If you haven't heard about this album (which I find hard to believe -- the guy is everywhere! [Note to self: hire Phil Collins' publicist.]), it's an album of Motown covers. Now I have nothing against a good cover. In fact, a good one can bring a song to a new place. But for this very special album, Phil wanted to recreate the songs note for note, so he worked to get all the music and background to sound exactly the same as the original songs. Let's think about this for just a moment. Say you're flipping around that radio dial and "Heatwave" comes on. Is this what you're thinking: "Man, this is one great song! Well, except I'd much rather have Phil Collins singing it. That Martha Reeves -- her voice is weak. I need the nasal twang of a British drummer!"
It's karaoke, plain and simple. It's lazy and vain. If he didn't have a name (and, really, I thought he was over), there's no way he'd get away with this nonsense. In one interview, he said that this going back to older music speaks to the current state of music. Isn't he supposedly a singer/songwriter/musician type? If you don't like what's going on in music today, do something about it. You have the means to push it a bit. You don't need a big hit. But, no, you'd rather just whine and rerecord something no one needs.
And, seriously, Phil Collins, get your own pop culture. Did you know he has one of the largest collections of Alamo memorabilia? That's weird, right?
I swear, if he touches the Stax catalog...
2 comments:
What, is this serious? Phil Collins doing Motown covers?
Never in a million years would I have imagined this.
Yet, I'm oddly intrigued. I've got to hear some of this...
Sadly, it is serious. The bits I heard -- not so good.
It just would be nice if someone with the money and a name would try to push it a bit rather than just redo tunes that were fine as they were.
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