While there’s no denying that his music dominated the charts with pop hits and adult contemporary bops, there is an argument to be made that Sega Genesis had a far greater impact on music and video games than Sega Phil Collins’ solo endeavors.
In the early 1980s Sega Enterprises was on the top of their game, surpassing a company valuation of $200 million, and this is before the formation of the esteemed super-group, Sega Genesis. Composed of icons like Sega Anthony Phillips, Sega Peter Gabriel, and the ubiquitous Sega Phil Collins, the group churned out banger after banger like the Green Hill Zone Theme, and Land of Confusion.
It was truly a golden era, where 16-bit musical instrumentation met the pop-rock fusion of the 1980s. A period in time where you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing the dulcet tones of Sega Genesis performing their iconic startup sound “Seeeeegaaaa.” The chorus of digital voices had more than an Invisible Touch on the listening generation.
However the good times were not sustainable as the group, along with Sega Enterprises, entered the latter half of the 1990s. After both critical and commercial failures of projects like the Sega Saturn and the final studio album, Calling All Stations, the band decided to call it quits, followed soon after by the halting of console production in Japan.
Bound and determined to stay in the limelight, Sega Phil Collins shed the video game namesake and continued releasing music as ‘Phil Collins.’ Leaning into the mainstream by producing the soundtracks for two Disney animated films – “Tarzan” and “Brother Bear” – the former Sega Genesis drummer solidified his reputation as a capitalistic corporate media sellout.
Eventually, in 2017, the band reunited sans “Sega” for one final world tour. Another cash grab for Collins that at least resulted in a proper farewell for the rest of the group. And now, in 2024, the possibility of a second reunion is being rumored, Collins continues to bore audiences with hits like In The Air Tonight, a song that needlessly teases the audience towards a lackluster drum breakdown climax.
I believe that Collins has etched his name into the footnotes of popular culture, while Genesis, like the first book of the bible, will live on in the hearts of music and video game lovers alike, for generations to come.
