As 2022 begins to pull to a close, it seems almost unbelievable we’ve made it through another year in what feels like the blink of an eye. At Real Gone, we’re getting ready to bring you our highlights for 2022, but first, it’s time for our advent calendar!
Tag Archives: phil collins
The Great 80s Project: 1982
In terms of pop, 1982 was a strong year: Madness took a further step towards songwriting sophistication with their album ‘The Rise & Fall’, Prince made a huge breakthrough with his ‘1999’ double platter of much filthiness and Phil Collins showed us that the previous year’s ‘Face Value’ wasn’t just a one-off solo success when his “tricky second album” spawned a #1 hit single and a few of his best solo tunes.
Love, Loss and The Eternal Soundtrack
At an unspecific point in 1979, my dad arrived home from work carrying a long playing record. It turned out to be the new Police album. At this point, ‘Message In a Bottle’ had been all over the radio and I knew I liked this new music. My mum, on the other hand did not have quite the same enthusiasm; she’s a bit put out that this does not have ‘Roxanne’ on it. Presumably, the album – like others – had been purchased at Barnaby’s, a record shop (no longer there) very near my dad’s then place of employment; a giant tin shed in which he worked with dangerous acidic chemicals and little regard for health and safety. That Police album (‘Reggatta De Blanc’) got played a lot. If I think hard, I can still see Dad sitting by his Fidelity stereo system lifting the needle onto the record and playing the title track over and over and I remember thinking how fitting it was that the word emblazoned on the front looked a bit like the word fiddle. That piece of music must have spoken to him: decades later, he would still attract my attention by calling my name to the tune of that track.
The sight of my dad coming home with new music in this way was not entirely uncommon.
The Big Genesis Poll, part 2: the results
Running a second poll for Genesis covering their more commercially sucessful (and arguably more radio friendly) years was always going to divide opinion. Naturally, as Real Gone’s last poll shows, there are many people very keen on the 70s prog side of the band who just never took to the more commercial Genesis. Likewise, the band picked up fans throughout the 80s who just never quite understood the earlier work.
THE BIG GENESIS POLL: Part Two, The Pop/Rock Years 1978-97
When Steve Hackett left Genesis at the end of the ‘Wind & Wuthering’ tour in 1977, for some of the more dyed-in-the-wool prog fans, that signified too much of a potential change waiting in the wings. The fact that the three-man band of Phil Collins (drums/vocals), Mike Rutherford (guitars/bass) and Tony Banks sounded more commercial upon their return and even scored a genuine hit single with a pop ballad marked the end for some. For those, supper had gone cold. For the fans Genesis lost at this time, their new, more commercial sound gained new fans in droves and although the band became far less prolific – partly due to all three members embarking on extra-curricular recording – it marked the beginning of a very commercially successful decade.