Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Phil Collins, “A Groovy Kind of Love”

27 years ago today, Phil Collins took a cover of a 1966 #2 UK and US hit by The Mindbenders and turned it into a chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic.

Written by Carole Bayer Sager and Toni Wine, who also composed The Mindbenders' only other US chart hit (“Ashes to Ashes,” which hit #44), “A Groovy Kind of Love” was the only top-10 hit of the band's career, but it was a song that stuck in Phil Collins' psyche in such a significant way that he'd come up with the idea of producing a version by Stephen Bishop, even going so far as to record a demo version himself to sell the idea. When Collins scored the title role in the feature film Buster, about Buster Edwards, the man behind the so-called “Great Train Robbery” of 1963, he opted to cover the song himself, a decision which proved fortuitous.

Unlike the upbeat pop sensibilities of The Mindbenders' version, Collins' take on the track was a ballad, replacing the guitars with strings and keys to create the soundtrack for many a slow dance during the late '80s and well beyond. (Indeed, it's reached a point now where more people than not have no clue that “A Groovy Kind of Love” isn't a Collins composition.) In addition to topping the charts in the US and the UK, the song also made its way to the top of the Canadian, Dutch, Irish, Italian, and Swiss charts, and it wasn't long before the next single from the Buster soundtrack - “Two Hearts” - gave Collins another US #1. If only the film had been as successful…