Phil Collins second Brand X album, "Moroccan Roll". In December 1978, Genesis went on hiatus while Collins went to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to focus on his family; his marriage had become strained after his extensive touring. Having failed to save the relationship, Collins returned to the UK in April 1979, by which time Banks and Rutherford were recording their solo albums. With time to spare before recording a new Genesis album, Collins played on the Brand X album "Product" and its accompanying tour, played on John Martyn's album "Grace and Danger", and started writing his first solo album, "Face Value", at
Phil Collins right-wing political leanings. Caroline Sullivan, a music critic of "The Guardian", referred to his cumulative negative publicity in her 2007 article "I wish I'd never heard of Phil Collins", writing that it was difficult for her to hear his work "without being riven by distaste for the man himself". According to Jeff Shannon in "The Seattle Times", Collins is the "target of much "South Park" derision". A "New Musical Express" writer also observed the series' "endless lampooning" of Collins. Several critics have commented on Collins's omnipresence, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s. Journalist Frank DiGiacomo wrote a 1999 piece