I’m not a drummer but Phil is one of my favorites from that era. What usually sticks out to me are his dynamics and groove. He could be really explosive when he needed to be, but he also played a lot more delicately than many rock drummers at the time. I love the way he hits his snare drum, lots of really intricate rhythms and ghost notes. The kind of stuff you can’t replicate on a drum machine. Very similar to Nicko on the kick actually.
He also has a tendency to swing ever so slightly, which gives his playing a lot of great feel. Other prog guys like Carl Palmer and Peart play super straight and metrically perfect. Collins goes a little behind the beat in a way that’s very groovy. You can hear that he listened to a lot of music including soul, r&b, and jazz. I also think the fact that he went on to become an accomplished songwriter and singer is heavily related to his ability to write great drum parts. Definitely a wholistic musician.
Oh and, believe it or not, the Tarzan soundtrack is some of Collins’ best work. There’s some really amazing percussion work that puts Collins in a much different context. Check out Two Worlds and Trashing the Camp for some examples. They are also really good pop songs, if you can get past the 90s Disney production.
@Mosh @MindRuler @The_7th_one \m/
According to Ian Anderson (when he talked about the drummers who played with Tull, in 1990) Collins played a bit
before the beat when he played with Jethro Tull in 1982.
[..] "For instance," Anderson continues, "Doane Perry has been measured as being a good 15 milliseconds ahead with his bass drum on a metronomic beat, whereas his snare drum tends to be sitting behind the beat, by the same 15 milliseconds. So Doane's drumming — because
the bass drum is always edging a bit in front — has an urgency to it,
similar to the one occasion that Phil Collins played drums with us. He sat right on the front of the beat, and you really felt all the time that you had to follow the drummer, which is alright. But
there's an urgency, a very leaning-forward feel to it. Dave Mattacks — who we play with occasionally — has a style where his bass drum tends to sit very much on the beat, never in front. But Dave's snare is so laid back that unless the band is aware of this, tempos tend to fall behind. These are some of the subtle differences in the way people play.
"Barrie is not a metronomic drummer," Anderson adds, "and no offense intended. Instead, he thinks in terms of patterns, and he'll be thinking ahead quite a few bars when he's playing — about how he's going to improvise and embellish or develop a pattern. So he's playing less for the moment and more with a view towards an overall arrangement and a level of detail. He's a more intellectual sort of drummer, like maybe Bill Bruford was with Yes.
"When it comes down to pure technical things," Anderson continues without pause, "people are very different. And 15 milliseconds may not sound like a lifetime, but it is in drum terms. So if you have a drummer with a very laid-back approach on the snare drum, then everybody has to feel comfortable with that approach
. And if you're playing with Phil Collins, you have to be aware that you've got to keep up with the guy, because he's not going to wait for you." [..]
Collins with Tull:
Love this stuff.
