Philip David Charles Collins

The Early Genesis Years

or the next five years Collins played drums, sang, wrote and arranged songs, played sessions, and generally helped Genesis become one of the leading lights in the Progressive rock field. Such classics as "Supper's Ready", "Watcher of the Skies", "The Cinema Show" and "Get 'Em Out by Friday" all bear the trademark Collins feel. The stunning "Apocalypse in 9/8" section from "Supper's Ready" is the group at it's creative peak, and Collins is in there driving it all along. He even had time to join jazz-fusion rockers Brand X, with whom he recorded several albums.

When Gabriel quit the group in 1975, the music press jumped on the 'Genesis to split' bandwagon, the band of course carried on and Collins stepped up to the microphone and ended up sounding more like Gabriel than Gabriel did.

A Trick of the Tail and its follow up Wind and Wuthering, were two well-received and successful albums and put Collins well and truly in the spotlight. By now he was writing more so it was only a matter of time before the solo career arrived.

In 1980 he played drums on Peter Gabriel's third solo album and at the singers request left his cymbals at home. The resulting 'in your face' bombastic drum sound was put to good use by Collins on his debut solo single "In The Air Tonight" released in Jan 81, it raced to no.2 in the UK and achieved a top twenty position in the USA.

His first solo album, Face Value, sold by the truckload and was a number one smash, but again rumours about Genesis splitting up were proved to be wrong. The band decided on a kind of group album then solo album policy, which kept both camps happy. The album made Collins an instant solo star.

In Nov 82 his second album Hello I Must Be Going hit the number 2 spot, and provided him with a number one single, an uptempo cover of the old Supremes song "You Can't Hurry Love". Many old time Genesis fans found all this three minute pop song stuff hard to swallow, but the sales of both band and solo artist kept on rising. And as Collins once said "You don't wear the same clothes you wore ten years ago do you?" Some old Genesis fans obviously did.

Part Three of the Phil Collins' biography | Back to the Phil Collins Main Page