"I'm no longer officially retired,"Phil Collins told Rolling Stone. "The horse is out of the stable and I'm raring to go."
This is great news -- not only is Phil Collins a total baller, it's also good to hear that he's getting back to a place where he's physically capable of playing music, several years after being forced into retirement by nerve injuries. But that doesn't mean this next phase of his career is without pitfalls. Coming back to music after several years away will be difficult, in a changed landscape with different priorities.
It would probably be easy for Phil Collins to tour on the back of his old hits and not have to put in work to capture mass ears again, but we have a better suggestion: collaborating with people you totally would not expect. (His most recent attempt at working with others involved Adele, but that's too expected -- we need to dig deeper.) Here are a few people we think Phil Collins should work with.
5. Vince Staples
I don't know exactly how Vince Staples would use Phil Collins, but I do know that I can trust Vince to acknowledge that Phil Collins totally jams, that there is a good way to deploy that skill in a dark, brooding rap song probably produced by No I.D.
4. Neon Indian
Wait, wait, hear us out -- imagine Phil Collins singing on a dark, synth-y ballad like the ones on Alan Paloma's latest, VEGA INTL. Night School. It would work, trust me.
3. Florence + The Machine
This would... just be good, right? There are a lot of people doing the whole "belting" thing, but Phil Collins would do really well on a Florence + The Machine song. You know their duet would just be delightful.
2. Taylor Swift
Phil Collins is probably too-old, not-cool, and not-girl enough to be in Taylor Swift's girl gang, but imagine Collins in full "You'll Be In My Heart" ballad mode just rocking a Taylor Swift production, something in the vein of "Blank Space." Like, a remix of "Blank Space" with Phil Collins would destroy, would it not?
1. Kanye West
Phil Collins should be on "Only One." Phil Collins should be on "FourFive Seconds." Phil Collins should be the guiding light of Kanye's"adult contemporary Starbucks parody" phase. Phil Collins is our king. Long live Phil Collins.