Phil Collins in "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories"
Photo: Rockstar Games

NEW YORK — Up until now, if you were famous and wanted to be in "Grand Theft Auto," you couldn't be yourself. Chuck D had to be the DJ Forth Right MC. Samuel L. Jackson had to be Officer Tenpenny. Axl Rose had to be DJ Tommy Smith. Philip Michael Thomas couldn't be Philip Michael Thomas or Tubbs — he had to be Lance Vance.

But this is the world we live in: Phil Collins gets to be Phil Collins.

With the Tuesday (October 31) release of "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories" for the PSP (see " 'GTA: Vice City Stories' Involves Smuggling Rings, Jet Ski Stunts — And Chocolate"), Rockstar Games is closing out another big October of games. And among the twists the company is providing is a string of missions that have Vic Vance, the player-controlled "Vice City Stories" protagonist, protecting '80s music icon Collins. The commercials airing all over the Web have already helped spoil the climax: Collins holds a concert in the faux-Miami Vice City and drums through his famous song "In the Air Tonight." Assassins lurk. And Vic Vance has to save the day.

One month ago, under a veil of secrecy in downtown Manhattan, Collins sat down for the most unusual of interviews: no handlers, no PR people — just Collins, MTV News, some shaggy animal-skin rugs and a skyline view. We talked with the musician, who has one of the softest reputations in the business, about his involvement in one of gaming's most notorious franchises.

"This was suggested to me about six months ago. And I didn't have any doubt about it," Collins said. "I thought it was kinda cool. Tell your grandchildren, 'That's me. See, I was in a video game.' "

"In the Air Tonight" was released in 1981. Over the course of the next quarter-century, the song's slow build toward a shattering crash of drums became an adrenaline anthem for sporting events and movies. But its breakthrough was a star turn as a central song in "Miami Vice," that bastion of '80s cops-and-robbers TV shows that influenced, among other things, "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City." (Collins even had a role in "Miami Vice" as a huckster named Phil the Shill — unlike the game, the show didn't allow him to play himself.)

The top guys at Rockstar love "Miami Vice" and wanted Collins to appear in their game to lend it a bit of that '80s "Vice" spirit. "In the '80s, I was so omnipresent that I've become synonymous with an era," Collins said, when asked why he thought he was the first celebrity to play himself in a "GTA." He answered in genuinely humble tones. "I hadn't thought about it till you just mentioned it. Wow. OK. I know the '80s were good for me ... yeah, I'm flattered."

He may be flattered, but he knows that, no matter how much he and his song fit the Miami feel, that others will be surprised. Collins isn't the kind of star people typically associate with hard-edge entertainment. "People think of me as a lot softer and cozier than I actually am," he said. He might want to do some acting soon, for example, and he doesn't want any sweet roles. "I'd much rather head towards the ax murderer then the guy who everyone thinks is the cozy dude, you know."

He doesn't exactly deny that he's a staple of adult-contemporary radio. And he confesses to writing songs for Disney musicals. But, he protested: "It kind of annoys me a little bit that just the word 'Phil Collins' is 'working with Disney.' That just conjures up a whole bunch of things which it isn't. Disney, which is kind of a family entertainment. Phil Collins, which is kind of 'One More Night,' light stations, you know? It is part of what I've become. But it isn't actually what I am. And so, any time I can shake the cage a little bit, I will."

Collins confessed that he didn't plan to go this route. He also said that "In the Air Tonight" came to him more than two decades ago. "This song was ... among the first songs I wrote for [his 1981 album] Face Value. Going through a bitter divorce. Angry. Upset. Feeling dark. I don't know. But the lyrics I sang were totally improvised. I didn't write one word down. I just had the chords that I had already recorded at home in my little studio. I had limited amount of space on the tape. So I just had the keyboard tracks, the drum-machine tracks, and I sang. And that will be on my tombstone."

So Collins has done music. He's done TV and movies. Now he's come to games. He's on less assured ground here. Tough as he wants to seem, Collins' taste in games tends toward more gentle fare. "I'm really soft-core," he said, rattling off kid-friendly PlayStation staples "Crash Bandicoot" and "Spyro the Dragon" as favorites. He indulged mostly in the '90s: "It was like, 9 or 10 in the morning till 6 or 7 o'clock at night. Constant playing until I got everything. I was obsessed." Then life caught up with him, and he's been out of the scene. At the time of his interview with MTV News, he had yet to take the shrink-wrap off a "Grand Theft Auto." He plans to correct that soon.

