Phil Collins - Hits

Ahh, one of my all time favourite performers, right up there with Robert Palmer, is Mr Phil Collins.  This compilation is a great collection of his bigger hits and some of these even featured in films.  Phil Collins was the go to guy for a nice song for an eighties movie that generally wasn't too good but did well at the box office all due to having a Phil Collins song as it's theme. Case in point is "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" is from an obscure movie starring Jeff Bridges and Australian Bryan Brown's wife, Rachel Ward that tried to cash in on the Raiders and Romancing the Stone wave with a little archeology in a weak story that really had nothing to do with raiding tombs.  The second is a better film, White Nights, which is a remnant of the cold war starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines.  Phil Collins sings "Separate Lives", a beautifully sad song in a duet with Marilyn Martin. I actually bought this CD soundtrack based on this Phil Collins song. While he was happily married to his second wife at the time this came out, I wonder if he sang this thinking of wife number one?  Both songs got nominated for an Academy Award.
Two other songs on the album are from the movie Buster that he also starred in.  He has done some movie work int he past (famously beginning his career in The Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night') and some TV work, especially in Miami Vice where 'In The Air Tonight' got some air play, and also features on this album.  Love the drum solo on this!
Anyway, back to Buster.  The two songs from Buster were 'Groovy Kind Of Love' and 'Two Hearts', both which I originally bought on CD single!
Phil Collins is an incredibly talented man, who can play the drums (among many other instruments!), write music, he has an incredible voice and he can act!  Some of his songs are sad while others are incredibly upbeat with some great percussion and brass.  He has written entire soundtracks for Disney, but they don't feature on this album so I won't go in to them today.  Maybe in a future post! Love this man and love this album!