Phil Collins
Albums
Phil Collins
Relations
adriandenning.co.uk
Phil Collins
album reviews
Face Value 6½ ( 1981 )
In The Air Tonight / This Must Be Love / Behind The Lines / The Roof Is Leaking / Droned / Hand In Hand / I Missed Again / You Know What I Mean / Thunder And Lightning / I'm Not Moving / If Leaving Me Is Easy / Tomorrow Never Knows
In something that may strike a chord with supporters of the conservative party, not too keen on politicians borrowing other parties policies, Phil borrowed wholesale production techniques from the man he replaced in Genesis, Peter Gabriel. Still, we give Phil his due. The diminutive drummer turned singer, Phil Collins, has sold in excess of 100m records. Most of them feature his smug, self-satisfied face and notoriously bland take on adult-oriented-pop. Here, Earth Wind and Fire's horn section join him for some basic pop and R&B. Thankfully, Phil doesn't attempt fusion jazz or prog-rock. Rather, we have tasteful keyboard trills, unimaginative brass parts and the kind of soft, smooth vocal that had taken Genesis towards MOR ever since Gabriel departed. 'Face Value' is pop about personal trauma, in this case the breakup of Collins first marriage. At least it gave him something to write about. So, what does our favourite Tory loving tax-exile give us on 'Face Value'? The big hit 'In The Air Tonight' reveals to us "Well, if you told me you were drowning I would not lend a hand", which is nice of him, isn't it? Still, this tune remains by far and away the best song on the album, the most daring and dare I say, imaginative, track Phil has almost ever been responsible for. A eerie electronic drone, exploding into action when those drums enter thrillingly in. Hard to believe, but its true. I also quite like the 2nd song on the LP, 'This Must Be Love?'. A very simple melody and a heartfelt lyric, perfect way to ease down after the drama of 'In The Air Tonight'.
Two further hit singles were pulled from 'Face Value' and I'll discuss them now. Both hit the top twenty in the UK, first up is 'I Missed Again'. Solid brassy intro and a decent melody, although his vocals are slightly wayward, if truth be told, not quite bringing the best potential out of the melody. 'If Leaving Me Is Easy' opens with a wailing sax. The song lasts nearly five minutes and absolutely nothing happens. Very dreary indeed, not one of the mans better ballads, it must be said. Elsewhere, 'Behind The Lines' is so very irritatingly cheery and cheesy, like it's played by a bunch of musicians who specialise in wedding receptions. 'The Roof Is Leaking' tries to get all serious on us. A funny effect is placed on the vocals and the only music comes from understated piano. Phil tells us his wife is expecting but he hopes she can wait. Ok, Phil. Whatever you say. Now, I went into this review initially wanting to figuratively throttle the satanic Phil Collins. I later relented and thought i'd try to be fair. The annoying thing about this album though, it's just so lacking in any kind of genuine excitement, bar the opening track and possibly 'Missed Again'. The album depresses the hell out of me. Still, Phil proves himself to be a decent craftsman. It's a very workmanlike set of recordings excepting 'In The Air Tonight' which thankfully provides inspiration. That's it really. A six and a bit seems fair, overly generous even. A 'for fans only' rating, about the only people who will admit to owning the LP, anyway.
Share Your Views?
Hello I Must Be Going 5 ( 1982 )
I Don't Care Anymore / I Cannot Believe It's True / Like China / Do You Know, Do You Care? / You Can't Hurry Love / It Don't Matter to Me / Thru These Walls / Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away / The West Side / Why Can't It Wait 'Til Morning
Phil dedicated this album to his wife and children for 'putting up with it all'. I can imagine. Hugh Padgham helped Phil produce this record and Padgham was making quite a name for himself in the early eighties, very good with drum sounds, in particular. Apart from drums though, Phil also played trumpet, keyboards and percussion. A bunch of the Earth Wind and Fire guys were responsible on the whole for the brass parts. One thing this album proves is that even with real instrumentation ( for the most part, the entire album was recorded organically, live in the studio ) in the eighties, you can still sound plastic and fake. The opening 'I Don't Care Anymore', a few streets downtown from 'In The Air Tonight', you know, not in the same class at all, does sport real drums. Phil builds his way up to a fit of anger, he can do those fits of anger quite well. The album takes a quick turn for the bad though, 'I Cannot Believe It's True' is vapid and the horns deeply irritating. 'Like China' is even worse if that's possible at all, a really poor guitar riff mixed into the background and Phil singing the entire tune in a cockney accent. Unsuprisingly as well, the drums are louder than everything else. Loud drums can provide a kind of dynamism. This song doesn't actually warrant such an attempt, there's nothing to dramatise.