He's no fool. He knows games are where it's at. "It's amazing how little records sell nowadays," he said. He mentioned that more and more music is breaking through games and that more musicians — like 50 Cent — are making appearances in them.

"I like 50 Cent," Collins said. He hadn't played "50 Cent: Bulletproof." But he has an idea for the sequel: "I could be in it."

• Phil Collins

Mick Jagger performs at Live Aid
Photo: Frank Micelotta / Getty Images

There's a good reason why, 20 years after Live Aid, Bob Geldof still looks exhausted.

Even as he hustles to coordinate 10 global events in support of his ambitious July 2 sequel, Live 8 (see "Good Charlotte, Bjork In For Live 8 Tokyo; Moscow Concert Added"), Live Aid — a still-unprecedented feat of good will, logistics and old-fashioned guilt-tripping, all masterminded by Geldof — looms large as the show that proved music can actually change the world. (See photos from Live Aid.)

Live Aid was the biggest, but it wasn't the first all-star charity show. Rockers had been lending their efforts to various causes for years, from ex-Beatle George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 (which aided refugees of that war-torn country) to the anti-nuclear power No Nukes show in 1979.

But Live Aid was different.

For one day — July 13, 1985 — an estimated 1.4 billion of the planet's five billion people stopped and watched Geldof's "global jukebox," and were treated to one of the biggest, most ambitious concerts ever staged. At one point, according to a stage announcement, 95 percent of the world's television sets were tuned in to Live Aid — an even more incredible statistic when you consider that it happened before the Internet, cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging and blogging. Through music and an eminently worthy cause, much of the world actually felt connected — even at the height of the eminently selfish "Me Decade."

	Live 8 artists stress debt relief, critics of the plan sound off and the G8 summit is explained in "Live 8: A Concert To End Poverty" on Overdrive.

That might explain why, 20 years later, even though I recently acquired the shows on DVD, there is still a stack of VHS tapes in my attic somewhere that contain most of the broadcast in all its grainy glory. They've been packed and unpacked, moved and temporarily heaped in the junkpile more than a dozen times as I've moved around the country. But they've never been tossed.

I won't lie: I've never watched them, but for some reason I just can't let go. Maybe I thought I'd want to show them to my kids, or pop them in some day to remind myself of a time when, despite all the other turmoil around the globe, the world was made aware of injustice and rose up together to try and make a difference.

It all started with a song ...

The seeds for Live Aid were sown in 1984, after Geldof saw a BBC documentary about the famine in Ethiopia — which claimed more than 1 million victims in 1984-85 alone — and decided to write a song to help raise money for the starving citizens of the East African nation.

Geldof (then singer of the Boomtown Rats) teamed with Ultravox leader Midge Ure, gathering 40 of the British Isles' biggest stars of the time to record a song for African famine relief under the name Band Aid. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" featured memorable vocal contributions from Bono, Sting, Boy George, George Michael and several less-memorable others (Britain's biggest stars at the time included Paul Young, Heaven 17 and cross-dressing non-singer Marilyn) became a worldwide hit, raising more than $10 million for the cause. It sold more than 3 million copies in the U.K. alone, making it the biggest and fastest-selling single in British chart history at the time.

The Band Aid single set off a slew of companion songs across the globe, from the Michael Jackson co-penned USA for Africa smash "We Are the World" to Canada's "Tears Are Not Enough," as well as songs from France, Spain, South Africa, Holland, Australia, Jamaica and Belgium.

It also opened the floodgates on a rush of benefit songs and events for a variety of causes, from Little Steven's anti-apartheid "Sun City" to the well-intentioned American homeless-relief effort Hands Across America, in which 5 million people raised nearly $100 million by forming a (slightly broken) chain from New York to California. There were also the popular Comic Relief benefits for the homeless and the annual Farm Aid shows for struggling American farms.

