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The Sea Cat 3608 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 20:08
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Fair enough, but I do think the chap's becoming The Wicker Man for all things naff and 80s parp, deservedley so OF COURSE in that respect ( no one forces a highly lucrative solo career on you that sets you up for life and then some) but, and it's a big BUT, that fucking amazing drumming on so many amazing records ?
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The Sea Cat 3608 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 20:19
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His horrible solo work aside ( R & B is Otis and friends, always ; ), when I hear certain albums of that Genesis/Brand X/Fripp/Eno etc stuff, you can be left with no other conclusion than the guy was a phenomenaly talented musician and that's why so many people who we still rightly respect regarded him as the drummer of choice. He does deserve that!
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 21:29
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Collins ruined my TOTP childhood. Every feckin week it'd be him or Genesis (his solo stuff seemed to run in tandem with group releases) in his tank top and slacks and sneakers convincing my young impressionable ears that trumpets do indeed, *sound like that*. So, for years and years, I pathalogically hated him. I wasn't aware of *early* Genesis as a nipper, and although they're hardly my fave prog lot, I have grown to find him ok by dint of and the fact he's a nice bloke really. And yes, he can drum. So full circle, almost. :-) x
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zerkalo 488 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 22:06
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRBA36on1lc sorry couldn't resist
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vince 1628 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 22:41
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zerkalo wrote: Nope. Not even going to. I know you lot only too well & my day is going swimmingly without any evil getting thrown into the mix. So there.
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keith a 9574 posts |
Sep 08, 2010, 23:47
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I'm sure he's probably a nice guy and sure he's a talented drummer who's played on some interesting records. I even liked some of the early post-Gabriel material like the Spot The Pigeon ep at the time. And - confession time! - I even bought the In The Tonight single at a time when I was more into the long mac brigade acts. And yes, he came across pretty well in that recent article. BUT... That doesn't alter the fact that he's made some of the most dreadful music of the past 30 years or excuse his dancing with Philip Bailey or mean that he hasn't given off a whiff of unbearable naffness for way too long. If he'd stuck at what he's best at - hitting some large tubs - then a lot of us would think better of him. On the other hand, he wouldn't have quite so many millions. You can't have it all ways!
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Sep 09, 2010, 09:15
Sep 09, 2010, 06:56
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zphage wrote: Maybe this is the turning that inevitably happens to once vilified commercial acts: ABBA, ELO, Bread, Carpenters, Beach Boys, Four Seasons, Association, Etc., Not to mention Queen who were just as uncool as Genesis in NME circles between Punk Rock and Fred's demise. All it takes is a couple of hipster acts to say they like something a bit outre and guilty pleasure-ish and suddenly all is forgiven. Even LZep's rep got a re-fit in the mid 80s and Floyd's too in the late 80s early 90s.
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Sep 09, 2010, 07:34
Sep 09, 2010, 07:12
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keith a wrote: I'm sure he's probably a nice guy and sure he's a talented drummer who's played on some interesting records. I even liked some of the early post-Gabriel material like the Spot The Pigeon ep at the time. And - confession time! - I even bought the In The Tonight single at a time when I was more into the long mac brigade acts. And yes, he came across pretty well in that recent article. BUT... That doesn't alter the fact that he's made some of the most dreadful music of the past 30 years or excuse his dancing with Philip Bailey or mean that he hasn't given off a whiff of unbearable naffness for way too long. If he'd stuck at what he's best at - hitting some large tubs - then a lot of us would think better of him. On the other hand, he wouldn't have quite so many millions. You can't have it all ways! You're not wrong. No one can have it both ways. I was a huge Genesis fan in my early teens (right up there in the Art Rock stakes with Bowie and Roxy and Yes) but the records of theirs I play the most are the three studio albums and the live record from when PC first took over as front man. It's just unassailably great melodic Prog without too much of the clever-clever ELP type stuff. There is nothing at all look-at-me about it. For me in that period they fulfilled what the likes of Caravan and Camel and the Moody Blues and Rod Argent and the Fairports had started in terms of producing a distinctively English song-oriented ensemble rock music that was detatched from Blues Rock and R&B. Ditto the first three Brand X albums. They are incredibly focused records. Unlike most Jazz Rock. And yes they also sound strangely un-American. It all stems from the drum stool I think. And the absence of much that sounds like it comes from the Blues. They shoulda been on ECM really. And his first solo album has an awful lot going for it. So even if we want credit Gabriel and Hackett with all the good early Genesis records, PC was directly responsible (and de facto leader) on six really good / borderline great albums from a time when making traditional rock music of any worth was no easy thing. Yes he has made a lot of terrible records but there were a lot of artists who made their name pre Punk who cashed in their chips in an undignified fashion in the 80s pandering to MTV in the worst way - Winwood, Palmer, Clapton for three. I would put Bowie in that category too. And Rod.
