If There Wasn’t “In the Air Tonight”, Would Phil Collins Ever Made It as Solo Artist?

YouTube is introducing new generations of music lovers to this 80s song. Newbies are absolutely fascinated. The atmospheric tune. Its explosive crescendo. It’s keeping Phil Collins’s work alive and relevant in a contemporary world.

I’ve heard the piece so often that I can’t experience like I’d never heard it before. It’s impossible. Instead, I find the song’s brilliance in watching others uncover this gem, reacting as I did when it first came to the radio.

With the help of the Internet, people are lining up to video themselves listening to (and watching) a song I grew up with. Devotees like me can see their reactions change as the performance grows.

Witnessing their facial expressions and hearing them review the piece is fascinating. Everyone loves it; connecting with them deeply and personally. But then it got me thinking about PC’s other work. No one lines up to review Sussudio or Two Hearts. And there have been plenty of other PC smash hits since In The Air Tonight was released.

It also got me wondering about the breakthrough song. If In The Air Tonight hadn’t been written, released and enjoyed by so many, would we have come to know PC at all? Would he have become a superstar?

Phil wasn’t a well-known musician before the song’s release. Sure, die-hard Genesis fans knew of him, but he was mostly unknown to the greater world. So he kind of popped out of nowhere..

In The Air Tonight thundered into the song charts with this hit. But some say that PC wouldn’t have made it without that song. The rest of his material would’ve been released, reached a position of mediocrity, played out and then lost to time.

I lived through the eighties and saw PC rise from strength to strength. I was there when the song was released.

At first listen, In The Air Tonight feels ominous. A looping drum machine part starts the song and provides its hypnotic foundation throughout it. A protracted minor chord follows, setting up a moody atmosphere and a suspenseful passage into what I’d describe as forebodingness. Collin’s thin, reedy voice, along with a metallic sound in the mix, makes the song’s cold lyrics even colder.

Every cycle in the verse-chorus combination adds a new but subtle layer. Listeners know something is building, but don’t know what is until it comes. Just as anticipation peaks, that familiar drum fill explodes, punctuating the moment and cascading over a repeating chorus. It’s goosebumpy stuff. (The original vinyl version plays to a fade-out. Live versions offer an alternative.)

I also witnessed the concert version of In The Air Tonight live in the 1990s, and it surpassed the original tenfold. The entry was extended to create more suspense. I couldn’t believe the song became better when it was played live.

The body of the song remained unchanged, but instead of fading out, the chorus was repeated into a swirling drum-and-vocal scream-a-thon that closed on an abrupt note. Audiences were pummeled into submission and then cut off. The contrast and intensity were gobsmacking. I witnessed this song, already brilliant, evolve into something even more substantial in the live setting. Like the audience, I wish it hadn’t ended!

For PC devotees, the live version epitomises everything about the man. It showcases his songwriting, singing, and drumming talents. When that familiar drum fill shakes the stage, he owns everything and everyone in the room. No one can ignore or doubt the majesty of its mastery when In The Air Tonight is in full flight.

But the singer-songwriter might not have become a solo artist if In the Air Tonight didn’t work. Phil was a drum gun for hire, providing the backbone for others who wrote the music instead.

But life circumstances changed his routines. Phil lost his wife to another man. Alone and lonely, he began twiddling around with a keyboard and a home studio. A beat pattern from a drum machine was activated, and a D Minor chord was applied. In The Air Tonight started its timeless journey on his first album, Face Value.

PC’s heartfelt ’81 debut album succeeded thanks to the single ‘In The Air Tonight’. It wasn’t the only song to do well from the album, but the question remains: what might’ve happened to them without it? What would the album sales be like without that first big hit?

A remake of the Supremes’ You Can’t Hurry Love trailed closely behind on a follow-up album, but if that was the start of Collins’ career, one might believe he was a covers singer instead of an original.

And then came some sweet radio magic in 1985.

A four-year gap separated In The Air Tonight from the hit-laden No Jacket Required album. Sussudio grew to monumental proportions, and the others trailed in behind. With Genesis releasing their album Invisible Touch a year later, you couldn’t listen to the radio without hearing Collins’s voice within the first 15 minutes of tuning in to a station. He was everywhere, all the time, every day!

With all his successes (and the hindsight that goes with it), it’d be easy for fans to say PC was destined to become a superstar. His music was intense and rhythmic, and his lyrics spoke to the masses. He was likeable, hard-working and authentic. How could it have gone any other way?

Let’s remove In The Air Tonight from the equation and theorise what might’ve happened to Face Value without its multi-million-selling track. Would the remaining songs on that album have given the artist the credentials to proceed into a solo touring, concert-building, and high-charting album career?

The answer is: No, not based on that alone. The album’s material was strong. I love the other songs, but they aren’t radio-catching material. And I only know those other songs because I bought the album for the biggie. Which brings me to level 2 of the question fest.

Would Phil have made a third album if the first had flopped and the second had been mediocre, because of that Supreme’s number?

I’d like to think he would’ve. A changed life led to the writing in the first place. I believe he would’ve kept going until it no longer met that need. Most likely, album three, in whatever form it took, would’ve been recorded and released.

Let’s not forget that Phil had released other work in between times, which didn’t appear on his albums, notably Against All Odds and Easy Lover. Both had fantastic listenability and audience penetration (This sparked some radio play from the Genesis back catalogue). PC worked on a drum piece for Howard Jones’s song No One Is To Blame and then laid down the drum track for Feed the World for the Ethiopian fundraiser.

It didn’t matter what Face Value or Hello, I Must Be Going was doing in the charts. Phil’s name and sound were already permeating the airwaves through multiple channels. As long as his bills were paid and his heart was breaking, I’m sure PC would’ve kept writing and recording just to keep busy. All he had to do was stay with it long enough to get to album three. Album three was the one that outshone all others. No Jacket Required arrived during a perfect music storm. It generated multiple hits at a time when Genesis’ album Invisible Touch generated multiple too.

Both albums seemed to feed off each other. It was wall-to-wall Phil Collins between the years of ’85 and ’87.

Who knows, if In The Air Tonight arrived on the No Jacket Required album and added to PC’s popularity spurt in ’85-86, we’d be reviewing YouTube videos for an entire album, not just one song, and he might’ve even given Michael Jackson a run for his money!

–Michael.

P.S. There is also the possibility that In The Air Tonight could’ve landed on a Genesis album. Phil has often spoken about exposing the Genesis lads to the song for the development of what was to become the Album ABACAB. In The Air Tonight was one of them, but it was rejected.

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