Apart from a couple of tracks from Face Value and a song from the Tarzan soundtrack, this blog has been mostly a Phil Collins-free zone.
That isn’t by design. I have only positive things to say about Collins, whose soundtrack work alone is worth celebrating, let alone his solo albums and work with Genesis. I jammed out to all of those tunes when I was a teen.
But still, I haven’t gone out of my way to feature him.
Welcome to the latest edition of my Decades series, wherein I feature celebrated albums from a single year across several decades. So far I’ve covered 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, and (most recently) 1971. That brings me to the year I’ll focus on over the new few weeks: 1981.
The first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The year of the first test tube baby. The year Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. The year I turned nine. Of the five albums I’ll count down first — my personal favorites from 1981 — I listened to only one at the time. The rest I’ve discovered since.
I can’t do a week on Academy Award winning songs without giving a nod to Disney animation. Songs from animated Disney films have won a whopping 13% of all Best Original Song Oscars.
The trend started way back the 40s with Pinocchio‘s ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ (1940) and ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ from 1947’s racially problematic Song of the South. Disney had a 40-year drought after that, until 1989’s The Little Mermaid brought the studio back with a vengeance. Including that one for ‘Under the Sea,’ Disney animated films would go on to win seven of the next 10 Best Original Song Oscars.
I recently read an article in Rolling Stone about Phil Collins and his withdrawal from public life as a reaction to relentless bashing of his music.
Collins, who was one of the 80s biggest stars thanks to hits such as ‘Sussudio’ and ‘Against All Odds,’ not to mention his popular work with Genesis (‘Land of Confusion’ and ‘Invisible Touch’ to name just a couple), now spends almost all of his time curating an impressive collection of Alamo memorabilia.
He is actually one of the world’s top collectors of artifacts from the Alamo and was touched and proud to be accepted into their world as an equal. Fascinating.
Meet Me In Montauk 