COOP's RARE DON JOHNSON TWO LIVE AID PHOTOS OF THE DAY!


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I remember he introduced Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  I was working at MTV at the time and in the control room that day and just remember Martha Quinn (the VJ) talking over his entire announcement of the band. So I got on the IFB with the production truck and said "could someone turn her down a bit."  True story :) 

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Let the good times roll! Thanks guys, glad you like these photos as I do. Mvnyc, wow, I didn't know Don introduced TOM PETTY! I never heard that. Pretty cool. I only thought he introduced THE POWER STATION, as I saw that on TV, and video recorded it. Neat info I didn't know Mvnyc. One always learns something on this site, you never know it all!

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Awesome memories!

I remember watching it here in the UK!

Phil collins impressed me when he jumped on Concorde & jetted over the pond to continue with the USA shenanigans!!

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I love Phil Collins and his music. I felt bad last night when I read online that people in the industry don't like him at all. I find this a real suprise, and I'm shocked and saddened. Thank goodness he still has lots of fans out there, like me.

 

Criticism[edit] Critical and public perceptions[edit]

According to a BBC biography of Collins in 2000, "critics sneer at him" and "bad publicity also caused problems" which "damaged his public profile".[115] Rock historian Martin C. Strong wrote that, as an entertainer, Collins "truly polarised opinion from the start, his ubiquitous smugness and increasingly sterile pop making him a favourite target for critics".[116] During his recording career Collins would regularly place telephone calls to music writers to take issue with their censuring of his work.[117] Over time, he came to be personally disliked;[118] in 2009, journalist Mark Lawson told how Collins's media profile had shifted from "pop's Mr. Nice Guy, patron saint of ordinary blokes", to someone accused of "blandness, tax exile and ending a marriage by sending a fax".[119] Collins has rejected accusations of tax avoidance, and, despite confirming that some of the divorce-related correspondence between himself and second wife, Jill Tavelman, was by fax (an obscene message from Collins regarding access to their daughter was reproduced for the front cover of The Sun in 1993),[120] he states that he did not terminate the marriage in that fashion.[119] Nevertheless, the British media has often repeated the fax claim.[115][121][122] Collins has also been the victim of scathing remarks in regard to his alleged right-wing political leanings. Caroline Sullivan, a music critic of The Guardian, referred to this negative publicity in her 2007 article "I wish I'd never heard of Phil Collins", writing that it was difficult for her to hear his work "without being riven by distaste for the man himself".[121]

Several critics have spoken to Collins's omnipresence.[116][118][123][124][125] Journalist Frank DiGiacomo wrote a 1999 piece for The New York Observer titled "The Collins Menace", which lamented his ubiquity in the 1980s and early 1990s. DiGiacomo said: "Even when I sought to escape the sounds [of Collins] in my head by turning on the TV, there would be Mr. Collins...mugging for the cameras – intent on showing the world just how hard he would work to sell millions of records to millions of stupid people."[123] In his 2010 article "Love don't come easy: artists we love to hate", Irish Times critic Kevin Courtney expressed similar sentiments. Naming Collins as one of the ten most disliked pop stars in the world, he wrote: "Hardly a day went by in the 1980s without Collins being in the charts … He performed at Live Aid, playing first at Wembley, then flying over to Philadelphia via Concorde, just to make sure no one in the U.S. got off lightly. By the early 1990s, Phil phatigue [sic] had really set in."[118]

Appraising Collins's legacy in a 2013 review of the American Psycho musical (adapted from a 2000 film incorporating his music), Guardian critic Tom Service described Collins as "un-stomachable" and his music as "perfectly vacuous". He also compared him unfavourably with pop contemporaries such as the Pet Shop Boys and The Human League, whose music he said had endured far more successfully. Commenting on the satirical usage of his compositions in the film, Service stated that the serial killer lead character Patrick Bateman's paeans to Collins's songs "reveal a precise if ironic correlative between the murderous vacuity of the music and the breathtaking cynicism of Bateman's killings to which they are the soundtrack".[126] Service described his most popular album No Jacket Required (1985) as "unlistenable to today", arguing that "there's no colder or more superficial sound in popular music" than its opening track, the hit single "Sussudio".[126] That song had attracted negative attention for sounding too similar to Prince's "1999" – a charge that Collins did not deny[127] – and its hook line ("Su-su-su-sussudio") has been named as the most widely disliked element of his career.[118] Collins's 1989 anti-homelessness single "Another Day in Paradise" was also heavily criticised,[128] and became linked to allegations of hypocrisy.[129]

According to Jeff Shannon in The Seattle Times, Collins is the "target of much South Park derision"; in the "Timmy 2000" episode of the show, he is portrayed as "condescending" and inhibitive to the social progress of a mentally and physically disabled character.[130] A New Musical Express writer also observed the series' "endless lampooning" of Collins.[131]

