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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on April 1, 2010 at 2:05am

Oh no. It is not looking good for my pick!

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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on April 12, 2010 at 9:53am

So sorry all for the delay. I have had a bit of stuff pre-occupying me recently and this got left in the wayside, just as it gets exciting. My sincere apologies. In the end, my pick, Phil Collins did not go the distance. This is tragic. He did last longer than last time, but as so many seemed to want a Michael vs. Michael face-off, his number came up.

So, vote here, or use the attached form. Most prefer the form, which emails results to me immediately, but you can vote here and I will tally all those with emailed forms.

So ask yourself, who sucks worse?

Michaelo Bolton

or

Michael McDonald?

As promissed, the rant, though pasted from original, and therefore signifying his embarassing loss to Starship, who can't compete with Phil for sucking:


I am nearly overwhelmed with confusion and befuddlement…..how did Phil Collins not advance? Are you people (that voted for Starship) absolutely mad?

I realize that this spot is normally reserved for a dissection of the emails and ballots received in each round with a corresponding tabulation of all of the votes, and numerous statistics on how things were measured and so forth, but this is an absolute tragedy.

I fear that people have forgotten how much harm this man has done to us as a people. I must speak out, because those that do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

His horrific saccharine voice. His stupid cherubic face, which incidentally graces most of his album covers. That insane crushing compression on his vocals so that we can listen to every bland syllable he pronounces with omnipresent forcefulness. The fact that he plays the same drum beats all the time. He wears many sweater vests. He was the executive producer for the soundtrack for Against All Odds…..dear mighty zeus it is insane.

Many people brought up that it was ultimately “We Built this City” that motivated their votes for Starship. I would never defend such an uncompromisingly bad composition, and the tones used as “instruments” ought to have been illegal then and now. (Incidentally, this is also true of New Kids on the Block….any song….where did those sounds come from? Unbelievable that someone could have been listening to this in the control room as the albums/songs were being made and said “sounds good…..lets use that.”., but I digress….) Still, the Philster must have a half-dozen songs that slay “We Built this City”, and that’s before one even considers the outpouring of audio filth that the 3-piece Genesis disseminated upon a feather-haired public throughout the 80s. Along with Huey Lewis and his obligatory News, Phil Collins practically defines the mis-use of brass instruments in modern music, and his penchant for unbelievably stupid themes is as painful to endure as peeling off one’s own skin and jumping in salt.

I think many are forgetting the horror that the man whose name has become synonymous with “adult-contemporary” has inflicted upon us. After his first US solo hit in 1981, “In the Air Tonight”, he unleashed 13 straight top 10 hits on the US. All of these songs are so putrid that their very existence inspired this entire tournament. It was a few months back as my son, wife and I waited on the endless pancake special at the local IHOP when Phil’s nerve-damaging voice began to play over the sound system. I maintain as I have then that he is the single worst artist in the universe. My wife was in favor of Christopher Cross, who has survived, and while he is indeed a terror to friends of fine music, the volume of suck emanating from Phil Collins could compete readily with any black hole in the universe or an army of overpriced Dyson vacuum cleaners set to “extinguish”. In any case, the Phil vs. Chris conversation lead to the fancy of a contest of the worst of the 80s, which of course we are in the historical midst of, but I am absolutely flabbergasted that it has come to this. I barely can go on. And I mean in life.

Here is a quick listing of some of the horror that Mr. Collins has bequeathed upon humanity in the 80s:


In the Air Tonight
(no….don’t say that it is a good song. It is not. Please stop And while we are at it, the new Miami Vice movie is absolutely horrible and the re-recording of this song is like a 50-million ton exclamation mark.)

I Missed Again
(actually, probably his best hit song ever. Even though I think it is just part 2 of Genesis’ “No Reply at Al”. Sad. Very sad.)

I don’t Care Anymore
(note: same drums as In the Air Tonight,…..listen to it…seriously….unbelievable)

You Can’t Hurry Love
(come on now! Just typing it makes me queasy. I would pay good money to see Diana Ross and Phil Collins in a cage match and all of my money is on Diana beating Phil so badly until he couldn’t monotone another note.)

Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
(let’s not forget he was executive produce of the Against All Odds soundtrack as well.)

Don’t Lose my Number
(good grief how stupid I am. I sort of forgot how this song went so I just listened to it again. After a few minutes of convulsing and flailing around on the floor while clawing at my ears, I was finally able to close the web browser and stop the insipid bile from playing.)

One More Night
(that’s it! That’s the song that we heard at the IHOP. The single song that ultimately inspired countless hours of 80s suckdom. ARGHHHHH!)

Easy Lover
(this is actually a Phil Collins/Philip Bailey duet on Bailey’s Phil Collins’ produced – Chinese Wall. And yet it is that mid-register nasal-noxious voice that cuts through my brain after all of these years.)

Separate Lives (Love Theme from White Nights)
(wow. As if there were not already a great deal of incentive to avoid any movie that stars both Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines together. This is a duet with Marilyn Martin. Vomit.)

Sussudio
(this DESTROYS “We Built this City” in terms of musical badness.)

Take me Home
(because I DO remember….all too well)

Two Hearts
(there should definitely be extra points for this song as it was also in the soundtrack for the Phil Collins star-vehicle film, “Buster.”)

A Groovy Kind of Love
(a Groovy Kind of Love. Uh huh. Just having a song with that title is enough to win the tournament.)

Another Day in Paradise
(somehow by the end of the 80s, most of the worst music of the day was happily passing me by without me noticing. So, not learning from my mistake on “Don’t Lose my Number”, I just listened to a sample of this song. Totally a stupid idea.)

I Wish it Would Rain Down
(i do too. I wish it would never ever stop raining, but that all of the rain fell directly on top of Phil Collins, wherever he goes, eventually making it very dangerous for him to get within a few inches of any microphone or electric device needed to record any more, ever again.)

As if that staggering display of evidence does not seem compelling enough, please remember that this category was expanded to include the 80s songs of Genesis. Some people mentioned that they really liked earlier Genesis, as do I, but people, we are talking about the 80s. Consider some of these 80s gems from Gensis:

Paperlate
(it is exactly at this point that Genesis moves over all the way to full-scale suck. Earlier 80s albums like Duke and even parts of the album this song appears on, Abacab aren’t nearly as influenced by Phil and the bland pop riddled with excruciating horn blasts his 80s style were defined by.)

Mama
(this song is just awful. At least he isn’t drumming over much of it.)

That’s All
(Ii’s just a shame, that’s all.)

Illegal Alien
(i could probably make my case just on this song. You have to really be impressed by Phil’s fake Mexican accent mid-way through this horror schlock.)

Taking it All too Hard
(that sounds like the theme song for my lament-filled tirade.)

In Too Deep
(this song is so syrupy sweet in its rancidness, that it resembles an overly ripe kiwi, whose rot overwhelms you after the first initial taste.)

Invisible Touch
(one of those songs that makes you insane when it loops through your head. Many have injured themselves by trying to stop the plodding inanity from filling their mind and infecting their lives permanently.)

Land of Confusion
(this has to get extra points for the cheeky video with the puppets and their brave take on the world of politics.)

Throwing it All Away
(if only.)

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
(not tonight. Not tomorrow…..never, never never.)

So there you have it. A staggering volume of such unadulterated suckiness that defies all rationale. It is devastating in its totality. The prolific offerings of Phil Collins are as unrelenting in frequency as they are in execution. I may take a few days to recover from Phil being eliminated from this round, but I believe I will be able to continue.

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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on April 20, 2010 at 2:22pm

And the winner is......

Michael Bolton - 69%.


Cheers - Lee

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