Pop eat itself and got a dicky tummy

Loathe him or loathe him, part time lover and paint can power pop balladeer Phil Collins is a revelation. Yes, Phil Collins, the ferret faced uncle of pop, with his vocal sack of heartache from his Su Su studio of emotional longing is a living breathing revelation.

Before you start choking on your biscuit shaped prejudice. Yes, I understand that Phil Collins is probably an anathema to everything you believe music should be; soul blah integrity, blah blah, artistic vision blah, but we are talking about pop here, and pop music is a genre that will always be the giant turd on the dance floor of life because the general public are an inordinate bunch of yapping dogs, and you know that you are miles better than them simply by owning a Clash album that isn't London calling. You win, but in the genre of pop music Phil Collins is a revelation, worthy of our respect and admiration.

Why? Because there is something glorious and hopeful that at one point in musical history Phil Collins was the world's biggest pop star.

Phil Collins couldn't dance, couldn't talk, the only thing about him was the way he walked, Ellie Golding or Rhianna he ain't and yet it was probably his song your Auntie Margaret danced to at her wedding to Uncle Peter while wearing that big orange pom pom toilet roll cover dress.

Phil Collins, was hugely popular even though he looked more like a plumber than a pop star. He wasn't cool, he wasn't sexy, he didn't have elaborate dance routines with a harem of scantily clad women, but he did have no1 hits and that was a wonderful thing that seems sadly lost in our current pop climate.

There will never again be room in the pop sphere for another like him, or his ilk, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Midge Ure, Nick Heysaw, Feargul Sharkey, Michael Mcdonald, Billy Ocean and loads more that all looked like depressed Geography teachers. Pop is a too well oiled machine churning out ever younger repackaged models of the same sexually explicit, high tempo music of the beautiful, toned bodied, made up, glamour model kings and queens. I just can't see how the ordinary looking Phil Collins's of the world would ever compete against these Zeus like creatures?

If you think I'm talking nonsense, I have done the maths, poorly remembered GCSE maths, but nonetheless I have worked out that the average age of a singer with a no1 hit single in 1985 was 31, in 2015 it is 25. At least 5 artists were 21.

This is why whenever I look now into the shining bald head of Phil I'm filled with deep despair because a bald head in pop music now, is as likely as a Dodo for Christmas dinner.

It's a sad indictment of our culture that with the onset of the music video and the proliferation of the photograph that we are becoming more obsessed with image, and youth and this trend is only set to continue. Today there are very few music acts that work beyond 30, or have exposure in the Pop realm past that age because we simply don't want to look at them, and their crusty ageing faces. There's just no room for wonderful naffness, everything has to be so edgy, and cool, it's tiring.

Back in the 80's there was at least some hope that if you wrote a catchy song with a pleasant melody you could have a hit record, I just can't see that happening now unless it's a novelty push a pineapple up you arse kind of record.

The worse thing is, it's a great loss. For anyone who has ever had a conversation with a 21 year old that isn't 21, will tell you, they're all idiots. Obsessed with drinkin in the Klub, and having fun, and enjoying life, Yuck. What the hell can a 21 year old tell me about the vicissitudes of life and the pitfalls of love? Phil suffered a divorce after his wife had an affair with the painter and decorator, that's real pain.

So, thank your lucky stars that Phil is out of retirement. He is a walking relic of a different age, soon to disappear into the air tonight, and we'll be left with toddlers shouting their incomprehensible nonsense.