A Built-In Ability

Genesis “Invisible Touch”

Try to imagine “Invisible Touch” without any of the ‘80s-ness of its arrangement. It’s not easy, given how overwhelmingly ‘80s it sounds. You have to strip away the keyboards, the drum machine, the echo effect on the guitar, the very sound of Phil Collins’ voice. Like a lot of beloved ‘80s hits, “Invisible Touch” is essentially a Motown-style R&B song played in a completely new style utilizing then-cutting edge technology. Collins and the rest of Genesis were working from a structural template and an approach to singing rooted in Black music, but the result is so transformed by their aesthetics that it barely registers as direct influence. From the perspective of the early 2020s, this looks like a very responsible sort of appropriation.

Phil Collins’ fascination with drum machines in the ‘80s is interesting to me because as a very technically gifted drummer, there was very little he could do with programming that he could not emulate at a drum kit. He was going after a sound – modern, fresh, colorful. The programmed drum fills in “Invisible Touch” have a timbre closer to keyboards than any acoustic percussion instrument, and that’s the appeal. Drums without drum sounds, keyboards that sounded like no analog instrument: We’re so used to artificial textures in music now that it’s hard to get a sense for how revolutionary this was at the time, and how quickly the technology moved that early iterations of these new sounds could be horribly dated and unfashionable within a couple years.

As massively popular as Collins and Genesis were in the ’80s, a lot of people reacted poorly to this sort of drum programming and I think to a large extent it’s because in addition to the false notion that programming drum machines was “easier,” the synthetic sound removed the physical elements of drumming that could be respected as a show of athleticism – a performance of masculinity. “Invisible Touch” has all the function of an up-tempo R&B-based rock number but excises everything that could be interpreted as macho. Artists working in the industrial and hip-hop spaces would go on to convey an aggressive masculine-coded energy to drum machines by the end of the decade, but Collins and a lot of new wave, dance, and synth-pop acts were deliberately rejecting all that.

“Invisible Touch” is sung from the perspective of a guy who is absolutely terrified of a woman he believes is attempting to seduce him, possibly with nefarious goals. I hesitate to say this song is misogynistic, but it is expressing a level of distrust in female sexuality that suggests a lot of unflattering things about Collins, who wrote the lyrics. The paranoia is focused on this woman, but it sounds to me more like he’s projecting a lot from a deep fear of sex in general. The words present this woman as having some special power – an invisible touch, yeah – but I get the impression that this character would see sex as a corrupting influence regardless, and a way of losing a sense of control over himself. It’s a remarkably anti-horny song, and when the song modulates upward for that big key change in the final third it’s almost as though he’s leaping up to evade the clutches of this scary sexy lady.

Buy it from Amazon.