Phil Collins Personal life
 An early theme in Collins’ music, although never specifically mentioned in his albums, involved his then-recent divorce. Two songs he wrote on the Genesis album Duke, Please Don't Ask and the Top 20 hit Misunderstanding, dealt with failed relationships. One year earlier he'd produced and played drums on his friend John Martyn's Grace and Danger, an album whose main theme is also marriage breakup. With the recording of his first solo album, Face Value, Collins attributed his divorce as his main influence.
Collins’ marital frustrations formed the bulk of his first solo album as well as his second album, Hello, I Must Be Going!. With songs such as In The Air Tonight and I Don't Care Anymore, Collins’ early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes. There were occasional poppier influences – Face Value's Behind the Lines, for example, was a jazzy remake of a Genesis song he co-wrote. Face Value was a critical and multi-platinum success, and saw Collins’ profile increase further. However, despite a UK #1 cover of The Supremes' You Can't Hurry Love, on Hello, I Must Be Going!, Face Value's follow-up was seen as overall disappointment by some critics but the album went triple-platinum in the States like its predecessor and the Supremes cover was Phil's first Top 10 US hit (it also hit the Top 10 of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). The album also reached #2 on the UK album chart, spending well over a year there.
A notable episode in Collins’ career took place in 1982, when he produced Something's Going On, a solo album by Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), of ABBA fame. Frida, who had just parted with bandmate and husband Benny Andersson, had been heavily impressed by Collins's solo efforts and the personal, emotional load they conveyed. Consequently, she approached Collins with her own solo project. The resulting album, featuring Collins himself on drums, spawned the 1982–83 international smash hit I Know There's Something Going On (Russ Ballard) and Collins’ duet with Frida titled Here We'll Stay. An edit featuring Frida on all vocals was released as a single. Also, two years previous, he contributed drums to Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record, which was the first record to feature Collins’ signature gated reverb sound, used on a song called Intruder. As the story goes, Gabriel didn't want any metal on the record and asked him to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. The result was the gated reverb sound which Collins invented, with the assistance of studio engineer, Hugh Padgham. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as In The Air Tonight, and Mama by Genesis.
A turning point in Collins’ musical style came when he was asked to compose the title track for the film Against All Odds, a song which he re-worked to become Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) from an original Face Value session out-take entitled How Can You Sit There?. The emotionally charged ballad was an instant classic and shot to #1 in the US but #2 in the UK, unable to get past Lionel Richie's Hello. It is seen by many critics as the beginning of Collins’ move away from his earlier darker and more dramatic material and towards a more pop-friendly, middle of the road, electronic-driven style.
In 1984, Collins garnered attention when he produced Philip Bailey's Chinese Wall album. He performed a duet on one of the album's tracks, Easy Lover which went to #2 on the U.S. pop chart and spent four weeks at #1 in the UK. Collins worked with the horn section of Bailey's band, Earth, Wind & Fire (later known as the Phenix Horns) throughout the 1980s, both on solo and Genesis tracks. By the end of 1984, Collins participated in Bob Geldof's Band Aid charity project, as well as, playing drums on the Band Aid single Feed The World (Do They Know It's Christmas), a drum part he laid down in one take (while being filmed).
Collins with drum set and music stand.Bent on world domination, Collins was invited to perform at Live Aid in 1985, Bob Geldof's charity concert, at both Wembley Stadium in England, and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in the U.S. He accomplished this by performing earlier in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting (on hiatus from The Police), then boarding a Concorde to perform his solo material, and drum for Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia. It is rumored that pop artist Cher was also on the Concorde that day and thought all the pomp and circumstance awaiting Collins upon arrival was for her.) Also around this time, Phil worked with Howard Jones on a single. Howard Jones re-recorded his song No One Is To Blame, off his Dream into Action album, and it featured Phil Collins as drummer, backing vocalist, and producer. He has also played drums on singles for Robert Plant and Tina Turner on their respective albums. He also produced and played drums on the Eric Clapton album Behind the Sun as well as the follow-up, August. His solo success, as well as his concurrent career with Genesis, led to a 1985 cover story in Rolling Stone, with the tag reading Phil Collins Beats the Odds. It has been the only time Collins has been featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Collins released his most successful album, No Jacket Required, earlier that same year. It contained the hits Sussudio, One More Night, Don't Lose My Number and Take Me Home. The album featured Sting, Helen Terry and ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel as backing vocalists. He also recorded the successful song Separate Lives, a duet with Marilyn Martin, and an American number one, for the movie White Nights. Collins had three American number one songs in 1985, the most by any artist that year. No Jacket Required went on to win several Grammy awards including one for Album of the Year.
No Jacket Required received criticism that the album was too safe despite its upbeat reviews and commercial success. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans' expectations next time around. Sussudio also drew criticism for sounding too similar to Prince’s 1999, a charge that Collins did not deny. Nevertheless, the album went straight to #1 in the US (selling faster than Thriller) and UK.
Don't Lose My Number's B-side, the ballad We Said Hello Goodbye, was rediscovered in 1987 by some Midwestern radio programmers who began playing it, and it soon became a nationwide radio hit. It would later be included on the No Jacket Required CD.
