(Ross Marino) Pop music gets accused more than any other music genre of being corny, lame or an easy way to sell out. As someone who unironically loves the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, ‘N Sync and plenty of other bubblegum, teen pop from my generation, I simply can not agree with this. On top of that, the biggest, most influential band in music history—the Beatles—are just as much pop as they are rock. I don’t think anyone would argue Paul McCartney is more rock than pop. One of the famous pop artists regularly singled out as alleged cheesy ‘corporate pop’ is Phil Collins. A lot of the pooh-poohing Phil’s consistently received stems from the polarizing change in the band Genesis’ sound when he took over as frontman after original singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel abandoned ship in 1975. Though both Phil and Peter went full pop in the 1980s, 1970s era Genesis with Peter leading the way was primarily prog-rock. Rock elitism aside, I personally enjoy Phil’s ‘80s outputs with both Genesis and his solo work as much as Peter’s solo work [I’m in the minority who just don’t care that much for early Genesis]. Come at me, but I listen to ‘Duke’ (1980) and ‘Abacab’ (1981) more than ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ (1974). I mean, if Peter is the man who gave us ‘Games Without Frontiers,’ ‘Sledgehammer’ and ‘Solsbury Hill;’ then Phil is the guy who gave us ‘In the Air Tonight,’ ‘Against All Odds’ and ‘I Don’t Care Anymore.’
I liked his music when he was with Genesis best, but Also liked his latest stuff as a solo artist. Good article.
One of my favorite.
Paper Late is a good tune.
Love him.