The term “guilty pleasure” is something of an easy tag to hang onto something that you like but that you’re pretty sure other people in your social circle would use as evidence of a clear lack of mental stability on your part were they ever to be made aware of it. For years, as an undiagnosed case of OCD, I’m used to hiding away those things that I love or am interested in (there is a difference: I love obscure British punk bands of the late Seventies, but I’m interested in the Second World War, particularly the aerial combat aspect of it) from prying eyes. The iPod sees all, of course, and there are plenty of songs and artists I’m not entirely sure I want the outside world to know what some of my most-listened to songs are.
Of course, one could say that they have a particular artist on their iPod as comic relief, or an “ironic” commentary on the sad state of music. Such posing is encouraged when your friends are fellow music snobs and you don’t have to defend your hatred of the Eagles or your abhorrence for everything that comes out of Celine Dion’s mouth. You listen to college radio stations because “that’s where it’s at,” even if where it’s at sounds like an unhappy marriage of too much reverence for punk and too little proficiency with any musical instrument (or if the college rock station just plain out sucks in terms of what it can and cannot play; if anything ever even sniffed the Top Forty charts, it is about as welcome at some college radio stations as Louis Farrakhan at a Klan rally).
As I’ve aged and (hopefully) matured from my “up against the wall when the revolution comes” stance (yes, I actually thought a violent revolution might clear the boards of all traces of Creed, Celine, and so on), I find that a lot of the music I supposedly hated isn’t actually all that bad. I still maintain that the Eagles took Gram Parsons’ life work of fusing country and rock together and turned it into bland middle-of-the-road mush, but “Desperado” is a beautiful song. John Denver, far from being a musical antichrist, turned out to be a strong defender of any artist’s right to express him or herself without fear of government censorship. Hell, I actually kinda miss Scott Stapp, someone should see what he’s up to.
Phil Collins is someone about whom very few people have a neutral response, at least in the circles I used to run in. He’s either the antichrist when it comes to synthesizer-heavy Eighties pop music or a great drummer and singer who can be excused his excesses because in the long run he contributed one truly great song to Western civilization (“In the Air Tonight”) and a lot of pretty good tunes with Genesis and on his own. I remember Collins during his heyday (not to turn this whole exercise into a nostalgic exercise where I constantly talk about the Eighties, but I’m a slave to the format and it’s bound to come up when you’re talking about Phil that you have to talk about the time period during which he was the balding, English version of Jacko). His story is a little sadder now; when last I saw anything about him, he was in “Rolling Stone” revealing that he has some sort of muscular or skeletal condition that means he can’t play the drums anymore.
Now that’s just sad, when someone who’s worked his whole life to be great at something is robbed of the physical ability to do so. The man who contributed the iconic drum roll to “In the Air Tonight” will no longer be able to render it live, if and when he does any concerts again. Its equivalent would be Pete Townshend losing an arm and not being able to do a windmill again, or the lead singer of Train losing his voice (okay, that last one wouldn’t be a tragedy…I kid. But no, really, not losing sleep over that).
It turns out that Collins has something that he’s interested in (as drumming was something he loved): the Alamo . The guy has a serious Texas-sized collection of artifacts from the battle and an abiding interest in the last stand that has come to define the Lonestar State Alamo died in the battle (Davy Crockett may have been killed by the Mexican army afterwards, as it turns out, but he still stands iconic as one of the last to fall, facts be damned). So I worry a little about Phil’s mental state.
Of course, I’ve been avoiding the obvious question I’m sure anyone is reading this is asking: why the hell do I have Phil Collins on my iPod? Well, like a lot of things it’s because of a girl. I was gently teasing someone I kinda like about the Bald One when she said that she liked his work, and I thought about how, when I was a kid and I didn’t have music-snob tendencies just yet, I like him too, especially the “Land of Confusion” video where the ugly puppets of world leaders at the time all did silly things. It was the Eighties, you could have ugly puppets in your video. No one was going to confuse Phil with the guys of Motley Crue or heartthrobs like Corey “Sunglasses at Night” Hart. Anyway, I was at Best Buy and Genesis’ “best of” was just sitting there, looking forlorn and unloved. So I figured what the hell, it’s marked down to under ten dollars, and I can appreciate the cheesiness of the not-that-good songs (as it turned out, a lot of them weren’t that good, or at least I’ve not gone back to them much the few times I’ve listened to Genesis), and kick out the jams to the songs I remembered well. And yeah, I might cringe a little when I think about someone reading this and saying “you like Phil Collins?” in that snide, dismissive way I used to have when someone told me that they like the Eagles, Celine Dion, or Ratt. But you know what? They can get over it. Snobs are lonely, bitter people, and I’m tired of being one.
I’ll be damned if I ever buy a Creed CD, though…
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