How do I know? Well, because somewhere near those Live Aid tapes are a stack of T-shirts, singles, buttons and/or baseball caps from all of the above events. I participated in Hands Across America (and bought the shirt), I watched multiple Comic Relief specials (and bought the shirt the first three times), I went to the first Farm Aid show (and yes, bought the shirt) and I distinctly remember annoying my friends by endlessly playing the multiple remixes of the still-funky "Sun City" single.

... And peaked with the show

On the cover of the recently released "Live Aid" DVD is the now-iconic logo of the event (an Africa-shaped guitar), the date of the shows and the tag line "The day the music changed the world."

	Check out pictures from the 1985 Live Aid concerts.

The event was tagged as a music event like none the world had ever seen, but even the advance hype couldn't accurately portray the momentousness of the occasion. After all, no one had ever tried to coordinate two massive concerts on two continents with the world's biggest music stars, and make the whole thing a sufficiently slick TV event to encourage the kind of donations Geldof had in mind.

Relying on satellites, a Concorde jet and lots of good will, Geldof split the show in half, with the majority of the English artists performing in front of 74,000 fans (including Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana) at Wembley Stadium in London and the rest taking the stage for 90,000 fans at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

Keep a few things in mind: Geldof got the acts to perform — for free — at a show that was organized in just three weeks. Before the days of instant digital communication, someone had to figure out how to coordinate the satellite-linked broadcasts of the two shows, along with beamed-in and taped performances from Holland, Japan, Austria, Yugoslavia, Norway, Germany, Australia and what was then still called the Soviet Union.

Luckily, Geldof had a few aces up his sleeve, among them, the reunion of the surviving members of Led Zeppelin for their first gig together since the 1980 death of drummer John Bonham, as well as reunions by the Who and the original lineup of Black Sabbath.

Then there was Phil Collins. The Genesis drummer and solo star made history during the broadcast when he started the day out by playing his hit "Against All Odds" and performing with Sting in London and then hopping a supersonic Concorde to make it to Philly to sit in with the reunited Zeppelin. (The notoriously sloppy set was not included on the "Live Aid" DVD at the request of the surviving Zep members — ditto Santana's performance.)

As people from 160 countries tuned in to watch, Geldof pulled together some amazing, one-of-a-kind collaborations. Among them: Mick Jagger and Tina Turner tearing up the stage for "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)," Madonna — described at the time as an "up-and-coming singer" — joining the Thompson Twins, Nile Rodgers and Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens for a ragged take on John Lennon's "Revolution," and Neil Young re-teaming with Crosby, Stills & Nash for "Teach Your Children."

In addition, the London show cemented U2's place as one of the best live bands in the world, placing the group on an international stage that they have yet to relinquish, both as a live act and as a force for positive change. Their unforgettable performance — "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and a 12-minute version of "Bad" — saw Bono running down the lip of the stage and encouraging fans to come forward, then jumping 10 feet into the mud to slow-dance with a woman as the band vamped behind him.

Among the other artists who participated in the concerts: Queen, David Bowie, Elton John, Paul McCartney, the Pretenders, Adam Ant, INXS, Elvis Costello, B.B. King, Sade, Run-DMC, Judas Priest, Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, Santana, Tom Petty, the Cars, Eric Clapton, Duran Duran (in their last performance with all the original members before reforming two years ago) and Bob Dylan, who closed the show with a performance of "Blowin' in the Wind," featuring the Stones' Keith Richards and Ron Wood.

Each artist was given no more than 17 minutes to play, and the performances were interspersed with short films documenting the famine, as well as impassioned pleas from Geldof to donate to the cause.

At one point, the phone center in the U.S. crashed when 700,000 pledge calls came in at the same time. By day's end, more than $70 million had been raised.

The 16 hours of music (televised by both ABC in an abbreviated version, and all day by MTV) ultimately raised more than $200 million for the cause, with Ireland generating the most donations per capita, despite the fact that the country was in the midst of a major economic depression at the time.

And Geldof? He was given an honorary knighthood (honorary because the Irish cannot receive full knighthood) and earned the nickname "Saint Bob" for his efforts. Though he swore he'd never attempt a sequel, here he is again with Live 8, marshaling the biggest stars on the planet again.

