I have been listening to Phil Collins again, and I keep finding myself in a strange position. I knew him through Genesis first, and I still have an enormous affection for that version of him. There was something younger and more restless in those records, something that felt almost impossible to contain. Collins was a drummer, a singer, a songwriter, and eventually the person standing at the front of the stage, but I think what fascinated me most was the energy. Now that I am older, I hear something different. I hear control. I hear someone who learned how to make a song breathe without forcing it, how to make a drum pattern carry emotion without becoming excessive, how to use his voice with a precision that comes from experience. That does not make the younger Phil Collins less interesting to me. It simply means I hear him differently now. Maybe that is one of the best things about music. The song stays the same, but the person listening to it does not.
Easy Lover is probably the easiest example of what I mean because I cannot listen to that song without moving. I do not care where I am or what I am doing. Something starts tapping, clapping, bouncing, whatever my body decides to do first. And yes, Philip Bailey is there with him, which is part of what makes the song so damn good. It was written by Bailey, Collins, and Nathan East, with Collins also producing the Chinese Wall album where it appeared. But beyond all that information, what I remember is the feeling. The song is ridiculously catchy, but it also has an attitude that I still enjoy. It talks about an easy lover with a directness that feels almost funny when I think about the cultural climate of the 1980s. We are talking about 2026 now, so this kind of subject barely raises an eyebrow, but back then the combination of sexuality, pop music and that enormous rhythm had a different edge. I can almost imagine people who would have disapproved of the lyrics singing the chorus anyway. That is the kind of contradiction I love in music. You can disagree with a song and still know every word.
What I sometimes forget is how much there is beyond the songs everybody knows. In the Air Tonight is obviously there. So are One More Night, Against All Odds, Sussudio, Another Day in Paradise and You Can't Hurry Love. But when I go deeper into Collins, I find myself returning to songs such as I Don't Care Anymore, If Leaving Me Is Easy, Do You Remember?, Take Me Home, Colours and Something Happened on the Way to Heaven. Those songs remind me that his career was never only about making enormous hits. There was a musician underneath all of it, and I think that is what I appreciate more now. The drummer never disappeared when the singer became famous. The songwriter never disappeared when the producer took control of the room. Even the pop star never completely erased the person who had spent years learning how music works from inside a band. I can hear that experience in the way his songs are built. I do not need to turn it into a lesson. I can simply hear it.
And then there is Genesis, which is impossible for me to separate from all of this. Mama, Home by the Sea, Turn It On Again, Afterglow, No Son of Mine and Hold on My Heart all belong to a different part of my relationship with him. When I listen to those records, I hear the younger musician again, the one with more physical energy, more urgency, and sometimes a little more unpredictability. I love that version of Phil Collins too. But I think getting older has changed what I look for. When I was younger, I noticed the punch first. Now I notice the decisions. I notice when the drums enter, when they stop, how the voice sits inside the arrangement, how much a song can say without trying to say everything at once. Maybe that is what experience gives a musician. Not necessarily more talent, but a different relationship with the talent that was already there. And for me, that is why Phil Collins the solo artist sometimes reaches me in a way that Phil Collins in Genesis did not when I was younger.
I am writing this from Guacara, Venezuela, in 2026, about a man born in the United Kingdom whose music somehow ended up becoming part of my own life. That still feels like a beautiful kind of absurdity to me. Somewhere, decades ago, Phil Collins made a record. Somewhere else, much later, a girl who had never met him listened to it and felt something. That distance disappears when the music starts. I know everyone eventually gets to the point where we have to talk about a person's work in the past tense, but I have never understood why gratitude should wait for that moment. I would rather say it while the person is still here. Phil Collins gave me songs that made me move, songs that stayed with me, songs I discovered late, songs I loved immediately, songs from Genesis and songs that belonged only to him. I cannot give any of that back. I can only say thank you. And honestly, if Easy Lover comes on while I am writing this, I already know what is going to happen. I am going to move.