Collins was subjected to acerbic comments in the press following reports about his retirement in 2011. He was dubbed "the most hated man in rock" by the UK's Daily Telegraph,[18] and by FHM as "the pop star that nobody likes".[18]Rolling Stone journalist John Dioso acknowledged "the incredible, overwhelming popularity" Collins and Genesis achieved, but said that he had become "a negative figure in the music world" and that the reaction to his legacy was strongly unfavourable.[132] Tim Chester of the New Musical Express alluded to the widespread disdain for Collins in an article titled, "Is It Time We All Stopped Hating Phil Collins?" Chester described Collins as "the go-to guy for ironic appreciation and guilty pleasures" and stated he was responsible for "some moments of true genius (often accompanied, it must be said, by some real stinkers)". However, Chester also argued that "Genesis turned shit at the precise point he jumped off the drum stool" to replace the departing Peter Gabriel as frontman, and said of the unrelenting derision he has suffered: "[A] lot of it he brings on himself. He's short, pretty gullible and sports a funny-looking face that encourages mockery while he's responsible for some of the cheesiest music ever committed to acetate."[133] Erik Hedegaard of Rolling Stone mentioned that Phil Collins hate sites had "flourished" online, referenced his acrid moniker "the Antichrist" (which Collins has said was coined by Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher[134]), and acknowledged that he had been called "the sellout who took Peter Gabriel's Genesis, that paragon of prog-rock, and turned it into a lame-o pop act and went on to make all those supercheesy hits that really did define the 1980s".[135] However, he did express disapproval of the widespread criticism Collins has received, suggesting that he has been "unfairly and inexplicably vilified".[135]

Criticism from other artists[edit]

Writing about Collins in a 2013 publication on 1980s popular music, author Dylan Jones said that, along with the press, "many of his peers despised him so".[136] Indeed, a number of fellow artists have criticised Collins publicly. Former Sex Pistols vocalist John Lydon described Collins's playing of both the UK and US legs of the 1985 Live Aid concert as "utter pomp and idiocy" and asked: "Why didn't he just play the drums down the telephone and save the money?"[137] Guitarist Jimmy Page, whose band Led Zeppelin gave a poorly-received reunion set with Collins at Live Aid which was later disowned by the group,[138] alleged that Collins "hadn't learned" his drum part. Page said: "You can get away with that in a pop band but not with Led Zeppelin".[139] Collins responded by saying that the band "weren't very good" and that he "was made to feel a little uncomfortable by the dribbling Jimmy Page". He persisted with the set, instead of walking off, in order to avoid negative attention.[140] Appearing on a 1989 edition of BBC programme Juke Box Jury,[141] Collins applauded an upcoming single by British new wave band Sigue Sigue Sputnik; this prompted their singer, Martin Degville, to say directly to Collins's face: "God! We must have really got it wrong if you like us!"[136] In 1990, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters told Rolling Stone that the impact of The Who's 1989 reunion tour, on which the band commemorated the 20th anniversary of their Tommy album with live performances of the record, was "reduced dramatically" by the involvement of Collins, as well as that of Billy Idol and Patti LaBelle. Waters added: "I find the ubiquitous nature of Phil Collins's presence in my life irritating, anyway."[142]David Bowie subsequently dismissed his own critically reviled 1980s output as his "Phil Collins years/albums".[143][144]

In addition to the song's negative press from music journalists, singer-songwriter and political activist Billy Bragg also criticised Collins for writing "Another Day in Paradise", stating: "Phil Collins might write a song about the homeless, but if he doesn't have the action to go with it he's just exploiting that for a subject."[145] Noel Gallagher has censured Collins on multiple occasions,[146][147] including the comment: "Just because you sell lots of records, it doesn't mean to say you're any good. Look at Phil Collins."[148] Collins said he has "at times, been very down" about Gallagher's criticisms.[18] Gallagher's brother, Oasis singer Liam, recalled the "boring" Collins's chart dominance in the 1980s and stated that, by the 1990s, it was "time for some real lads to get up there and take charge".[149] Appearing on television series Room 101 in 2005, Collins nominated the brothers as entrants into the titular room. He described them as "horrible" and stated: "They're rude and not as talented as they think they are. I won't mince words here, but they've had a go at me personally."[150] In 2007, Young Knives frontman Henry Dartnall labelled Collins – who had recently lent his song "In the Air Tonight" to a Cadbury Dairy Milk TV commercial – a "fat, bald, chocolate-eating bastard".[151] On the closing track of their 2014 album What Have We Become?, titled "When I Get Back to Blighty", former Beautiful South collaborators Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott included the lyric: "Everyone around us agrees that Phil Collins must die". MusicOMH critic David Meller remarked that the line "is delivered with willing, almost pleasurable conviction by Abbott".[152]

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Let the good times roll! Thanks guys, glad you like these photos as I do. Mvnyc, wow, I didn't know Don introduced TOM PETTY! I never heard that. Pretty cool. I only thought he introduced THE POWER STATION, as I saw that on TV, and video recorded it. Neat info I didn't know Mvnyc. One always learns something on this site, you never know it all!

You never have seen that small scene with LiveAid as video, Coop? You want? Only 4 seconds... tell me if yes.

Do you see any possibilty to film YOUR small scene by tvscreen if you still own a recorder?

