It’s Friday, so here’s the video for “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey

I’m posting this because it’s awesome. But like all guilty pleasures, especially those involving Phil Collins, I feel like I have to qualify it.

Let me acknowledge, first of all, that the whole “video about making a video” concept is a tough one to get away with. So tough, in fact, that they don’t fully pull it off here. It’s a little bit frustrating to hear these guys sing live over the track itself, for example, and it’s a little condescending to have to pretend that all that goofing off on the set wasn’t staged.

Then again, this video came out in the mid-eighties, and I’m pretty sure people back then were still amazed that their favourite songs had somehow been stolen from the radio and gotten trapped in the picture box. So I’m willing to give that a pass.

But the second thing I feel like I have to acknowledge is the fact that a lot of people don’t like Phil Collins. My girlfriend, for example, positively hates him. We’re talking about a “feisty grandmother from the old country spitting on the floor at the mention of his name” level of hatred. It’s got something to do with him being a giant hypocrite who writes a bunch of touching songs about homeless people on the one hand, and then allegedly tells everybody to vote for the Conservatives or he’ll leave the country on the other.

To make matters worse, when everybody voted Labour because hey, no more Phil Collins, the guy didn’t even hold up his end of the deal. What a jerk! Oh, and it also sounds like he hasn’t always been great to his wives and children, but that’s really none of my business.

Anyway, whatever. This song is basically terrific. If you want to give all the credit to Philip Bailey, then that’s up to you. Just don’t give it to Bill Bailey; as awesome as he is, he didn’t have anything to do with this song.

Posted in It's Friday