Three boos for those rotten spoilsports who started an online petition against Phil Collins coming out of retirement (there’s already enough suffering in the world, they said). Fools. Don’t they realise pop music is supposed to be naff? It’s the soundtrack to our tawdry lives. How could it be anything but schmaltzy? Don’t they know there’s nothing quite so uncool as a bloke with really cool taste in music? Like a large penis, a large record collection is something that only impresses other men.
Phil Collins fulfils all the basic job requirements of a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road rock star. He writes undemanding songs about falling in and out of love. He can carry a tune. He can bash out a few chords on the piano. Unlike most pop stars, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, so why is he so derided? I reckon it’s because his best songs are about male heartbreak, and heartbreak is something no man likes admitting to. A tearful girl is a romantic heroine. A tearful man is a drunken loser.
Like millions of menopausal saddoes, my heart was broken to the strains of Phil’s first solo album, Face Value. This supremely soppy LP went quintuple platinum in the UK and sold millions more in the US, yet I’ve never seen a copy of it in any record collection other than my own. What happened to all those records? Where is everybody hiding them? The other day, I spotted a CD of his Greatest Hits in my local charity shop. I was too embarrassed to buy it (it felt like buying a porn mag) but when I went back the next day, it had already gone.
The reason Phil sells so many records (I feel we’re now on first name terms) is that his suburban ballads are really rather good.
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