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machineryelf 3681 posts |
Sep 09, 2010, 07:39
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Brand X -good!!! wtf have you put in your coffee this morning joking aside I remember regarding the first Gabriel and Collins solo albums as a sort of ying/yang thing, and expecting Collins to be writing Biko by his 3rd [got that wrong]Dire Straits were still a tad alternative too, and everyone who wasn't a diehard Joy Division fan thought Paul Young was leading the way for Altrock to enter the mainstream, even Chris De Burgh had still not fallen prey to space lizard occupation PCs being problem was he was at the cutting edge of prog rock mutating into surbuban coffee table ooh lovely production values drivel,and given his ''film'' career and the fact that his cheeky chappy persona meant he garnered more column inches than the rest of the world combined led to him being Mr 80s rock personified. The crap records,divorce by fax and the I'm a Tory me were just the icing on the cake
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Sep 09, 2010, 12:44
Sep 09, 2010, 07:59
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machineryelf wrote: PCs being problem was he was at the cutting edge of prog rock mutating into surbuban coffee table ooh lovely production values drivel, True, he was but he wasn't the only one. He was just the easiest target. And the way the music press and media totally abandoned long-form rock music in 76/77 was a fairly scandalous exercise in collective amnesia. A lot of the music that was made between say 74 and 76 was terrible and the change in drugs-of-choice did bad things to people's egos but I think it took the best part of 15 years for English music to recover from the Flat Earthism of Punk. Punk just left the middle ground open to MTV and the greedheads and 100% focus on singles rather than 40 minute musical experiences. Baby. Bathwater. If you set aside the Prog and Psych revivalists like Marillion it was a lonely empty road for original long-form English rock music between say "Awaken" and "Laughing Stock" or "Laser Guided Melodies". You can maybe blame Phil Collins for opening the door to the likes of the Lighthouse Family but he didn't create an audience for that bilge. I blame Thatcher myself and the idea of "good taste" being something consistent that you can take off the shelf at Habitat. Used to be that people who took the fast track into middle age had Johnny Mathis, Bert Kampfert or Vicki Carr or whatever. Now even people who know they are uncool want to give the impression that they might be cool because everyone else does. Every *** in Tescos under 40 loooks like they might work for an ad agency or record company. What used to be hard-won and require imagination is now just off the peg. So there had to be off-the-peg rock music to go with it. This explains so much. Anyway most rock artists only have five really good years. Some a lot less than that. People feel free to out on a limb and then once they have a bit of a success and start having kids and suchlike then the pressure to be more commercial gets pretty intense. They've suddenly got managers, accountants fees, lawyers bills etc etc digging into the money and pushing their agenda and then it stops being about four or five mates getting their music out there and living in each other's pockets. That's when bands start sacking core members and replacing them with hired hands. It's when lead singers start thinking about having 100% of the pot rather than 20%. Sad but true. I think his good five years from say Selling England to And Then There Were Three were pretty great by pre Punk standards.
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