A True Story, A Part Of Noise, and Phil Collins: The Final Chapter!
May 11, 2019 10:29 PM Subscribe
After the success of Phil Collins' songs in 1984 with Against All Odds and in 1985 with White Nights, plus his 1986 Miami Vice appearance as Phil The Shill [DailyMotion link, 50m, presented in mirror vision], the next logical step was the 1988 film Buster. Featuring Collins as the star of the movie and also writing retro-style songs (for both himself and The Four Tops) plus a selection of oldies, and also featuring a score by Anne Dudley of Art Of Noise fame. The song Two Hearts won Collins multiple awards. The movie didn't. Side A: Two Hearts [not the music video, music video] [Phil Collins], Gardening By The Book (Incidental Music), Just One Look [The Hollies], ...And I Love Her (Incidental Music), Big Noise [Phil Collins], The Robbery [Anne Dudley], I Got You Babe [Sonny + Cher]
Side B: Keep On Running [The Spencer Davis Group], Alone In Acapulco (Incidental Music), Loco In Acapulco [The Four Tops], How Do You Do It? [Gerry And The Pacemakers], Thoughts Of Home (Incidental Music), I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself [Dusty Springfield], The Good Life (Incidental Music), Sweets For My Sweet [The Searchers], Will You Still Be Waiting [Anne Dudley], Groovy Kind Of Love [Phil Collins]
The incidental music is largely unavailable, but here is Thoughts Of Home / And I Love Her / (previously linked) Will You Still Be Waiting as a compilation. They really work in the flow of the album.
Side B: Keep On Running [The Spencer Davis Group], Alone In Acapulco (Incidental Music), Loco In Acapulco [The Four Tops], How Do You Do It? [Gerry And The Pacemakers], Thoughts Of Home (Incidental Music), I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself [Dusty Springfield], The Good Life (Incidental Music), Sweets For My Sweet [The Searchers], Will You Still Be Waiting [Anne Dudley], Groovy Kind Of Love [Phil Collins]
The incidental music is largely unavailable, but here is Thoughts Of Home / And I Love Her / (previously linked) Will You Still Be Waiting as a compilation. They really work in the flow of the album.
I see what you did there.
posted by Kiwi at 1:01 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Kiwi at 1:01 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
While we're talking about Anne Dudley rarities, it was shocking to me as a longtime fan to suddenly see her early '80s Amphonic library music records hit the Internet a few years ago with virtually no fanfare.
Having spent decades in Art of Noise fan communities where her many side projects (yes, including Buster!) were discussed, these four full-length albums just sort of appeared one day after literally 30 years of hibernation and obscurity. They're chock full of fascinating synth instrumentals that are unmistakably hers, and IMO are arguably more fascinating than the other recent AoN re-releases. It really makes me wonder what else is still out there.
So, if you're on an Anne Dudley kick, check out:
1985 - Platinum Status
1984 - The New World
1983 - New Directions
1982 - Melodic Lightly Rhythmic Underlays
posted by eschatfische at 5:43 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
Having spent decades in Art of Noise fan communities where her many side projects (yes, including Buster!) were discussed, these four full-length albums just sort of appeared one day after literally 30 years of hibernation and obscurity. They're chock full of fascinating synth instrumentals that are unmistakably hers, and IMO are arguably more fascinating than the other recent AoN re-releases. It really makes me wonder what else is still out there.
So, if you're on an Anne Dudley kick, check out:
1985 - Platinum Status
1984 - The New World
1983 - New Directions
1982 - Melodic Lightly Rhythmic Underlays
posted by eschatfische at 5:43 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
Probably worth mentioning that as a musician Phil certainly has produced some iconic tunes, but as a human he's mostly a shitbird, and I still avoid him no matter how much his grooves were kind of the basis of the soundtrack of the 80s.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:58 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:58 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
And yet you don't avoid him enough that you avoid commenting here.
posted by hippybear at 7:15 AM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 7:15 AM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
So one of my favorite bits of trivia is that Dave Grohl is the third-richest living drummer in the world. it’s such a fun little conversation starter, because it always gets everyone thinking hard about who’s the second richest living drummer (everyone knows who’s #1, but it takes a second for people to guess that Phil is #2).
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:32 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:32 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
as a human he's mostly a shitbird
My current list of favorite artists who have reputations of being good neighbors is comprised of Huey Lewis and Jon Bon Jovi. That's it.
The list of artists I enjoy who are problematic is so much longer. Luckily for my conscience, every time I hum
Two Hearts, Phil doesn't get one thin dime.
posted by otherchaz at 7:35 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
My current list of favorite artists who have reputations of being good neighbors is comprised of Huey Lewis and Jon Bon Jovi. That's it.
The list of artists I enjoy who are problematic is so much longer. Luckily for my conscience, every time I hum
Two Hearts, Phil doesn't get one thin dime.
posted by otherchaz at 7:35 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
MetaPhilter.
posted by RakDaddy at 9:53 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by RakDaddy at 9:53 AM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
Probably worth mentioning that as a musician Phil certainly has produced some iconic tunes
And he was an excellent drummer in early Genesis before he started singing. Hard to believe it's even the same guy.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:11 AM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
A “true” story that made Buster Edwards out to be a lovable lad, if a tad on the wide side. In reality, he and his Great Train Robbery gang had no problem almost killing the train driver with an iron bar and assaulting the fireman with such force that he never worked again.
posted by scruss at 12:20 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 12:20 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Look, I'm not defending anything about this project other than the album which is a delight of old songs and old-sounding new songs. His Miami Vice episode is so over the top it's nearly a stand-up routine, and he's not very good in the movie at all. But it's a fine compilation-of-other-artists movie soundtrack album which fits in with the previous two posts I've made.
