Can’t Turn Back The Years is found on Phil Collins’s fifth solo studio album, Both Sides. Like much of Collins’s output, Both Sides received lukewarm reviews when it was initially released but it has since been reevaluated.
The music video was directed by Jim Yukich, who is one of those directors who seems to have directed a video for everyone. If you have ever had a hit song or top-selling album, Jim Yukich probably directed a music video for you. He directed a lot of videos for both Genesis and Phil Collins as a solo act. But Yukich also directed videos for everyone from Iron Maiden to David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, David Hasselhoff, and Debbie Gibson.
Another Day In Paradise is one of two songs that Phil Collins has recorded about the homeless. (The other was Man On The Corner.) When this song first came out, Collins was accused of being a wealthy and condescending rock star who was more interested in singing about a problem than actually doing anything to solve it. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Collins responded to the criticism with, “When I drive down the street, I see the same things everyone else sees. It’s a misconception that if you have a lot of money you’re somehow out of touch with reality.”
The video, which juxtaposes Phil singing with images of the homeless, was directed by Jim Yukich, who did the majority of Phil Collins’s and Genesis’s videos in the 80s and the 90s. The scenes of Collins singing were filmed in New York City and were completed in under an hour.
I am fairly certain that I’ve heard a version of this song in which George H.W. Bush is heard giving a speech about the homeless. I cannot find any official online confirmation that it exists but I know it’s out there somewhere.
Everyone needs a couple of days off, even Huey Lewis and the News!
This song was the final single from Huey to chart in the Billboard Top 20. For better or worse (I would say “better”), Huey Lewis and the News were the epitome of a mid 80s band. They worked hard and they made videos that celebrated having a good time. They were never as obnoxious or openly hedonistic as the hair bands of era but they were also out-of-place in the angst-filled 90s. But while everyone else continues to pay thousands to see Bruce Springsteen, Huey Lewis and the News will always be the blue collar bar band for me.
This video was directed by Jim Yuckich, who has directed videos for everyone.
What sets All of My Life apart from all of the other adult contemporary, “easy listening” music that Phil Collins released in the 90s is that saxophone solo at the start of the song. That sax solo almost makes up for all the bland Disney sons that Collins wrote in search of that first Oscar.
As for this video, it’s largely a performance clip but, mixed in, there are a few scenes of Phil Collins going about his everyday life. Of course, for Phil, everyday life meant a private plane and a luxury tour bus. What a likeable bloke! Personally, I don’t care how Phil Collins spent his money. As the saying goes, “If you’ve got it…”
This video was directed by Jim Yukich. Yukich was one of those video directors who, if you were a successful musical artist in the late 80s or the 90s, you would probably end up making at least one video with Yukich. Yukich directed videos for everyone from Iron Maiden to Genesis to REO Speedwagon. He got around.
This lengthy music video finds Phil Collins playing a drummer-turned-singer in the 1930s. With the help of his friend, a guitar player named Eric (and played, of course, by Eric Clapton), Collins auditions for a demanding theater owner (Jeffrey Tambor). While he auditions, he imagines what his life would be like if he becomes a success. He might even win an Oscar, probably for writing a song for a Disney film.
This video is more like a short film than a traditional music video, with over two minutes of “acting” before the singing even begins. This video came out at the time when Collins was still trying to make a career as an actor. I like the video but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that, for some people, it probably represents everything that they didn’t like about Phil Collins back in the day.
This video was directed by Jim Yukich, who directed several videos for Collins. Yukich’s name can be spotted on a clapboard when Collins is imagining what it would be like to be a film star.
In the scenes in which Collins is acting opposite of Humphrey Bogart, Bogart is played by Robert Sacchi. Sacchi built an entire career out of his resemblance to Humphrey Bogart. Whenever a sitcom in the 80s or the 90s needed Humphrey Bogart to appear in a dream sequence, the call went out to Sacchi. Sacchi also appeared in several movies, playing characters with names like Sam Marlowe, Inspector Bogie, and The Bogeyman. According to the imdb, he also appeared in The Erotic Adventures of Three Musketeers as Athos. I’m not sure if I believe that.
Every story has to end somewhere and for Survivor, it was pretty much with the release of this single. Though Across The Miles was one of their biggest hits, the album from which it came, Survivor’s seventh studio album Too Hot To Sleep, was not. The album was considered to be a commercial disappointment and the band went on hiatus after it was released. There would not be another Survivor album until 2006’s Reach.
To date, Across The Miles is Survivor’s final original single. (Eye of Tiger reentered the singles chart in 2007, coinciding the release of Rocky Balboa and the Best of Rocky soundtrack compilation.) The video for Across the Miles does feature one woman waiting for a phone call in a lonely room but it’s mostly just a clip of the band performing. Like many of the videos from the time, it’s shot in noirish black-and-white.