The only hit of note this album produced was Phil's note for note, utterly pointless cover of The Supremes 'You Can't Hurry Love'. Memorable only for the video in which Phil wore shades and was presented in, heaven help us all, triplicate, Phil fails to convince as a soul singer, despite spirited production accurately evoking the sixties. 'Do You Know, Do You Care' could pass for a Genesis song of the period, 'It Don't Matter To Me' is another vapid, jaunty brass led number that makes me want to vomit. 'Through These Walls' is better. There are spaces and there is tension. It's the nearest this album gets to credible innovation and daring. Yes, it's a ballad but it's a well produced and arranged song. After this, the album drifts gently to an inconclusive ending, although the closing ballad 'Why Can't It Wait Til Morning' is a something of a personal song for Phil and framed by attractive strings. So, not all bad? Well, of course not. Just mostly all bad. A few moments do show Phil's talents as a musician. The producer does a decent enough job given the circumstances, although the albums credits actually label Phil as producer, not Hugh Padgham. Funnily enough given the fact Hugh had worked for far better artists, such as XTC, i'm not sure he would have minded.
Share Your Views?
No Jacket Required 3 ( 1985 )
Sussudio / Only You Know And I Know / Long Long Way To Go / Don't Want To Know / One More Night / Don't Lose My Number / Who Said I Would / Doesn't Anybody Stay Together Anymore / Inside Out / Take Me Home / We Said Hello Goodbye
Look at the album cover. Been in the tanning salon a little too long have we, Phil? Hugh Padgham returned and presumably with Phil, made sure that percussive drum sound hit through. It's not a 'real' drum sound of course, this being the eighties, but what can you do? They also saw fit to include brief bursts of parping horns on almost every single track. Still, what do I know? Phil Collins went into the stratosphere ( picture it in your mind.... ) and 'No Jacket Required' went onto sell an astonishing thirty million plus copies. Imagine that in this day and age. Nobody sells that many albums any more, do they? 'No Jacket Required' must be pretty damned good then, yeah? Unfortunately no. Phil still sounds like he's attempting to poach ideas from Peter Gabriel, still thinks he's in some kind of rhythm and blues band and manages to employ irritatingly lumpen drum patterns and sounds on every single one of the uptempo numbers. Bar a couple of ballads, 'No Jacket Required' is firmly uptempo and firmly eighties pop. Let me make something clear. It didn't define mid-eighties pop, there is no innovation here. It merely came to represent the mid-eighties, a time when the post-punk experimentation of the new-wave and new-romantics came crashing to a halt to be replaced by albums so commercial they hurt. Hang on though, what's this? In the credits they pain to note that no Fairlight synths were used during these recordings? That's right, they've simply made real drums sound crap instead. Sure, the sound jumps through the speakers and sure they sound 'loud', but my cats sound loud when its dinner-time. I wouldn't let them near a recording studio, though.
'Who Said I Would' is an inferior re-write of 'Sussudio' which in itself manages to be irritating enough. Those drums that are too loud, the parping horn sounds and Phil's usual accomplished yet weak vocals. On the face of it, when we judge the album as a whole and transport ourselves back to the mid-eighties 'Ashes To Ashes' style, we find out lots of people were using crap drum sounds, repetitve rhythms and producing musical backing tracks merely designed to be wallpaper behind the vocalist. Wallpaper doesn't produce melodies, you see. Garish early seventies wallpaper does, all those patterns, but by the mid-eighties we wanted music to go global, bigger than ever. Phil's inoffensive patterns, polished productions and vocals that you couldn't actively criticize other than to say you didn't like his vocal 'sound' were designed not to upset anybody. In the process, having nothing to get upset about in music is in itself of course, hugely upsetting.
Four massive hits were taken from the album. 'Sussudio' of course, the bland 'One More Night' of course. Also we have 'Don't Lose My Number'. It's one of those songs that have thirty seconds of ideas stretched out to nearly five minutes. The guitar phrases are annoying and trite as are the lyrics and the guitar solo is vomit inducingly self-indulgent for no apparent reason. 'I Don't Wanna Know' is a rock number done with Phil Collins synths making those short repetitive phrases, the drums pounding and obliterating everything in sight and managing to destroy any actual melody Phils vocals contain, which are mixed at least half as loud as the drums. You know, loud drums aren't a bad thing in themselves. When used right, they can provide thrilling drama and dynamics. Phil should know that, being a drummer and stop trying to bloody show off and just concentrate on writing actual songs, not going around being a prize berk, getting divorced all the time and having millions of dollars stashed away in Switzerland. Alledgedly.
Share Your Views?
this page last updated 09/03/08
MP3 Streaming | Message Board | News & Articles | Music Review Sites | Poetry | Ratings At A Glance
Readers Comments | Shorts & Promos | Singles Bar | Top 100 Albums | Updates/New