Tim and Fred Williams, 22-year-old twins and YouTubers, recently filmed themselves and listened for the first time to Collins’ 1981 single. Their engaging response – sagging jaws, smiling in disbelief as the drum solo drops – seems to have brought back the popularity of the song.
As of Tuesday, “In the Air Tonight” is a second card on iTunes, just behind the days-old Cardi B-Megan Thee Stallion collaboration, “WAP.”
“In the Air Tonight” never disappeared into the obscurity – that famous drum break would not go quietly – but it had not exactly found Gen Gen audiences. Unlike “Break My Stride”, the TikTok girl had not reached.
Enter the Williams brothers.
The relatives from Gary, Indiana, film themselves for the first time to classical artists and share the clips on YouTube. They have responded to Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill and Dolly Parton (who happy with her positive reaction to “Jolene”).
But her reaction to Collins’ slow-burning single helped her break out. At the beginning of the video, the Williams brothers bumped their heads to the beat, and randomly enjoyed Collins’ wistful musical stylings.
Then the drums came in. And then the twins went wild.
The clip now has more than 4 million views.
Collins did not comment on the resumption of the early 1980s. But film director Ava DuVernay concluded her success when she shared the video of the twins: “And Phil has jumped to the top of iTunes as new people discover and old folks remember how double this song is,” she wrote on Twitter.
Their happy reaction to a decades-old song was a need for antidote to a stupid summer. And maybe, while making millions, they’ll do for Whitney, Lauryn and Dolly what they did for Collins.
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