Looking back, some of the performances and acts at Live Aid were, to be honest, pretty awful. Between the Who's set being cut in half due to a blown generator, Geldof kicking his microphone cord out during a song, and the trainwreck that was the "We Are the World" Philadelphia finale, much of the event doesn't really hold up on a musical level.

But even 20 years later, the spirit of Live Aid is what still moves, and that's the most important part. And this time, Geldof doesn't want your money — he wants you to speak up.

MTV, mtvU and VH1 will broadcast from Live 8 beginning at noon on Saturday (see ).

Get involved: Learn about the poverty crisis in Africa, the proposed solutions, and how you can help. Plus find all of our coverage of the international Live 8 concerts and more at our thinkMTV Live 8 hub.

• Bob Geldof
• U2
• Led Zeppelin
• The Rolling Stones
• The Who

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Photo: Epic

"It felt good to be back out here on the road," said Wish Bone after Bone Thugs-N-Harmony kicked off their headlining stint on the Grey Goose Tour with 8Ball and MJG, Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz and Lady May.

Wish, Krayzie, Layzie and Bizzy hit familiar territory on Tuesday at B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill in New York's Times Square, performing a mixture of classics such "1st of Tha Month" and "Tha Crossroads" and new jams like the 3LW-featured "Get up and Get It."

"We never stop doing shows," Wish said Wednesday on his tour bus, which was en route to Boston. "We sell a lot of records in New York, but we never get a lot of radio play. We were expecting a good turnout. We really wanted to see the Bone fans in New York.

"I like the clubs a lot, because you can get a little more up close and personal with the fans," he continued. "They can feel you better. You're reaching people on a more personal level. It's the sh--, man. Especially knowing we been in the game for a long time and knowing we got more love and respect than a lot of cats out here. It feels good that our style and us as a group is appreciated."

They plan on giving the fans an insider's perspective on what it's like to roll with Bone in their next video. Wish said the clip won't be for "Get up and Get It," even though the song was released to radio.

"That was just something to sneak out there and have them playing for us real quick," he insisted. "We're thinking about 'Home,' the song we did with Phil Collins (see "New Bone Thugs Album Has Phil Collins But No Bobby Brown"). We're going to shoot the video, probably in the middle of this tour. We're trying to decide [on a concept]. It's probably going to be a live performance, something like that."

As for why they decided to sample Collins' 1985 hit "Take Me Home," Wish said, "It was just deep. It was the perfect sh-- for us to address some situations that nobody can do other than us. The hook was just perfect.

"Basically, everybody has problems. We're saying, 'Man, we're tired of all the bullsh--.' Like 'Calgon, take me away. Take me home for a while, let me chill out and get my head together.' "

Bone Thugs' Thug World Order is due October 29.

• Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
• Phil Collins
• 3LW

Phil Collins
Photo: Andy Gotts

When you consider the major influences on hip-hop and R&B, George Clinton, James Brown and Roger Troutman probably come to mind a whole lot quicker than Phil Collins does.

Phil still gets love from the streets, though — so much love, in fact, that a tribute album was released in April on WEA Germany. Urban Renewal Featuring the Songs of Phil Collins includes hip-hop and R&B artists such as Kelis, Joe, Brian McKnight and Ol' Dirty Bastard (rambling incoherently over a synthesized version of "Sussudio") rendering Collins' most famous tunes.

The album was conceived, a source close to the project said, because Collins has had to field so many requests from hip-hop and R&B acts over the years — including DMX, who integrated part of "In the Air Tonight" into "I Can Feel It" — wishing to sample his records. Although his sampled voice appears on one track, Collins had nothing to do with the album other than to give it his blessing.

Urban Renewal's first single is a duet consisting of Brandy and her brother, Ray J, covering "Another Day in Paradise." The song's video, which depicts the siblings as two angels documenting the plight of a homeless woman begging for money to buy shoes, has already hit airwaves abroad. Lil' Kim's version of "In the Air Tonight" is the second single. Kim will shoot the video next week, according to a source close to the project. In it, Kim will weave a story about payback, rhyming "Drop top rollin', diamonds on my neck, Bentley ballin', me and ni---- getting high all day, straight to the top 'cause we on our way; coming for y'all, comin' for y'all, I got something for y'all," at which point Collins' sampled voice provides the song's hook.

WEA has no plans to release the record or its videos in the United States, the source said, but it may reach other international markets.