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Ouch, Those criticisms of Phil must hurt him after all these years..

 

Sure he's made some stinkers but "In the Air Tonight" is better than anything Oasis, U2, The Police ever made.  :(  Oh well, I don't mind admitting I like Phil Collins unironically, as do most of you guys here.

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Blue, I've seen the video, and I own it. I've watched it several times. He asks the audience if they are having a good time, and he he says he is too. He then introduces the power station. I've still not seen him introduce Tom Petty.

 

Phil Collins is Awesome!

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I'm with you Coop! Phil Collins nas made some great records!

He is also an authority on David Crockett and the Alamo! Apparently he has donated a lot of artefacts to the State of Texas.

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Yes tigerstripe, Phil did donate his collection. I like Phil's music, and think that those that don't like him may just be jealous of his huge success.

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I am a big Phil Collins fan. Forget what the critics say. What's important is he has been entertaining us for decades with great music I can get up off my ass and dance to. 

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I have most of his CD's and albums, which includes Genesis. My favorite Phil Collins / Genesis albums are NO JACKET REQUIRED and INVISIBLE TOUCH. 

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I have most of his CD's and albums, which includes Genesis. My favorite Phil Collins / Genesis albums are NO JACKET REQUIRED and INVISIBLE TOUCH. 

 

Damn Coop,  you have my taste in music.  I bought both in cassette tape and played them hundreds of times.  Loved them. 

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I remember in, I think 1986, a DJ on the radio said about the INVISIBLE TOUCH LP album when it first came out, "There's a great song anywhere you put the needle".

 

I also collect all his 12" extended singles, and rare unreleased recordings, like those on CD singles. I went to see the Genesis INVISIBLE TOUCH concert two times!

 

Your correct Vicefan7777, we've got good taste in music pal! :thumbsup:

Edited by COOPER&BURNETT
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Not to deride or otherwise put down anyone on this site who may not like Phil Collins, but to me, he just possesses so much natural music talent and is a very good songwriter ta boot.  

 

I didn't appreciate him as much in the '80s as I do now, mainly because he was so omnipresent and also, I was really more into 'new wave' and English imports.  But in recent years, I've had a good listen to his tunes and his solo stuff and Genesis songs are fantastic. 

 

Kind of reminds me of mocking Duran Duran, which as a male teenager in the 1980s, was nearly a rite of passage (dare I say).  But in the last 15 years I have really appreciated them more and more, mainly for their very strong musicianship.  Hard to find a bass player who could rip it up like John Taylor still does.  

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We see things differently when we get older. I'm more tolerant now, and tend to try things first before disliking something outright first.  So far, nobody on this site has said they hate Phil Collins (Perhaps because his songs mean so much to MIAMI VICE fans like the most famous, IN THE AIR TONIGHT. Also, he was a fun, memorable character on the show)  but there may be some who just doen't care for his music, or him personally. That's cool. We all have a right to our opinion.

 

I for one, love Phil Collins.

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You know, music critics and rock journalists are what Frank Zappa used to say:

People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read.â€

Phil Collins is an incredibly talented musician who excelled in any musical dimension: songwriting, drumming, arranging and production. Whoever disagree, simply is not aware about what doing this job means.

 

Music critics (and sadly a part of the audience too) are used to assess the music from a social standpoint and they never, never consider the music itself.

 

Phil Collins got an huge musicianship and the finest music taste in everything he does. He set a standard in drumming and production of the drums at the point that - 35 years later - we still talk about "drums à la Phil Collins" to indicate the recording technique he used on "In The Air Tonight". His drumming is unmistakable, you can spot him after a couple of bars, and he influenced generations of drummers, still going on. He's a gifted songwriter too: his list of smash hits is endless and - what's even more important - all of them are great songs. Just think about gorgeous ballads like "Against All Odds" or "I Wish It Would Rain Down", as well as intoxicating grooves like "Sussudio", with EW&F horns, or "Easy Lover", with vocal virtuoso Philip Bailey (from EW&F too). The career of Phil Collins is made of many gems, from his days with Genesis to his solo recordings, not to mention the albums he signed as a producer. It would take hundreds of pages to just briefly cover his longtime activity in any field of music. Believe me: anyone who's in the music business or simply tried to make music will tell you he's unreachable.

 

I just would ask those genius journalists: "Do you have a vague idea of what doing music at that level means, what skills it takes, what kind of sacrifice, committment, talent, hard work it demands?" If you don't, just shut up and go find a true job.

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Beautiful Jerry!  Both informative, and a cool rant.

 

I remember Phil told Merv Griffin he couldn't understand why when writing about a new album, a writer would always write something to the tune of, "The short, fat, balding, ..." Phil couldn't understand why they would write what he looked like...what's that got to do with his music?  

 

Phil was hurt so much by writers, that he actually would call the people who wrote the articles to disagree with them.

 

He has said he has thought about suicide. He doesn't feel valued or appreciated over the years due to the negativity and the attacks on his songs. He figured he should retire from music as a result. 

 

This is so sad. 

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  • 3 years later...

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