t's seemingly just another day in paradise for Phil Collins. Here he is, sipping champagne in a luxurious suite of an elegant New York hotel, the kind with a tuxedoed attendant in every elevator. Promotional chores for the day are winding down, and his wife and infant daughter are eagerly awaiting his arrival upstairs.

The man's new solo record, ...But Seriously, is already a certified smash, but there's a metaphorical cockroach scurrying across the floor of his room in Utopia. You see, Phil just isn't getting the media respect he feels he deserves, and the more he insists, 'It doesn't really bother me," the more you know it is gnawing away at him like the hunger inside the bellies of the poor and homeless he has taken to writing songs about.

Without reading the early reviews, it wasn't hard to guess what my fellow cynics would be writing on Collins new numbers, like Hang In Long Enough, Colours and the first hit single, Another Day In Paradise. For a man associated with sentimental movie theme songs, '60s covers and inoffensive R&B tinged pop to suddenly transform himself into yet another spokesperson for the downtrodden has clearly proved too much for many to swallow and Phil quickly strides to his own defence "Yes, I'm projecting a different side, but people don't think there's any sincerity in that, and that's what annoys me," he says. "I don't mind if people don't like the music [Whew, thanks Phil] - well, I mind, but I can handle that - but there's been a questioning of my sincerity in doing a song like Paradise. "They insinuate that I've got a lot of money so what do I know about the homeless and the poor, and that's absolute rubbish. I see what is happening on the street from my car, the same as everybody else. I see life, I don't live in a cocoon, so I get insulted when people assume my reasons for doing it are wrong or dubious."

He has a point. Millionaire pop stars like Neil Young and Tracy Chapman are allowed to write about the poor without renouncing their wealth and moving to the gutter, but apparently not Phil Collins.

"Exactly!" he exclaims. "It's because people put me in the balladeer box and think I'm not capable of doing anything of substance. That's what your cynic will think, and I get peeved off with it. You're not allowed to develop, to enlarge and broaden your horizons."

The Collins world view was due for a little expansion. Here's a man who titled his last solo album No Jacket Re-quired (1985) after being annoyed that his expensive leather jacket didn't comply with a hotel dress code, and whose earlier attempts at social commentary included the bad taste satire of the Genesis single and video Illegal Alien.

Is the change for real? Well, the serious face Collins has put on for our conversation is not that of a fraudulent bandwagoneer. Within the industry he's recognized as one of the most honest and likeable of stars, and the two interviews I've done with him (conducted seven years apart) elicit nothing to suggest otherwise. Personally, I find Phil's mix of whitebread soul (if George Bush sang R&B, this is how he'd sound) and banal lyrics close to unlistenable, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used car from him.

Collins links his heightened social consciousness to that of pop music in general. "My last [solo] album was before Band and Live Aid, when there was suddenly more awareness and people were actually doing something. This is the first opportunity I've had to reflect that in my writing. Everyone is cynical about charity, but the problems addressed by Live Aid are still there. People are still starving; the money hasn't arrived. On Colour, [an eight-minute epic], I wanted to get across a simple point - that each of those kids you saw on the famous famine footage has a name. They have a mum, clad, brothers and sisters. And there's anger in the second half of the song - how much longer do the have to be told it's getting better when nothing changes?"

Phil's on a roll now: "I'm not saying I've taken serious pills and want to be an angry young man or tortured artist. But I have something important to say, so at least give me a bit of credit that it's not just Phil Collins trying to make money. It's obscene, some of the ways people will assume why people do things!" Case closed.

Its surprising to realize that it's almost five years since Collins last solo venture, for he has continued to inhabit the airwaves. 'There was Gene-sis 1986 album, Invisible Touch, the hit duet with Marilyn Martin on the White Nights theme, Separate Lives, further production and session work, and, of course, his acclaimed film debut in Buster and the associated hit singles, Groovy Kind Of Love and Two Hearts (One Mind).

"I can see why people think, 'He hasn't been off the radio,'"' Collins concedes, "but, unfortunately, people still play the old stuff, too. I can't physically go round to all the stations and withdraw the records!"

Collins' apparent Midas touch is surely the envy of his peers. If we mere mortals go through a divorce, all we get is angst and alimony - Phil gets the fodder for hit albums. His first two efforts, Face VaIue and Hello, I Must Be Going drew largely from the turmoil of his first wife's dramatic departure in 1978. The. man can, seemingly, do no wrong.

"I didn't sit down to make Groovy Kind Of Love a hit," Collins demurely protests. "I did two verses, gave them to the producer, and they took it out of context. It was suddenly made a key song, so we reworked it for the soundtrack album and, of course, it was released as a single. To me it wasn't a solo thing but that's how the average person saw it. ...But Seriously is kind of a reaction against that."