In 1988, Collins starred in the movie Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in the 1960s. The movie generated good reviews and Collins did three songs for the movie; Two Hearts - which he co-wrote with legendary Motown songwriter, Lamont Dozier - A Groovy Kind of Love (originally a 1966 hit for The Mindbenders; lyrics by Toni Wine, and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's Sonatina in G major, op. 36 no. 5.), and thirdly he did the lyrics and music for the song Loco In Acapulco, performed by the legendary Four Tops.
In 1989, Collins produced another successful album, ...But Seriously, featuring the anti-homelessness anthem Another Day in Paradise, with David Crosby on backing vocals. (Collins later went on to co-write, sing and play on the song Hero on Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads.) Another Day in Paradise went to Number 1 on the Billboard Charts at the end of 1989 and won Collins a Grammy for Record of the Year (1990). In the process, it became the last #1 US pop hit of the 1980s. The album ...But Seriously became the first #1 US album of the 1990s. He received criticism for the song, though, as he was telling others to give money in order to help the poor and unfortunate while enjoying his millionaire status. Other songs included Something Happened on the Way to Heaven, Do You Remember? (US release only), and I Wish It Would Rain Down (the latter featuring long-time friend Clapton on guitar). Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins’ turn to politically-driven material. This theme recurred on his later albums. A live album, Serious Hits... Live!, followed.
Phil Collins's highest selling album, No Jacket Required, went on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.Collins’ record sales began to drop with the 1993 release of Both Sides, a largely experimental album which, according to Collins, included songs that were becoming so personal, so private, I didn't want anyone else's input. Featuring a less studio-polished sound and fewer uptempo songs than his previous albums, Both Sides was a significant departure. Collins used no backing musicians, performed all the vocal and instrumental parts at his home studio, and used rough vocal takes for the final product. The album was not well received by radio. Its two biggest hits, Both Sides of the Story and the more radio-friendly Everyday, were relatively minor successes compared to the previous commercial success he had enjoyed.
Collins attempted a return to poppier music with Dance into the Light, which Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that (e)ven Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins. It included minor hits such as the title track and the Beatles-inspired It’s in Your Eyes. Although the album went Gold in the US, it sold considerably less than his previous albums. Only the title track made a brief appearance on Collins’ then forthcoming Hits collection. Despite this, its subsequent tour regularly sold out arenas.
In 1996, Collins formed The Phil Collins Big Band. With Collins as drummer, the band performed jazz renditions of Collins’ and Genesis's hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999, the group released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of Invisible Touch, Sussudio, and the more obscure The Los Endos Suite from A Trick of the Tail.
A Hits album released in 1998 was very successful, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in America. The album’s sole new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit True Colours, received considerable play on the Adult Contemporary charts while peaking at #2. Some of Collins’ earlier hits (e.g. I Missed Again, If Leaving Me Is Easy, etc.) and other successes were left off of this compilation.
Collins went further with his next single, You'll Be in My Heart, from the Disney movie Tarzan. The enduring hit spent 19 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart - the longest time ever up to that point - and Collins obtained an Oscar, though critics pointed to strong entries in that category by Aimee Mann, Randy Newman, and the South Park film (whose creators then lampooned Collins in the Timmy 2000 episode). It was his third nomination in the songwriters category, having been previously nominated in 1984.
Such popular satirizing reflected a more widespread criticism of Collins’ work, criticism that began with the success of Follow You Follow Me[citation needed] and which continued throughout his career, as Collins continued to define himself as a middle of the road pop musician. Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found his most recent studio album, 2002's Testify, to be the worst-reviewed album by the time of its release, though it has since been surpassed by three more recent releases. The album also failed to make much impact on the mainstream charts, although its emotional stand-out track Can't Stop Loving You (a Leo Sayer cover) was yet another #1 Adult Contemporary smash hit for Collins. Testify sold only 140,000 copies in the United States by year's end, although a successful worldwide tour followed despite poor album sales.
Audio samples:
In the Air Tonight (1980)
The ambiguous lyrics of Collins's first solo hit, In the Air Tonight, have spawned an urban legend about Collins’ witnessing a murder.
Sussudio (1985)
The dance pop of No Jacket Required, including this number one hit, won Collins a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Another Day in Paradise (1989)
The last of Collins's seven American number one singles, Another Day in Paradise, was a topical song that discussed the plight of the homeless, and won Collins a Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
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The hip-hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony recorded a remake of the song Take Me Home titled Home on their album Thug World Order. The song features verses by the group, with the chorus sung by Collins. Though the BTNH-Collins collaboration was highly criticized in the United States (for example, VH1 rated it #9 on its top 20 least hip-hop moments in history), it received so much positive reception in the UK that Bone Thugs decided to name Collins an honorary member under the moniker Chrome Bone.Collins reported losing his hearing in one ear, and in 2003 announced his last solo tour. He called it the First Final Farewell Tour, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. Collins wanted to complete one last large-scale tour internationally before spending more time with his family. He continued touring through 2006 while working with Disney on a Broadway production of Tarzan, a musical which received generally poor reviews. In 2007, Collins reunited with his Genesis bandmates for a tour of Europe and North America. He accepted an invitation to drum for the house band celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. He has played drums for Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne and Cliff Richard.
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