Easy Lover [Serious Hits...Live!]

Built squarely in natural F minor (Aeolian mode), the track relies on the flat-VII (Eb) and flat-VI (Db) rather than a functional V chord, stripping out classical tension-and-release in favor of modal, groove-driven momentum. The harmonic palette is narrow by design: Collins and Bailey let the rhythmic engine — driving drum machine, Nathan East's bass, and Daryl Stuermer's guitar — carry the track, keeping the chords as a stable platform under the vocal interplay between two lead singers with completely different timbres.

Phil Collins was hired to produce Philip Bailey's debut solo album 'Chinese Wall' in 1984. At the tail end of the sessions, Bailey asked Collins to collaborate on one more track as album filler. As Collins told Rolling Stone in 2016: 'So we just started having a jam one night, and went round and round and turned it into a verse and a chorus. We recorded it that night so we wouldn't forget it.' Nathan East, who played bass on the record, earned a co-writing credit alongside both artists.

Written in a single overnight jam at the end of Philip Bailey's 'Chinese Wall' sessions, 'Easy Lover' paired Bailey's soaring falsetto with Collins's percussive production to produce one of the decade's most recognizable crossover hits. It reached No. 1 in the UK, Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands, peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and won an MTV Video Music Award in 1985. For Bailey, it remains his only US top-40 hit as a solo artist.