Phil Collins is easily one of my two favorite drummers ever, so I find it hard to be objective. A couple random suggestions:
Here's one from Al Di Meola's
Scenario: This is the only track he played on (Bill Bruford and Tony Levin play on one other, and Bruford wrote about how frustrating an experience it was in his autobio), but I always loved it:
Here's PC and the fantastic Jamie Oldaker (easily my favorite regular Clapton drummer ever) dueting on the second to last track off the uneven but great
Behind the Sun LP, which Collins produced—there's a really cool moment coming out of a break a bit over two minutes in where Collins and Oldaker go back and forth on the toms. (Listen with headphones for the best experience—Oldaker's on the left, Collins on the right.)
He later toured with Clapton, as part of a stripped-down four-piece, with the great Nathan East on drums. I saw them in D.C. and I remember not recognizing this incredibly famous riff, the context was so different, when they opened with it. Absolutely loved it.
I realize it's somewhat heretical, but I greatly prefer Collins' playing on this famous Cream song over the guy who originally wrote the drum part (and am amused by how Phil sounds like himself, obviously, but he also tweaks his usual style a bit to sound more like late 60s/early 70s drumming):
As already mentioned, his work with Brand X is probably his best recorded drum work, on a technical level—back in the mid-80s, when he was a ubiquitous pop star, when I had musician friends who'd scoff at the idea that the guy who sang that Prince rip-off "Sussudio" could really be a good drummer, I'd play him the first track off
Unorthodox Behaviour.
Finally, speaking of his pop work, his playing on the remake of Howard Jones's "No One Is to Blame"—which he also produced—is so instantly recognizable as him it's amazing: how many other drummers have that immediately recognizable a sound and style? (Yes, I know, Hugh Padgham discovered it for Peter Gabriel's brilliant third album, unless it was actually on a previous XTC album.) But I'd argue that while his sound is obviously famous, it's not
just his sound, but style that's so identifiable. Off the top of my head, I'd say Ginger Baker and Stewart Copeland and maybe Dave Grohl?
Howard Jones - No One Is To Blame (from the CD "Best Of")
www.youtube.com
I'll stop here since, as Steve Rogers once almost said, I could do this all day.
