Sussudio: would've it been accepted if anyone but Phil Collins had sung it?

Absolutely fantastic. I hated this kind of stuff not too long ago, but... I got softer in the heart, you know? Same motion that made me buy Simply Red albums.

 

Bono made fun of him on TV? Details...

 

Another thing that folks seem to be annoyed about is Phil Collins is in a rare club that only he and Paul Mccartney are in ...
An artist that sold a hundred million albums as a solo artist, and also completely separately, sold a hundred million albums in a band. (worldwide)

That is nothing to sneeze at

 

He supposedly wrote that around Face Value. Arguably his best period.

 

It's a great tune (with crap lyrics) and it was a hit. Seems like it did OK as is. -E

 

the "selling out" was in quotes, because that's what people said at the time. Their words, not mine.

 

missed that. I wasn't having a go at you, just clarifying

 

The hook was in the drum beat and the horn arrangement. I don't think it mattered who sung it or what the lyrics said.

It's a dance song, it got people out on the floor. It did it's job.

 

He was definitely everywhere at some point, in the mid/late 1980s. I think the overexposure did not help him at all.

But I also think the guy is oversensitive about the whole thing. If you are very successful, you are likely to step on some people's toes sooner or later.

 

Heard it on Walmart Radio yesterday and had to sing along.

 

Great drummer, but if people don't care for his singing voice, they don't have a clue?

 

I've been trying to find this bombshell quote for some time with no luck, a quote from none other than Miles Davis, who in typical fashion is stating that most white musicians don't "have it". He mentioned a couple that did and Phil was one. This was around the time of Sussudio.

 

Like many of Collins' No Jacket Required tracks, I immediately found "Sussudio" very catchy, and then quickly got sick of it because it was so overplayed.

I don't get all the hate for it, though. It's not a dumb song or a bad song - it's a pop song, and a very good pop song at that.

Sonically it's a lot like much of Collins' work: You've got the horns and backing vocals, which he always seems to have liked from what I presume is a love of Motown and R&B. You've got the gated-reverb drums that became his stock in trade; and you've got vaguely Genesis-style prog-rock synths to give the track a little something unusual compared to other pop songs.

There's nothing particularly unusual or distasteful about it, although the gated drums and the somewhat tinny horns do make it sound a bit dated, very much a creature of the early to mid-'80s.

I think a lot of self-described cool or hardcore music fans hate it now because Collins played it straight. Peter Gabriel (who of course invented the gated drum sound Collins popularized) basically recorded the same song a year later on So - "Big Time" is basically "Sussudio" at a different tempo, with different lyrics, done ironically rather than straight. So Gabriel (whose music I do prefer to Collins') stayed cool, while Collins became a dork and/or a sellout. Whatever - Collins is just as good of a musician and artist.

 

You mean what happens to *every* mega-star?

When we look back on Phil Collins, we see a dated image and hear an uncool sound that seems impossible to have once been hugely popular. So we laugh at ourselves for this once having happened.

It's as simple as that. Phil Collins probably got it slightly more than some of the others, but - as I said in the earlier post - this is the tradeoff for being the flavor of the month. And Phil got to be that flavor for a much longer time than most. There was no special conspiracy among late-night comics and Rolling Stone bogeymen (it's always interesting how this renowned publication gets slandered on message boards by petulant fans of artists who didn't get rated as highly as others). Phil Collins, for the most part, made radio-friendly, easy-listening '80s pop hits. By the standards of the '90s-present, it's passé. And so there are the jokes about it. I would say that it's not the same level of outright ridicule like Kenny G gets, if that means anything.

Imagine if Michael Montgomery had become bigger - he's even more uncool than Phil Collins!

 

I prefer this to Phil's.

 

they were just envious because he was a miles better drummer than larry mullen.

 

I'd add Mark Knopfler somewhere, producing quite a lot of stuff and turning up on loads of sessions from Dylan to Auerbach, Brendan Crocker to Tina Turner, adding "Brothers In Arms"....

 

Bashing critics is a popular sport around here but not always accurate: "the reception for the album was mostly positive."

Reviews of "Sussudio" itself were more mixed, but they weren't consistently negative. Even the "RS" review just criticizes it for overuse of horn patterns - the song itself doesn't come under massive scrutiny.

I think "Sussudio" becomes the whipping boy because it was so ubiquitous and has such a stupid title. Once Phil got overexposed, it became the easiest song to attack.

But circa 1985 views weren't that negative...

 

For me, the only redeeming thing about the song was that David Letterman made fun of it.



Paul Shaffer's "Yeah!" Collection Plus More on Late Night, 1982, 1985

Paul Shaffer's "Yeah!" Collection Plus More on Late Night, 1982, 1985

 

Holy smokes did I howl with laughter at the Larry "Bud" Melman segment. Letterman's show was so great back then. Man, those were the days.

 

Micheal Musto isn't on this forum, I don't think, and he said it's the #2 worst song of all time.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/10/17/the-seven-worst-songs-of-all-time/

and from the same year:

ROCK BOTTOM OUR FEARLESS EXPERTS PICK THEIR 10 WORST POP SONGS OF THE ROCK ERA.

 

No substance, no originality, no specifics to back it up; it's just really low quality criticism there, Scott.