Urban Renewal track list:

• Brandy and Ray J - "Another Day in Paradise"
• Ol' Dirty Bastard - "Sussudio"
• Deborah Cox - "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven"
• Dane Bowers featuring Kelis - "This Must Be Love"
• Lil' Kim featuring Phil Collins - "In the Air Tonight"
• Joe - "Can't Turn Back the Years"
• Changing Faces - "One More Night"
• Coko - "Easy Lover"
• Kelis - "I Don't Care Anymore"
• Debelah Morgan - "Do You Remember"
• Montell Jordan - "Against All Odds"
• TQ - "All of My Life"
• Brian McKnight - "I Wish It Would Rain Down"
• Malik Pendleton - "Take Me Home"

• Phil Collins
• Ol' Dirty Bastard
• Lil' Kim
• Kelis
• Joe

After covering the Phil Collins ballad, "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)," for her 1999 album, "Rainbow," Mariah Carey has teamed up with Irish boy band Westlife to record yet another version of the song.

Carey and Westlife recently huddled in a studio on the Italian island of Capri to cover the track, which was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar in 1985, and MTV News sat down with both to discuss how the collaboration came about.

"Everybody used to say to me, 'Who would you like to do a duet with?' or 'Who would you like to sing with out of everybody in the world?'" explained Westlife's Mark Feehily. "And I was always like, 'Mariah Carey.'

"Today, now, we're in a recording studio doing a duet with her, and you could never imagine how much it means to me."

For Carey, cutting a new version of "Against All Odds" gave the singer a chance to work with a talented group of young male singers, much as she did back in 1995, when she drafted Boyz II Men to back her up on the number one song "One Sweet Day," and last year, when she teamed up with 98 Degrees for "Thank God I Found You."

"I thought it would just be a cool thing to do," Carey said, "to kind of turn it into a duet and combine what they do with what I do. They stack a lot of harmonies, so we made the song kind of a different thing. But it was an easy process. It wasn't like some difficult drama."

No word yet on when and where the Mariah Carey-Westlife cover of "Against All Odds" will turn up, but we'll keep you posted.

• Mariah Carey
• Phil Collins
• Westlife

Phil Collins has won his royalties suit against two members of Earth, Wind & Fire, Rahmlee Michael Davies and Louis Satterfield, who served in Collins' concert backing band during the '80s and '90s.

On Wednesday, a British High Court ruled that the former Genesis frontman had overpaid Davies and Satterfield in the amount of $384,000 from the royalties to Collins' 1990 concert record, "Serious Hits Live," according to Reuters.

Trumpeter Davies and trombonist Satterfield received the overpayment because of an accounting error that distributed royalties to the two for appearing on the entire "Live" album, rather than for just the five tracks on which they appeared.

The High Court also ruled that Davies and Satterfield would not be expected to repay any of the monies owed to Collins and even halved the total amount Collins was seeking in the case to $192,000.

In his decision, High Court Justice Jonathan Parker indicated that Collins' claim should be limited to future royalties earned from the album and that it was unlikely that any future royalties would cover the amount owed.

Collins apparently first became aware of the accounting error in 1997 and notified Davies and Satterfield that they had been overpaid and that he would seek to be recouped via the future royalties from "Serious Hits Live."

A lawsuit was subsequently filed late last year in a California court, but the action was suspended once it was determined that the contracts which Davies and Satterfield had signed were governed under English law.

Davies and Satterfield appeared on several Earth, Wind & Fire albums during the late '70s and early '80s, including 1979's "I Am" and 1983's "Powerlight." The two also worked on Collins' successful solo LPs, 1981's "Face Value," 1982's "Hello I Must Be Going," and 1985's "No Jacket Required," and were paid only session wages and touring fees.

• Phil Collins

Former Genesis frontman Phil Collins was the toast of pop music and the cinema at last night's presentation of the 72nd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, as Collins' "You'll Be In My Heart" won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

• Phil Collins

Former Genesis frontman Phil Collins was the big pop music winner at last night's Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, as "You'll Be In My Heart," a song he wrote for the animated Disney film, "Tarzan," was named Best Original Song.

-- David Basham

• Phil Collins
• Madonna
• Aimee Mann