The singer Phil Collins never wanted to hear about again: “Soft, spineless music”
Phil Collins didn’t necessarily sign up to have the solo career that he had once he left Genesis.
He never wanted to be the pop-crooning balladeer that he would turn into, and even when he did have some of the schmaltziest songs in rock and roll history to his name, he still wanted to remind people that he hadn’t lost his chops when it came to making rock and roll or soul music. He was a lot more than the average pop star strutting his way across the MTV stage, and he made sure to stay as far away from the more disposable artists as he possibly could when crafting his tunes.
What, don’t believe me? OK, well then, let’s look at every single one of the collaborations that he had done during this time. Sure, there were truly cursed mashups that didn’t make any sense when he collaborated with people like Bone Thugs-n-Harmony later on in his career, but when he started turning in time with everyone from Robert Plant to Eric Clapton to David Crosby to Philip Bailey, it was almost as if he was truly to remind people that he was a lot more than the drummer that lucked into a solo career.
He wanted to prove to everyone that he had a lot more to offer than just a bunch of syrupy ballads, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t great at the mellow stuff, either. ‘Another Day in Paradise’ is still one of the finest ballads that he has ever made, and not many people can have songs that were so good for a Disney soundtrack that they were able to give Elton John a run for his money with his Lion King songs.
But there were more than a few people who had a few too many similar traits to what Collins was doing back in the day. Plenty of artists have tried their hand at getting on pop radio with a few gorgeous ballads, but whereas you could feel everything that Collins was saying whenever he played tunes like ‘Both Sides of the Story’ or ‘Against All Odds’, there was something too artificial to the way that Barry Manilow sang.
Keep in mind: this is what the consensus was around Manilow in rock and roll circles. No matter how much of a classic tune like ‘Mandy’ might be today, Manilor was slowly turning into the most syrupy balladeer that everyone loved to clown on for being too soft, and even though Collins was in a similar camp, he was going to do every single thing he could to disassociate himself from that side of pop music.
Compared to his own music, Collins felt that Manilow was all fluff and would prefer never to hear about him if he could help it, saying, “I’ve been taken less seriously because I’ve been more popular–I’m cast aside as some sort of Barry Manilow. I find it frustrating. [My songs have] a heartfelt thing in it, it comes from someplace deeper, and that comes through in the songs, I think. It hits the chord of truth. [Manilow] defines a certain area of music to me: soft, spineless music.”
There are probably countless people who think that Collins is describing his own music when talking about his problems with Manilow, but there is a lot more nuance to a lot of his songs than most people realise. For one thing, Collins knows how to define the rhythm better than anyone else, and when he structures his melodies, he does at least have the foresight to know when he’s getting a little bit too saccharine. He can save that for when he’s working for ‘The House of Mouse’, but for every tune like ‘One More Night’, there’s ‘In The Air Tonight’ to balance everything out.
So when there is someone like Manilow that defines a certain brand of pop music, Collins knew that they were nothing alike in any way, shape or form. Both of them had their love of beautiful melodies, but compared to the heavy-hitting side of Collins’s sound, Manilow was the kind of person who made the softest version of soft rock, so that his tunes ceased to have any real guts to them.
