If jazzy pop is your fort\u00e9, Phil Collins\u2019 debut album Face Value <\/i>will surely satisfy. Personally, I have always preferred his second and third releases, Hello, I Must Be Going <\/i>and the Grammy winning No Jacket Required<\/i>. But I\u2019m willing to be fair and give Face Value <\/i>another opportunity to win me over. Yes, it does start out strong enough with everybody\u2019s go-to Phil Collins hit, \u201cIn The Air Tonight,\u201d though I\u2019ve always maintained that the music itself is straight out of Peter Gabriel\u2019s playbook. Phil wisely included those power drum fills to make the song his own and distinguish it from the edgy material that his ex-Genesis bandmate was coming out with at the time. Still, I couldn\u2019t help but think of Peter Gabriel raising an eyebrow when he first heard it.<\/p>\n
Horns abound on Face Value<\/i>, which makes the other hit single \u201cI Missed Again\u201d all the more refreshing after the languid, claustrophobic feel of \u201cIn The Air Tonight.\u201d Most of this album sounds like something a member of the band Chicago do, but certainly not a member of Genesis. Phil\u2019s Genesis material is far superior to anything he would ever do solo, which is why the recent reunion with Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks went over so well. That was one trio that always managed to keep us guessing what they were going to come up with next. With Phil Collins\u2019 solo career, you pretty much knew that he wasn\u2019t going to stray too far from the AC formula, though he did push himself quite considerably for 1985\u2019s gold standard, No Jacket Required<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The be-bop, finger-snapping rhythms of \u201cBehind The Lines\u201d show how overjoyed Phil was in finally breaking free and proving that he could fly solo. Keep in mind that he almost didn\u2019t become a lead singer. When Peter Gabriel left the band, Genesis didn\u2019t know what to do. In fact, they almost disbanded. Had Phil Collins not volunteered, we not only would\u2019ve missed out on all those amazing latter day, mega-successful Genesis albums and singles, but all the hits that Phil had on his own too. In interviews in the last decade, Collins has tried to distance himself from his solo career, even making some startling and disparaging comments about his lack of talent. His fans wouldn\u2019t hear of it. What would the \u201880s have been without Phil Collins? Unimaginable.<\/p>\n
Other standouts on his half decent first showing are the stark ballad \u201cThe Roof Is Leaking,\u201d its instrumental cousin \u201cDroned\u201d (which should\u2019ve been listed as track one) and the surprisingly twisted Beatles cover \u201cTomorrow Never Knows.\u201d There\u2019s also the traditional piano number \u201cYou Know What I Mean\u201d and the sexy \u2013 yes, I said sexy (I bet you never thought you\u2019d hear that word in a Phil Collins review, did ya) quiet storm of a song, \u201cIf Leaving Me Is Easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
No Phil Collins album is completely free of filler and Face Value<\/i> is certainly no exception. From the pointless \u201cThis Must Be Love,\u201d to the redundant \u201cThunder And Lightning,\u201d to the silly \u201cHand In Hand,\u201d these are the most glaring examples of songs that leave little to no impression behind. And what\u2019s up with the half-finished \u201cI\u2019m Not Moving\u201d? What happened? I was just getting into the song when it suddenly was over! I know you should leave the listener wanting more, Phil, but this is ridiculous\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":27532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5661],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-43787","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-phil-collins","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43787"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43787"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}