The one artist Phil Collins said changed American music

(Credits: Far Out / Warner Music)

Any artist who wants to stick around for a long time must know about pop music’s shifting tides. No one can be at the top of the charts forever, and even if some of their albums don’t reach the same heights as they used to, it’s about keeping tabs on what the new school of artists are doing so that you don’t start looking like yesterday’s news every time you come out with a new album. Although Phil Collins was more than happy to hang things up after a while, he was at least aware when the industry was shifting beneath his feet.

Granted, Collins did at least get a front-row seat to many of the rock movements of old. He was already there in the middle of the prog-rock movement, but before everyone had thoroughly checked out of the late 1960s, he was already there adding the odd percussion sound effect behind the scenes on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. Once he got behind the kit in Genesis, people were introduced to some of the most insane progressive music of the time.

While it would be a hard sell for anyone to get on board with all 20 minutes of a song like ‘Supper’s Ready’ these days, Collins was more than willing to flex his muscles when the time called for it, even if Peter Gabriel was soaking up all the attention in his trademark costumes. Once Gabriel decided to leave, Collins either became the cause of or the solution to all the band’s problems when he stepped behind the microphone.

He never let go of his prog-rock chops, but it was clear that the band were moving in a more pop direction by the time they were making albums like Duke. While his solo career wasn’t too shabby, either, there was a moment where it seemed like even Phil Collins was tired of Phil Collins, whether that was seeing his face plastered on billboards for his new album, playing on Invisible Touch, or even his moments of botching Led Zeppelin’s reunion.

There was hardly anything to worry about as far as Collins was concerned in the 1980s, but the minute everyone started turning their heads towards a particular video in a gymnasium, things began to turn a corner. Nirvana would shift the landscape the minute they arrived with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and while hair metal was the main movement that was wiped out, it’s not like Collins wasn’t caught in the crossfire, either.

“Nirvana and the grunge whatever you want to call it – that’s kind of changing the face of radio in America, for example.”

Phil Collins

Despite showing a different side of himself on the album Both Sides, Collins couldn’t even pretend that Nirvana weren’t slowly taking over the world on the other side of Atlantic, saying in 1993, “I think some of this Nirvana and the grunge whatever you want to call it – I mean, my son keeps coming up with these alternative words for the same kind of music – that’s kind of changing the face of radio in America, for example.”

Punk may have done away with Genesis’s initial prog roots in the 1970s, but Collins didn’t seem to grasp how far out of touch he would be a few years later. Kurt Cobain was more than happy to discuss bands that he didn’t like, but by the time Cool Britannia kicked in after grunge, Collins was being treated like he was a stain on the music industry, to the point where every single Britpop band would be taking a few cheap shots at him to garner a bit more press for themselves.

Since Collins graduated to the same arena as Elton John by soundtracking Disney movies around that time, it’s easy to see why he backed out of making any new material after the early 2000s. He had been on top of the world for longer than anyone could have imagined, but since the tides were shifting, he needed to get out before he started going along with the trends and embarrassing himself.

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