He Was Everywhere, and It Got on People’s Nerves
Collins was everywhere in the ‘80s and early ‘90s – non-stop MTV coverage, in the background at supermarkets, floating in waiting rooms – and it got on people’s nerves. He was basically a victim of his own success. Fellow artists found Collins’s pop pretty empty. David Bowie, for example, referred to some of his own ‘80s work as his “Phil Collins years “… in a bad way.
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A journalist (Frank DiGiacomo) once said, “Even when I sought to escape the sounds [of Collins] in my head by turning on the TV, there would be Mr. Collins… mugging for the cameras… intent on showing the world just how hard he would work to sell millions of records to millions of stupid people.”