meant taking some time off from his old outfit and trying to find some way to mend the fences with his other half. That gave him a lot of time to reflect, and since he wasn’t good with words, Face Value became the album he made to send messages back to his wife.
Considering the pure anger and frustration on ‘In the Air Tonight’, though, Collins had a good knack for writing pop hooks. All of that craftsmanship trying to make side-long epics like ‘Supper’s Ready’ may have been fun, but hearing him trade that in for something as wonderfully simple as ‘Behind the Lines’ or the future Genesis tune ‘Misunderstanding’ was a great change of pace from his usual formula.
That’s not where his heart was, though. During his time off from Genesis, Collins was looking to expand his craft, and that meant going into the world of fusion with Brand X. Although the band were far from hitmakers in their time, they carried themselves like the British equivalent of Weather Report, with Collins throwing in the occasional insane fill to keep his bandmates on their toes.
And as far as he was concerned, that kind of music what he wanted to make had he been able to make a proper solo record, saying, “Had the personal stuff, getting divorced [from first wife Andrea Bertorelli], not happened, I don’t know if I’d ever have made a solo record. I was playing with Brand X at the time, and if I’d made any sort of solo record, it would have been more along those lines – but more elegant, more Weather Report and Wayne Shorter.”
If he couldn’t make the traditional fusion album that he wanted, he would make the pop world conform to his tastes. Despite having one too many synthesisers in the mix on his future releases, getting world-class studio musicians to perform the most demanding solos of the time was a treat for someone who wanted some more substance out of the traditional pop fare of the mid-1980s.
So while Collins does get a lot of justifiable vitriol for going too far into pop territory, there were always a few pieces that dipped their toes back into something more adventurous. It wasn’t going to be easy playing the pop star, but he could still get up to a few surprises when the time called for it.
