Ertegun thought the song needed a clearer beat that listeners could understand, so he requested that Collins add in extra drums. The lack of drumming for the first 3 minutes and 40 seconds of “In the Air Tonight” was a sticking point for Ahmet Ertegun, the legendary head of Atlantic Records, Collins’s label in America. Thus was born gated reverb, the drum effect that would power “In the Air Tonight” and define pop music in the ’80s. Padgham also ran the drums through a “noise gate,” which artificially cuts off recorded sounds right after they start. Such mics utilize heavy compression, which makes loud sounds quiet and quiet sounds loud. While working on Peter Gabriel’s self-titled 1979 album, Collins and Padgham discovered that Phil’s drums sounded incredible when recorded through the microphone that engineers used to converse with musicians on the other side of the studio glass. It helped that Collins cut the track with producer Hugh Padgham, a proven partner in creating mammoth drum sounds. “We decided to keep that take, and it happened to have that drum fill in it,” Collins said. But in the studio, Collins improvised a little flourish, as drummers often do. The original demo had the drums dropping in without fanfare. As with the lyrics, the iconic drum passage wasn’t something Collins fussed over. And then there’s the drum fill, which comes in at the 3:40 mark, just as the tension of the song reaches a breaking point. Bertorelli has since disputed this claim, insisting that Collins's "short fuse and preference for arguing" were the real reasons for the divorce.Įither way, it was an acrimonious split, and that filters into the sound of “In the Air Tonight.” In addition to the chilly synths, there are harsh, distorted chords-which Collins liked to an “electric razor”-from guitarist Daryl Stuermer. When Collins wrote down the words he had ad-libbed, he used a piece of stationery belonging to the interior decorator he says his wife left him for. I have no idea what 'coming in the air tonight' means-apart from an impending darkness, possibly.” “Those emotions are in the song, but in an abstract way. “Obviously, having my wife leave me, and losing my two little ones, there was anger, bitterness, and hurt,” he said. He stepped to the mic and freestyled some lyrics-virtually all of which made the finished version of “In the Air Tonight.” Collins claims he has “no idea” what any of the words mean. Rather than clutter up the composition, like Genesis might have done, Collins resolved to keep things simple. He started with a sparse drum machine beat, followed by some haunting synth chords. "One of the songs was a moody thing with a bit of an atmosphere," Collins told Uncut in 2016. So he grabbed some gear-including a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer and a Roland CompuRhythm CR78 drum machine-and got busy writing new material. He’d just split up with Andrea Bertorelli, his first wife, who moved out with their two children and the musician suddenly found himself alone at home with nothing to do. “Anger, Bitterness, and Hurt”Ĭollins wrote “In the Air Tonight” during a dark time in his life. "That will outlive me, I think, that song," Collins aptly told Jimmy Fallon in 2016. In the decades since, superstar rappers, social media personalities, fictional Russian spies, and even Mike Tyson have helped to ensure that nobody forgets “In the Air Tonight.” All the while, fans kept drumming along in their cars. As the ’80s progressed, the song received massive boosts from a flashy new cop show and a crazy rumor involving Collins and his supposed role in witnessing a drowning. Many, many more hits followed, both for Collins and his increasingly pop-oriented incarnation of Genesis. 19 in America, and in the process announced Collins as a viable artist in his own right. With its spooky-spare sound, thundering drum break, and oblique lyrics, “In the Air Tonight” sounded like nothing else on the radio. Released in January 1981, "In the Air Tonight" was Collins’s first solo single (previously, he had been the drummer and replacement lead singer for Genesis, the English prog-rock band initially fronted by Peter Gabriel). At the center of this Venn diagram sits "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, a tune that’s inspired vigorous air-drumming and bizarre rumors for more than 40 years. There are also loads of great songs whose lyrics have spawned urban legends-just ask The Beatles. The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and David Bowie’s “Young Americans” come to mind. The classic rock canon is packed with songs featuring epic drum fills.
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