Old Enough to Forget

1983 was a weird year. While Culture Club and Duran Duran were taking over the world with their videos, Genesis managed to sneak in under the radar and launch a sneak attack that took everyone by surprise. Okay, maybe not everyone, but it took me by surprise. What I knew about the band would have fit on the head of a pin. A large pin mind you, but other than a couple of songs I'd heard from Duke or Abacab I had never really listened to Genesis. I knew this was the band Phil Collins was in when he wasn't making solo records. You know, the "In the Air Tonight" guy who had the cool drum sound that everyone drummed on the dashboard when the song came on if you were in the car. With respect to this album, the song that first got my attention was "That's All" and it was catchy but didn't really make me want to rush out and buy the record, but I looked forward to hearing it on the radio. It was "Mama" that got me right in the feels. The evil laugh...

There was a period of time (it was actually pretty short when you look back on it - but at the time it seemed like forever) when Mister Collins was pretty much everywhere. Either with Genesis, or solo, or behind the kit just being a drummer (I saw him with Robert Plant, and there was little fanfare made about it). He first started making inroads with his early solo career, come on, who hasn't played air drums to "In the Air Tonight" but when Genesis took the world in 1983 with their self titled monster it seemed like everyone needed a little more Phil in their lives, and we got our Phil until we were all filled up. No Jacket Required is the album where he and Hugh Padgham fitted all the sonic pieces together and where Phil's now patented gated reverb drum splat sound would practically define the 80s. The song where all of this sonic mayhem manifested itself on a grand scale was the ear-worm "Sussudio" a song that elicits a pretty strong reaction both positiv...