Not Dead Yet

January 30, 2017
Fans of pop star Collins will relish the friendly sound of his voice as he revisits his childhood and his early career as a child actor, his eventual ascent into music fame, and his most recent return from retirement. He opens up about his personal problems, including alcohol and drug abuse and failed marriages, providing context but not necessarily excusing his actions or shortcomings. He is the ideal narrator for his tale and keeps the flow of the narration highly conversational and intimate, so that listeners feel as if he is right there with him. His emotional projection perfectly aligns with the narrative as he recounts the highs and lows of his life: listeners can feel the happiness, sorrow, and anxiety in his tone and energy as he moves through his life story. A Crown Archetype hardcover.

Of beat-keeping, boozing, and stardom: Genesis drummer and solo star Collins tells...well, something approaching all. Two things are evident from the beginning of this amiable tour of a life in pop music. The first is that the author is a somewhat reluctant star, glad of the successes of others and mistrustful of his own: "I ha[d] to follow a solo album that wasn't meant to be an album, far less a hit," he writes of his early 1980s breakthrough. "Writing another may not be a task I'm up to." The second is that Collins is a true-blue fan of rock, having first tasted it as an extra on the set of the Beatles' 1964 movie A Hard Day's Night, his scene left on the cutting-room floor for reasons he winningly explains. Throughout, the author skirts some of the tender issues that broke up the monster band Genesis, sending Peter Gabriel to a solo career and Collins from the drummer's stool to center stage as lead singer. When he criticizes, it is mostly himself in the cross hairs, and when he writes of the dynamics resurrected in a reunion some years back, it is gingerly: "Peter will therefore, unavoidably, take charge of some aspects of the operation. And with the best will in the world, there might be some resentment from some quarters at this." Collins writes with sensitivity of his alcoholism and shrugs off some of the angst that propelled his biggest hits. "If I was feeling that much pain night after night," he writes, "I'd be a crackpot." And he doesn't toot his horn overmuch, though anyone who can listen to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway without being moved and grooved has no soul. As for "Sussudio," granted, not so much.... Though without the gruff nastiness of Keith Richards' Life or the raw poetry of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, this is a pleasing entry in the pop-confessional genre. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2016

Having racked up 280 million record sales worldwide in a career encompassing performance with Genesis and on his own, Collins has a lot to say about the music scene and his fellow musicians. And about himself, of course, including the seemingly inevitable battles with drugs and alcohol.

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