I Remember Phil Collins! For now.

It's astounding the number of hits, no less songs, that some artists have. Take Phil Collins for example. It's easy to list off at least 2-3 hits of his, courtesy of Disney's Tarzan. Taking a little more time to think, here's what I've come up with:

Take Me Home
Can't Stop Loving You
Sussudio
Another Day in Paradise
Easy Lover
You'll Be in My Heart
One More Night
Against All Odds
True Colors

Wikipedia tells me that I've missed quite a few, as well.

In his day, it seems like Phil Collins was basically king of the 1980's (with Bryan Adams and Richard Marx as his princes, and Rick Astley at this point as the court jester). Hell, he probably had more well-known songs than Michael Jackson at that point.

But he's clearly not held in the same regard as MJ. So that begs the question: if not the volume of well-known songs, what exactly does it take for an artist to have that special staying power to last through the years?

I don't know. Maybe the "timelessness" or a song, how adaptable the song is over time, and whether it was innovative or not?