There is definitely an aspect of his music that is self aware and doesn't take itself too serious, but then he also has very emotional songs.
A guy that loves a musician with two first names name-calling another musician with two first names much to the anger of another guy who loves the other musician with two first names. You should have played "In the air tonight" on the radio while the two were going at it. PS. Best Phil Collins song...
I remember moving to Alaska in 1984. There was no cable there and just one channel that was a hodgepodge of different network shows. My Grandmother gave me a VHS from MTV called "Video to Go." Being my only VHS tape I watched it quite a bit. One of the standouts on there was the live version of "In the Air Tonight." IMO, the live version is so much better. Skip to the 5 minute mark if you don't want to watch the whole thing.
If you like Phil Colins' 80s stuff and have any interest in the nuts and bolts of playing music I highly recomend Leland Sclar's YouTube channel. He played bass on all those albums (he played as a studio musician for James Taylor and Carole King and a bunch of others, too) and was in the band on the tours. I guess he has a whole lot of free time thanks to covid and does regular videos where he rambles a bit stream of consiousness style, occasionally comes with a couple of insider stories from back in the day and then plays along with a track. I'm not a big Phil Colin's guy at all and his videos are really interesting to me, and watching him play up close is impressive. Here's a couple of examples:
Also, this is a great video about the 80s-ist recording technique for drums "gated reverb" and How In The Air Tonight caused it to blow up as a signature technique. In gated reverb, you put huge reverb on the drums so it sounds like you are playing in a cathedral, but there is a volume dependent "gate" that cuts off the sound when it goes below a certain volume. It gives you these huge reverby monster drum sounds but keeps the whole thing from getting super muddy and the drum notes stay discrete. It was ridiculously done to death by the end of the 80s and there was a huge revolt against it in the 90s, but it is a nice little recording technique nuts and bolts thing to be aware of. If you didnt live through 80s hair band gated reverb power ballads the first time around, the technique gives a super impressive sound, I imagine.
I laughed pretty hard at this, if this was intentional it's excellent. Still like Phil Collin's music, classic stuff.
Yes, it's not from the originator but someone had to share this version from back then. Grew out of it, but this is for those that understand. The slow buildup to the drums is still great even now.
Ummm. No. XLR-8 was meant to be a temporary coaster that Astroworld was supposed to test out and then we'd swap it for a better version. Same thing with Thunder River. Six Flags made Astros their b**** and was also why it was destroyed. Only good thing was the guy who justified the demolition was fired for far over valuing the property Astroworld was on, which is still a rodeo parking lot. Batman was made from the Mountain that originally housed the Alpine Sleigh Ride, and for the years I worked there was used as a kinda weird hodgepodge of stuff for the Enchanted Kingdom.