Would it be healthy to have a complete flop sometime? "Well, the movie was a flop here, wasn't it?" he considers, "even though it was a huge success in England. I've had my share of failures, especially production-wise. Philip Baileys Easy Lover was a hit, but the Chinese Wall album was a relative flop, as were the two Eric Clapton albums [Behind The Sun, August). Most people don't talk about their failures, but I do it here to prove a point - that it hasn't been a bed of roses."

Yet the proverbial aroma of roses generally permeates the air that surrounds Collins. Even negative reviews of the flawed Buster praised Phil's convincing performance as Great Train Robber Buster Edwards. "That was the consoling factor to the North American reaction," he admits. "For a musician trying to act, that was gratifying. Buster was a good audition piece for me."

Buster, the movie and the man, are clearly still close to Collins' heart ("Buster's a good mate of mine now. I like him and his wife a lot."). The role seemed tailor-made for Phil. He has the appearance of a smalltime crook - maybe it's the receding hairline and the semblance of a scar on the corner of his mouth - but claims he is "too sensible to ever have become a criminal. I always had a goal, a dream of a different type - music. While other kids were out scrumping apples, I'd be playing the drums. I never had the opportunity to have a misguided youth!"

Associating with the criminal underworld via Edwards, however, clearly thrilled Phil. "I'm privy to some information Buster gave me, but it such a shame it can't be used," he suggests conspiratorially- "People would be in an uproar. If they thought the film was in bad taste... well!"

Film will clearly be a big part of the Phil future - He's been developing a version of The Three Bears to co-star fellow short thespians Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, to whom he has often been compared. Like another high-concept film, the DeVito, Schwarzenegger sight-gag Twins, you can already visualize the promo poster.

"I'd' like to see that through on principle," Collins confides, "but both Danny and Bob say, rightly, 'Let's see the script. If it's good, we'll do it.' This is kind of too early for me. I'm relatively powerful enough in the world of music to do what I want, but not so at all in film. I can't just walk in and say, 'I have an idea, guys. Take this down.' I haven't been sent much I'd consider doing. Sometimes there'll be a part I'd like, but they want me the next week - I can't drop everything and do that, so the timing is a bit tough."

Don't dismiss Collins as just another dilettante pop star with Brando on the brain. He was actually a genuine child star on the London stage, appearing in the West End as The Artful Dodger in the long-running musical Oliver.

"That was the first thing I did, and I enjoyed that, but I don't have such fond memories of the times after," he says. "When I stopped doing that, it was goodbye and good riddance, and it was 17 years before I ventured back with Miami Vice. I vowed never to act again because of a couple of things that happened," he continues, cryptically. "You can be prepared to take the bullshit if you really love something, and in music you take a huge amount of B.S. On the way to one gig in Wales with Genesis, we broke down three times on the motorway, arrived too late to play the gig, and broke down twice on the way home. But I wasn't prepared to take that in acting."

The young Phil was performing as soon as he could walk. "My mum and dad were in a yacht, cabin cruiser club, and I was playing drums there, at eight, and doing pantomimes. I've always been out in front of an audience, so I never get scared. But I don't think stage work is beneficial for film; any small move seems so huge. For film, you have to speak quieter, slower, as the camera is right there. I had to learn that for Buster - after 10 months touring with Genesis, I was projecting as a stadium rocker."

Ah yes, Genesis. Just another of the hats Phil Collins, the Renaissance Man of Pop, continues to wear. He's been part that durable group for 20 years now, and remains content with the coexistence of solo and band careers. While former art-rock peers like Yes and Pink Floyd fight internecine legal battles (over inflatable pigs, fer chrissakes!), Collins and comrades Mike Rutheford and Tony Banks remain friends.

"It is extraordinary," admits Phil. "We all like each other and enjoy writing together, so we'll carry on. Bands like The Who exist with friction that makes them what they are, but we enjoy each others company. Most bands like us split up, stop working together, then reform. We do the same thing - not working together for two years - but we don't split up ."

Through the '80s, Genesis has drifted away from the progressive rock roots of the Gabriel era into a smoother, mainstream pop sound, but Collins is unrepentant over the stylistic shift.

"On a generous day I'll blame me for the change, but I just think it is us growing up, listening to different things. We were always a group of songwriters who would write three-, 10- and 20-minute songs. We still write 10-minute songs, like Last Domino, but, unfortunately, the three-minute songs have gotten better and become hits. I don't feel we've bastardized the way we were, as we still work the same way. Diehard fans will say, 'Rubbish. Carpet Crawlers, I Know What I Like - that was progressive!' But I don't see that. We'd have killed for hit singles back in the early days.

