page_title: Phil Collins
section_title: Praise
hierarchical_section_title: Phil Collins / Critical and public perceptions / Praise
caption_attribution_description: PCollinsBST300617-26
context_page_description: Philip David Charles Collins LVO is an English drummer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor, best known as the drummer/singer of the rock band Genesis and for his solo career. Between 1982 and 1990, Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, he had more US Top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. His most successful singles from the period include "In the Air Tonight", "Against All Odds", "One More Night", "Sussudio", "Two Hearts", "A Groovy Kind of Love", "I Wish It Would Rain Down", and "Another Day in Paradise".
  Born and raised in west London, Collins played drums from the age of five and completed drama school training, which secured him various roles as a child actor. He then pursued a music career, joining Genesis in 1970 as their drummer and becoming lead singer in 1975 following the departure of Peter Gabriel.
context_section_description: Paul Lester of The Guardian wrote in 2013 that Collins is one of several pop acts that "used to be a joke" but are "now being hailed as gods".  Collins has become an important figure in U.S. urban music, influencing artists such as Kanye West, Alicia Keys and Beyoncé. His songs have been sampled by various hip-hop and contemporary R&B acts, and performers including Lil' Kim, Kelis and Wu-Tang Clan co-founder Ol' Dirty Bastard covered his work on the 2001 tribute album Urban Renewal. In 2004, DCFC and Postal Service musician Ben Gibbard described Collins as a "great vocalist". Collins has been championed by his contemporary, the heavy metal  singer Ozzy Osbourne, David Crosby called him "a dear friend" who has helped him "enormously", Queen guitarist Brian May called him "a great guy and an amazing drummer", and Robert Plant paid tribute to him as "the most spirited and positive and really encouraging force" when commencing his own solo career after the break-up of Led Zeppelin. Collins has been championed by modern artists in diverse genres, including indie rock groups the 1975, Generationals, Neon Indian, Yeasayer, St. Lucia and Sleigh Bells, electronica artist Lorde, and soul singer Diane Birch, who said in 2014, "Collins walks a really fine line between being really cheesy and being really sophisticated. He can seem appalling, but at the same time, he has awesome production values and there's a particular richness to the sound. It's very proficient in the instrumentation and savvy about melodies."
  Genesis bandmate Mike Rutherford has praised Collins's personality, saying that "he always had a bloke-next-door, happy-go-lucky demeanour about him: let's have a drink in the pub, crack a joke, smoke a cigarette or a joint". In 2014, Ex-Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel, whom they both cross-collaborated with on some of their solo albums in the 1980s, referred to Collins as the "workaholics' workaholic". He has been characterised by favourable critics as a "rock god", and an artist who has remained "down to earth". In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, published in 2004, J. D. Considine wrote: "For a time, Phil Collins was nearly inescapable on the radio, and enormously popular with the listening public — something that made him an obvious target for critics. Despite his lumpen-pop appeal, however, Collins is an incisive songwriter and resourceful musician." Tim Chester of the New Musical Express 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)". Creation Records founder Alan McGee wrote in 2009 that there was a "non-ironic revival of Phil Collins" happening. According to McGee: "The kids don't care about 'indie cred' anymore. To them, a great pop song is just that: a great pop song. In this time of revivals, nothing is a sacred cow anymore, and that can only be a good thing for music." Commenting on Collins's popularity with hip-hop acts, he argued: "It's not surprising. Collins is a world-class drummer whose songs immediately lend themselves to being sampled."
  In 2010, Gary Mills of The Quietus made an impassioned defence of Collins: "There can't be many figures in the world of pop who have inspired quite the same kind of hatred-bordering-on-civil-unrest as Collins, and there can't be too many who have shifted anything like the 150 million plus units that he's got through as a solo artist either ... The disgrace of a career bogged entirely in the determined dross of No Jacket Required however is simply not justified, regardless of how Collins gained either his fortune, or his public image." David Sheppard wrote for the BBC in 2010: "Granted, Collins has sometimes been guilty of painting the bull's-eye on his own forehead (that self-aggrandising Live Aid Concorde business, the cringe-worthy lyrics to 'Another Day in Paradise', Buster, etc.), but nonetheless, the sometime Genesis frontman's canon is so substantial and his hits so profuse that it feels myopic to dismiss him 
caption: Collins performing to 65,000 at Hyde Park, London on 30 June 2017. Music critic Neil McCormick wrote, “He could barely walk but Phil Collins still knocked it out of Hyde Park“.[235]
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