Phil Collins, whose third solo album, ''No Jacket Required'' (Atlantic 81240-1) recently rose to number one on the charts in the United States and in England, is quietly revolutionizing and expanding the role of the drums in pop record making. The 34-year-old singer, drummer, keyboardist and leader of the rock group Genesis uses the drums not merely to supply a backbeat or to provide an atmospheric dance pulse but as a crucial psychological ingredient of popular music. At a time when pop is dominated by impersonal, computerized rhythms, Mr. Collins's ingenious mixtures of synthesized and nonsynthesized drums reveal a refreshingly individual point of view.

Mr. Collins's career is an unusual example of a band member's solo records becoming much more popular than those made with his group. Several years after joining Genesis in 1970, the young drummer became the group's lead singer, following the departure of Peter Gabriel. Under his increased influence, Genesis's quasi- symphonic, allegorical bombast gave way to leaner, more tuneful, trickily syncopated rock that has reversed the group's sagging commercial fortunes.

But however much he may have influenced Genesis, Mr. Collins, by himself, is a far more distinct and compelling musical personality. On his solo albums and, to varying degrees as a producer for Eric Clapton, Philip Bailey and others, Mr. Collins has defined a new relationship between rock rhythm, singing and songwriting, in which expanded, shifting, multicolored drum textures determine the music's emotional as well its rhythmic climate. Especially on his own solo albums, varying drum and percussion configurations are amplified and subdued, phased and echoed into a continual and ever- changing heartbeat. Electronic clattering drum rolls that alternate between left and right speakers block songs into miniature dramatic scenes. At the same time, subtler rhythmic underpinnings may suggest a contradictory subtext for a particular scenario.

As both a songwriter and an instrumentalist, Mr. Collins is especially adept at sustaining a mood of suspense, often heavily tinged with menace. His shadowy song lyrics are suffused with lurking suspicion, dread and the suggestion of passions so pent-up they could explode violently, though they never do. ''In the Air Tonight,'' Mr. Collins's first major hit, in 1981, evoked a high gloss horror movie. With drum rolls reminiscent of distant rattling thunder punctuating a hushed, tensed vocal line, one could imagine the singer crouched and sweating in the bushes, ready to confront some unnamed terror. The same waiting-with-bated-breath aura, elevated to an operatic romantic level, also haunted Mr. Collins's title song for the movie ''Against All Odds.''