POP MUSIC REVIEW : Hitmaker Phil Collins: Stuck in Two Gears at the Forum

Rarely has anyone made so much money underachieving as Phil Collins.

Fans of his erstwhile career as an art-rocker mostly figured when he started making solo albums in the early ‘80s that his flighty, fizzy pop work was a lark while on leave from Genesis and other various “progressive” projects.

Now, it’s quite clearly Genesis that’s the lark, for Phil Collins the hitmaker and cheerful video comedian is a cottage industry. Five sold-out nights at the Forum, the first of which was Wednesday, attest to that.

He clearly wants to be a full-service entertainer for the masses. His deadpan humor between songs in concert and in his videos is self-deprecating and winning, in a way that’s very English but also very rooted in the George Burns vaudeville tradition. His simple, simple songs mostly aim at being nothing more--or less--than sound tracks for sentimental swooning.

Surely Collins’ heart couldn’t be in this as deeply as his pocketbook is. Could it?

Among the evidence for the defense would be the sheer length of Wednesday’s show, which clocked in generously at just over 2 1/2 hours, offering 21 crowd-pleasing numbers--almost all of them smash Top 10 hits, from the horn-accompanied, sassy dance number “Sussudio” through the electronic piano-based sappy ballad “Do You Remember.”

Weighing in with the prosecution would be the fact that those were, almost without exception, the only two types of numbers he did all night--sassy dance number followed by sappy ballad followed by sassy dance number followed by sappy ballad followed by mass narcosis.

This kind of pacing is deadly. Instead of instilling a sense of variety in going constantly back and forth between his peppy and languorous numbers, Collins only made it abundantly clear that--at least when it comes to the wildly popular single hits--he has but two tricks up his solo sleeve.

And if the alternating-currents pattern was that dreadfully predictable for us, imagine what it’s like for the truly talented Collins, whose conscience about the homeless and South Africa (both of which received earnest musical tributes during the evening) extends much further than his conscience about feeding his audience anything more challenging than a diet of reconstituted banalities. Not to impugn his integrity, but this all sounds suspiciously like, at best, a career set on automatic pilot.

Was there any emotion or conviction to find in the very first reading of “Billy Don’t You Lose My Number” or “Inside Out,” let alone the umpteenth tour translation? Collins doesn’t seem to have much of himself invested in many of these songs, save for perhaps the socially conscious weepers of his latest album, the appropriately titled “. . . But Seriously.”

Live, Collins’ hits sound exactly the same as they do in the stu-stu-studio, which is not to imply that tapes are rolling (other than the drum machine Collins bafflingly favors on ballads); session pros like guitarist Daryl Stuermer and bassist Leland Sklar merely re-created their recorded parts with impressive, utterly unmoving precision. His longtime cohort, fellow drummer Chester Thompson, brought the greatest sparks to the show.

Collins’ songs have gotten increasingly “soulful” over the years, and have had conversely less soul. A four-man horn section chipped in on virtually all the upbeat numbers (and none of the slow ones), which should add a touch of saving grace to almost any show. But from the outset, with the latest album’s “Hang in Long Enough,” every groove was a dry, static one, with no room for swing or spontaneity from any of the hired help--except, of course, at designated “spontaneous” moments. Consummate musician that he may be, Collins’ R&B; instincts fail him at practically every turn.

One might even question whether the self-deprecating humor might be evidence of a self-deprecating musical persona that keeps Collins from going after the more ambitious climes of which he’s capable.