Phil Collins turned 73 the other day.

Collins no longer performs due to age and health reasons, which is very sad…but there was a time when he was ubiquitous to a staggering degree. From the mid-80s to around 2000 or so, you couldn’t get away from the guy. In fact, I actually OD’d on Phil Collins during my college years, which is a shame but also a blessing in disguise, because in recent years I’ve been lucky enough to gradually rediscover him. In his prime he really was an electrifying musician.

Here are a few Phil favorites. This isn’t even close to all of his music that I love, and I’m limiting myself here to just his solo work. I’ve had a long-form essay in my head about the Genesis album Invisible Touch for a few years now….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkGg1bzfSys
(This was my first-ever Phil Collins song. I remember listening to it via MTV and thinking, “Wow, who’s this guy?”)
(Of all the great Phil Collins ballads, this one might be my favorite. From the movie White Nights, this duet–featuring a singer named Marilyn Martin who had a brief career in the 80s, this song is everything an 80s power ballad should be.)

By the way, I should admit that the one Phil Collins song that seems to get the most airplay these days, “In the Air Tonight”, has never been one of my favorites. That’s just how it goes. It always amazes me, though, that Collins could do gentle love songs, emotion-dripping power ballads, fast-paced dance bangers, and then he also did this genre of what I call “noir rock”, very dark and almost harsh songs that showed up in the soundtracks of Miami Vice and the noir-tinged episodes of Magnum PI.

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1 Comment

  1. One of the first times I heard In The Air Tonight was in an early episode of Miami Vice. Very effective.

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