In 1981, a haunting soft rock classic introduced what many listeners still consider one of the most unforgettable drum fills in music history.
Music producer and session musician Rick Beato recently named Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” the greatest drum fill of all time in his popular “Top 20 Drum Fills of All Time” video.
Beato opened the video by explaining that he had already ranked the greatest guitar intros, bass intros and drum intros before finally turning his attention to drum fills hidden inside songs themselves.
“I've already done the top 20 acoustic intros, electric intros, drum intros, bass intros, keyboard intros, but now we're getting into the interior of the songs,” Beato said.
As the countdown progressed, Beato highlighted legendary moments from artists including Metallica, Journey, U2, Nirvana, Rush and Led Zeppelin before finally reaching Collins’ iconic 1981 hit.
Before revealing his No. 1 pick, Beato admitted the project became one of the most difficult videos he had ever produced because every fill had to be reconstructed with the surrounding instruments and arrangements.
“I have to tell you how long it took me to actually put this video together because I've never worked on a video this long,” he said.
“When I thought of making this video, I didn't realize, well, drum fills are actually in the middle of songs, so you have to actually create everything that's around it.”
Beato also revealed that Collins’ legendary drum moment was the first thing that came to mind when he started planning the ranking.
“When I was thinking about making this video, this is actually the first drum fill that popped into my mind,” he said before unveiling “In the Air Tonight” as his top choice.
Released in January 1981 as the lead single from Collins’ debut solo album Face Value, “In the Air Tonight” became one of the defining songs of the decade. The song emerged during one of the most painful periods of Collins’ life. In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, the singer revealed that he wrote “In the Air Tonight” after the collapse of his first marriage while recording alone in a studio he had built inside the master bedroom of his home.
“One day I was working on a piece in D-minor, the saddest [key] of all,” Collins recalled. “I just wrote a sequence, and it sounded nice. I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I’m not quite sure what the song is about, but there’s a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration.”
Collins later said the song’s mystery may be part of why it has endured for decades. “Nobody knows what the song is about, and I kind of like the mystery,” he told the magazine.
Musically, the song built tension unlike almost anything else on pop radio at the time. For more than three minutes, Collins restrained the arrangement to eerie keyboards, drum machine pulses and simmering vocals before unleashing the now-iconic drum fill that completely changes the energy of the song.
Critics and musicians have spent decades praising the iconic drum fill. Legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne once called it “the best ever,” while critics have described the fill as one of the defining sounds of 1980s music production.
The song’s influence has only grown with time. “In the Air Tonight” has appeared in films and television shows ranging from Miami Vice to The Hangover, inspired countless covers and remixes and repeatedly surged back into the charts thanks to viral internet moments and commercials.
The song’s lasting legacy comes during an emotional chapter in Collins’ life and career. The legendary singer and drummer has largely stepped away from public life in recent years due to severe health issues stemming from spinal injuries and nerve damage that left him unable to play drums.
Despite those struggles, the singer’s musical legacy continues to resonate across generations. Collins will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist later this year after finally receiving his first individual nomination decades after entering the Hall with Genesis in 2010.
Fans flooded Beato’s video comments with praise not only for Collins’ iconic drum fill, but also for the way the video captured the anticipation surrounding the song’s explosive payoff.
“There’s no way Phil Collins wasn’t gonna be #1 in a Top 20 Drum Phils video,” one viewer joked.
Another wrote, “The video works so well because just like ‘In the Air Tonight’ you spend the whole time just waiting to hear that drum fill and when you hear it, it’s everything you had wanted.”
“Man, you can tell that everyone was having a blast putting this together,” another fan commented.
Others praised Beato’s ability to balance music theory with accessibility.
“One thing I love about your presentations is that you explain things briefly enough to not condescend the musos while managing to explain enough for non musicians to know what's going on,” one viewer wrote.
“Props to Jack for playing all those fills so amazingly!” another added.
Related: Amid Health Struggles, Phil Collins Finally Nominated for Rock Hall as Odds Favor 2026 Induction
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