I won't be posting about Tarzan.
posted by hippybear at 12:38 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I won't be posting about Tarzan.
posted by hippybear at 12:38 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I clearly remembering this VHS being at our local rental place for years. As far as I could see, no one ever rented it.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:20 PM on May 12, 2019
posted by Chrysostom at 6:20 PM on May 12, 2019
One of the surprising things I learned after moving to the US (from mefi has well as people I've met) is what a total cultural wasteland teens here were faced with in the eighties.
I always assumed vaguely that it was like the UK where there was a stratum of super popular media that was common to everyone, with a much larger layer of buzzing and often ludicrous subcultures underneath.
Apparently not. The biggest stuff was, outside DC, NYC, Detroit and a few other places, all there was. Phil Collins and the other stars who'd reached the divorce by fax level, weren't music-for-people-who-don't-like-music, they were all of music.
It must have been horrible.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:22 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I always assumed vaguely that it was like the UK where there was a stratum of super popular media that was common to everyone, with a much larger layer of buzzing and often ludicrous subcultures underneath.
Apparently not. The biggest stuff was, outside DC, NYC, Detroit and a few other places, all there was. Phil Collins and the other stars who'd reached the divorce by fax level, weren't music-for-people-who-don't-like-music, they were all of music.
It must have been horrible.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:22 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Well, like Frankie was big here, and also Pet Shop Boys, and B-52s, and it wasn't all like you make it out to be. MTV was a giant melting pot and so there was Ratt next to Run DMC next to Michael Jackson next to...
Your depiction of the 80s as far as the music the masses were taking in is entirely wrong. I lived through this era.
posted by hippybear at 8:49 PM on May 12, 2019
Your depiction of the 80s as far as the music the masses were taking in is entirely wrong. I lived through this era.
posted by hippybear at 8:49 PM on May 12, 2019
I am familiar with the artists you mention. For the most part they support my point.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:51 PM on May 12, 2019
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:51 PM on May 12, 2019
→… weren't music-for-people-who-don't-like-music, they were all of music
This had the consequence of “Phil Collins!” being a too-easy punchline in many UK comedy products from the late 1980s onwards. His appearance on Brass Eye and subsequent threats to sue Chris Morris for deception were the very last straw.
posted by scruss at 7:33 AM on May 13, 2019
This had the consequence of “Phil Collins!” being a too-easy punchline in many UK comedy products from the late 1980s onwards. His appearance on Brass Eye and subsequent threats to sue Chris Morris for deception were the very last straw.
posted by scruss at 7:33 AM on May 13, 2019
We played "does it hold up" with some solo Phil Collins recently.
It pains me to write this, but despite being the soundtrack of douchebag yuppie scum, Phil's eighties work bears re-listening far better than Peter Gabriel's or honestly most of Genesis. It's actually really fucking weird, full of odd production choices and arrangements.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:18 PM on May 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
It pains me to write this, but despite being the soundtrack of douchebag yuppie scum, Phil's eighties work bears re-listening far better than Peter Gabriel's or honestly most of Genesis. It's actually really fucking weird, full of odd production choices and arrangements.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:18 PM on May 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Like, even the opening of In The Air Tonight is not usual for a pop hit. That whole first album is so all over the place with vocal and instrumental effects, it was actually pretty alien sounding when I first got it, which was probably the week of its release.
Oh, dammit, I got #old all over everything again. Sorry!
posted by hippybear at 8:05 AM on May 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh, dammit, I got #old all over everything again. Sorry!
posted by hippybear at 8:05 AM on May 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
And like WTF is this whole "roof is leaking -> droned" thing? How did this ever get onto this album?
posted by hippybear at 8:21 AM on May 14, 2019
posted by hippybear at 8:21 AM on May 14, 2019
AND AN AMATEUR CHILDREN'S CHOIR?
Okay, yes, I'm listening to Face Value again for the first time in a long time as a solid listen and like, just... wow!
posted by hippybear at 8:27 AM on May 14, 2019
Okay, yes, I'm listening to Face Value again for the first time in a long time as a solid listen and like, just... wow!
posted by hippybear at 8:27 AM on May 14, 2019
And I will say, his cover of Tomorrow Never Knows is one of the few worthy, truly. It feels like he somehow truly gets it. To me at least. (The number of Phil vocals layered on this album must have taken him a month to do.)
(I share the same opinion of Boingo's cover of I Am The Walrus, which has to be one of the most difficult songs to cover and have it fuckin' work, But Boingo, they have that covered.)
posted by hippybear at 8:53 AM on May 14, 2019
(I share the same opinion of Boingo's cover of I Am The Walrus, which has to be one of the most difficult songs to cover and have it fuckin' work, But Boingo, they have that covered.)
posted by hippybear at 8:53 AM on May 14, 2019
« Older “...everything that can be modded now at some... | "A day of sentiment, not profit" Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by hippybear at 12:35 AM on May 12, 2019