Collins is undoubtedly the most visible and popular member of Genesis, but he stresses he is "just an equal member - I don't dominate Genesis, it's just that since Duke [1980], I've become an equal third. To those that wish I'd go back to being subservient to Mike and Tony, well, we're all changing. I answer those fans by saying: 'Do you still wear bellbottoms, read the same books, like the same kind of girls? Of course not. Well, we don't like the same kind of music. Allow us to change."'

Collins has ambivalent feelings about the killing currently being made by rock superstars even older than Genesis. "There's something funny when you get John Entwistle saying. 'We're just doing it for the money'. I suppose I can understand that kind of mercenary attitude, but you don't really want to have it as a reality. But people like events, and a lot of younger bands just aren't capable of putting on an event like the Stones. There should always be someone like the Stones around, as a yardstick to judge others by. The Stones are the Stones, but The Who aren't really The Who anymore - the edge of danger of Moon has gone. Yet I've benefited from them coming back, as I've been able to play with them [during recent charity performances of Tommy] - [they were among) my heroes."

Phil is hoping his good mate Eric Clapton resists the temptation to reform Cream. "He's getting a lot of pressure from Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, but I know he won't do it. Don't let me down, Eric! It would be a serious mistake. Sometimes you just don't want to f**k around with the memories."

Miles Davis and Aretha Franklin ("but not as a duet, too obvious") are singled out as artists Phil would love to work with in the future, but he is wearying of his image as an always willing workaholic.

"People say, 'Oi' Phil will do it, he's a work-horse," he complains, "but I realIy wish I worked less. It's such a roundabout, and it's hard to get off. Whereas there's someone like Elton John, who I like a lot - at rehearsals for Tommy I asked if he was playing. He says, 'No, I blew the tour out. I had enough.' I thought, what a brave man to do that. I don't know what is the best or most decent way [to do things], but sometimes I envy that attitude. A couple of times I've cancelled shows because my throat gave out, and I got such abusive letters. 'How f**king dare you! I spent $40 on tickets, gas, babysitter, and you let me down' as if I just said, 'Forget it - there's something good on TV tonight.' That's a big decision for me."

Fortunately Phil doesn't lapse into the whiney self-pity of some prima donna pop stars. "It gets tiring, but it's not a real job, is it? It's not hardship, it's hotels like this. You're like a schoolboy in a way. They give you a ticket and a key and put you in the car."

To ease some of his workload, it is suggested that Phil should sample his own patented drum sound and send it off to all those clamoring for his percussive services.

"I'm naive enough to be flattered by being sampled, but I feel you only get half the story with sampling. The sound is just half of it; you need the taste and personality to know what to do with it. I've been playing drums since I was five, and I'm now 38. In all those years, something develops. If not, I'd shoot myself! So when you get what you think is a Phil Collins drum sound, it is only a sound, so I'm threatened by it. If people recognize it as my drum sound, well, you're still getting, talked about, so you can't lose."

As a sideman, Collins has provided sterling support for such luminaries of British music as Brian Eno, John Cale, Robert Fripp, Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant, and he acknowledges working with Eno and Gabriel as real inspirations.

"You can go through periods of coasting where nothing new motivates you, then suddenly something happens and the world is different," he explains. "One was working with Eno on Another Green World [1974]. We became quite friendly and, partly from him, I got my demo approach. He'd come into the studio with a Revox tape he'd done the night before and he wouldn't be worried about hisses or clicks. If it had spirit, he'd use it, and that's what I did on my first three solo albums.

"And I got a surge from working on Peter's third album [Peter Gabriel (1980)]. He'd say, 'No cymbals! I don't want any metal on this record!' I was used to his bloody-minded reasoning from Genesis. I was living at his house when he wrote Biko and No Self Control - it was great to be part of the birth of that stuff. People would say In The Air Tonight [Phil's first solo success and arguably still his best song] was a Gabriel rip-off, but I was there. To me it's as much my sound as Peter's. If only some people would know that, it may change their opinion of me."

Ah, yes. Respect and the lack of it. With his publicist signalling from across the room we wander back to the same note that we began with, but Phil has more pressing concerns.

"Must go and see my wife," he interrupts, acknowledging the waves, "if I've still got one. Had one this morning!"

Collins is assured that wife Jill answered the phone in his room an hour before, but the report that his baby girl was heard crying in the back-ground kicks his chic loafers into overdrive. "I'm going right up there," he declares, and off he goes.

The nicest guy in pop? Quite possibly.