Director Jim Yukich directed music videos for almost everyone. If you were a band whose music appeared on the Adult Contemporary charts, it’s probable that Jim Yukich did a video for you.
This video for Modern Love is probably as straight forward as you can expect any music video from David Bowie to be. Filmed during the Serious Moonlight Tour to support Let’s Dance, the video features Bowie and his band performing an encore at Philadelphia’s Spectrum Theater.
This video was directed by Jim Yukich, who did videos from everyone from Iron Maiden to Debbie Gibson to Phil Collins.
We all know the story of Icarus. Imprisoned on the island of Crete with his father Daedalus, Icarus fashioned artificial wings so he could fly to freedom. His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun but the cocky Icarus ignored his father. The sun melted his wings and Icarus plummeted to his death. Whenever someone allows their hubris and cockiness to defeat them or they get too ambitious for their own good, we compare them to Icarus.
Iron Maiden wrote a song about the Flight of Icarus, reimaging the story as being about a teenager rebelling against his father. That’s not surprising as every Greek myth inspired at least one heavy metal song. Flight of Icarus was Iron Maiden’s first single to be released in the United States. (At the time, Iron Maiden was better known in the UK than in the US.) It’s also one of their few singles to receive substantial radio airplay at the time that it was released.
The video was shot at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. The Grim Reaper was played by drummer Nicko McBrain. As for director Jim Yukich, he was one another one of those music video directors who everyone seemed to work with in the 80s and 90s. He did videos with everyone from Iron Maiden to Genesis to Huey Lewis to Debbie Gibson and David Hasselhoff. That’s range!
“It’s not about being unable to dance. It’s about guys that look good but can’t string a sentence together. Each verse is a piss-take at the scenario of a jeans commercial. It was good fun, but the audience thought, ‘What does he mean that he can’t dance?’ They didn’t see the humor, and it killed the fun.”
— Phil Collins on I Can’t Dance
Ok, Phil. Whatever you say.
Tony Banks, Genesis’s keyboardist, has said that the song actually came about because he and Mike Rutherford were fooling around with various sounds in the recording studio and Phil, hearing what they were doing, suddenly sang out, “I can’t dance!” The song started out as an improvised joke but then went on to become one of the band’s biggest hits. It was also nominated for a Grammy.
The end of the video is meant to be a parody of the original ending of Michael Jackson’s video for Black or White. Black or White originally ended with Michael Jackson’s dancing erratically and destroying a car. I Can’t Dance ends with Tony and Mike dragging Phil away before can do too much damage.
To say, as one BBC documentary did back in 2000, that “critics sneer at Phil Collins” is to be guilty of a massive understatement. For as long as I can remember, critics have loathed Phil Collins and most of his fellow musicians haven’t had much good to say either. Who can forget Noel Gallagher imploring the British public to vote for Labour because “if you don’t and the Tories get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here. And let’s face it, none of us want that.” And, of course, in American Psycho, Patrick Bateman vigorously defended Phil Collins as a musical genius and both hookers and audiences laughed.
It’s easy to understand how the fatigue with Phil Collins set in. In the 80s through the mid 90s, he was everywhere. His songs were hits but many of them sounded so similar that they were difficult to keep straight. Music critics love authenticity and that was often what Phil Collins seemed to be lacking.
Still, you can’t deny that the man sold a lot of records. Critics and hipsters may not have liked him but, for a while there, everyone else couldn’t wait to hear the latest from Phil Collins. For me, Phil Collins’s music will always be a guilty pleasure. He’s easy to mock but his music epitomizes an era and still holds up better than something from Michael Bolton.
No, I just don’t think he’s as bad as people say.
But we’re talking about Phil …. er, never mind, man.
This cover of The Mindbenders’s A Groovy Kind of Love appeared in the movie Buster, which was an attempt to turn Phil Collins in a film star. The movie took place in the 60s and the soundtrack is full of music from that era. This was one of two songs that Collins recorded for the film’s soundtrack. The other was Two Hearts, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
The video is one of the many videos that find Phil Collins sitting in a dark room and singing. While singing, he watches scenes from Buster. The film did well in the UK and less well in the States. Some critics complained that the film glorified crime (it was about the real-life Great Train Robbery), which led to Prince Charles and Princess Diana canceling plans to attend the film’s London premiere. Collins later stated that he was the one who told Charles that he should stay home in order to save him from any embarrassment. Telling royalty to stay away from your movie for their own good is classic Phil Collins.
Through the Shattered Lens 