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

I think Ahmet Ertegun may be to blame for the oversaturation. The '80s were all about "how many songs of this same artist can you get on the air and on MTV?" Actually I probably could blame Walter Yetnikoff and Michael Jackson for that... suddenly labels wanted an artist who was doing numbers to release whatever they can. Phil was in danger of that immediately because he had a solo career AND Genesis, then his songs played on Miami Vice. So I think if there were any artist you couldn't escape from in the '80s, it was these five:

1.) MJ
2.) Phil Collins
3.) Madonna
4.) Whitney Houston
5.) Prince
6.) Lionel Richie

 

Right. The whole "ew, he went from prog rock to soft rock" sell out rant. I personally think he was best with ballads but I love his rock and dance numbers too.

 

The truth behind the title of Sussudio revealed!

 

I'd put Prince on there ahead of Richie.

 

Good point. Let me update that. Prince is my dude though. Prince & Phil - '80s kings (MJ too but eh... the kid stuff threw me off but that's another topic)

 

I was a fan in the early to I guess late 80s. Then I dropped off as a fan in the 90s and 00s. The Tarzan soundtrack and Dance Into The Light era were low points for me. I think if you compare his output to Peter Gabriel's, Gabriel obviously came out on top as an artist because he dabbled in avant garde pop and world music circles.

Yes, I do think his ballads were very good and he was a great singer.

 

It was never acceptable. Damn Sussudio turned me off to anything Collins-related in 1985 and it's been that way ever since.

 

All I know is that there was a missed marketing opportunity:

Su-Su-Sudafed!

 

I don't think Sussudio would have been a hit by another artist. His voice, the production, and the video are what sold the song, and he was already riding a wave of popularity, so it had plenty of exposure. The song itself is fun, but not an especially strong composition.

 

I was 13 when No Jacket Required came out. Bought the album, thought it was great, and I had the Genesis album with the geometric shapes on the cover. I also really liked the Against All Odds theme, and "In the Air Tonight" was one of the main lures that got me on my bike to buy the Miami Vice soundtrack, too. "Easy Lover"? Yeah, I'd keep it on MTV for that. But by the next year, when he got on the Concorde to play both sides of the Atlantic for Live Aid, it really felt like he was literally everywhere. He over-saturated the market. And "Separate Lives" was a bit too schmaltzy for me. The uptempo singles from Invisible Touch were alright, but I didn't care for the slow songs; and, again, it seemed like Phil Collins was everywhere for another year. When he came back on his own with "Groovy Kind of Love," "Two Hearts," and "Another Day in Paradise," I just wasn't feeling it, anymore. Too calculated, too synthetic, commercial pop for me. Enough of Phil Collins. I haven't been much interested in that kind of '80s-'90s pop since then. But if I happen to hear "That's All" or one of the other songs I liked in 7th-8th grade, sure, I'll probably feel a little nostalgic glow.

 

The problem with the 80s was this. So in the 80s the record companies weren't yet really pillaging their back catalog for revenues yet. So as a young person following pop music, you sort of knew Collins as the "You Can't Hurry Love" guy. You also vaguely remembered him from the Mama and Thats All songs (and the minor Genesis hits) hen towards the later 80s the Genesis Invisible Touch era -- but they were this old fart band with Phil Collins the crooner singing as front man and of course Collins was the super star drummer sitting in on everyones sessions and live performances. But you didn't really have much opportunity to make the connections with the 70s and what he did back them unless you had opportunity to get to the back catalog and as a young person you didn't really bother exploring that far back. You were more interested in current pop. And then later when he became too mainstream, you moved on to alternative music and grunge. The old back catalogs you explored were Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones stuff because it was marketed like crazy by the record companies. I didn't start digging into to Genesis back catalog until the 00's and only then, thats when all the Steve Hackett stuff and the mix of classical and rock really made me truly understand and appreciate what Collins was as a musician.

 

That's what I think too. I just wanted to see what the reactions would be because I can't see anyone else but him doing it.

 

I guarantee if Billy Joel or Paul McCartney had sung it, the reaction would have been just as bad or worse.

 

I think it would've been worse tbh lmao

 

It has its own unique charm. I like it. I don't think it would have mattered if Phil did it or Jerry Garcia did.

 

Heh... I think this song is one of those who it couldn't have been sung by anyone but its creator but it's interesting to see if someone can see someone else do it...

 

It was the 80's and the song completely fit the times. In fact at the time, it wasn't any more repetitive or stupid as a lot of other hit songs.
I think it only became overly annoying and criticized after it had been in everyone's faces for so long. And Phil in general was in the public's face for a long time, the song became an easy target.

But in answer to your questions, as long as the person who sang it was a decent singer and the label had the same promotion behind it, I can't see why it wouldn't have been a hit. - And that's not saying that I think it's a great song or anything, but that's the reality of hit songs.

 

Could you imagine if Jon Anderson from Yes sang it. That would be soo funny.

 

Sadly, I can imagine it!

 

Oh my Lord. Now YOU done got me picturing it.

 

Good points!

 

What does that even mean?

Yes, people who care about things like drumming prowess (which is a tiny portion of the music-listening public) know that he was an excellent drummer.

To the vast majority of everybody else, he was known solely for his '80s solo hits and '80s Genesis hits. How different does that make him from any other pop stars with a 6-8 year window of superstardom, who are now considered uncool? I don't really know.

 

On the back cover of his autobiography, Phil says that he wrote the book because he didn’t want his epitaph to read “He came, he wrote Sussudio, he left.”

 

I'll put it to you like this, when you get a rap legend to sample/cover your stuff, you're not uncool anymore LOL



I mean, I put it to you like this: has 2Pac ever sampled Lionel Richie?

 

One thing I noticed about Phil: he has a good sense of humor.