I can\u2019t remember the last time I had such intensely mixed feelings about an album. <\/p>\n
Anyone who has followed the career of Genesis drummer-cum-vocalist-cum-platinum-selling-solo-artist-cum-semi-retired-grandpa Phil Collins is well aware of the man\u2019s Motown obsession. It\u2019s not just that one of his first acts as a solo artist was to have the audacity to cover the Supremes (\u201cYou Can\u2019t Hurry Love,\u201d from 1982\u2019s Hello, I Must Be Going!<\/i>); around the same time, he somehow convinced his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford to add the Earth Wind & Fire horns to one of their songs (Abacab<\/i>\u2019s \u201cNo Reply At All\u201d). <\/p>\n
The ever-so-British Collins\u2019s classic soul fixation reached its logical apex with Going Back<\/i>, which finds the erstwhile prog-pop icon not just covering an album of Motown classics, but doing his level best to recreate them, to the point where he hired the surviving members of the studio\u2019s famous session band the Funk Brothers (guitarists Eddie \u201cChank\u201d Willis and Ray Monette and bassist Bob Babbitt), and had each song\u2019s original horn and string parts painstakingly transcribed and re-recorded. Engineer Yvan Bing even gets a credit for \u201clo-fi-ing\u201d the Collins-produced recordings until they have the distinctive, dense-and-crunchy feel of vintage mono.<\/p>\n
That attention to detail and extreme faithfulness to the source material means that, other than Collins\u2019 distinctive vocals, these are virtual recreations of the original recordings. I have enjoyed many a cover in my time; I\u2019m often fascinated hearing artists reinterpret the work of others and bring their own personal touches to them. Nothing of the sort happens here. This is simply 18 tracks of Phil Collins trying as hard as he can to replicate the exact sounds he heard coming out of his radio while growing up, except with him singing and playing drums and keys. <\/p>\n
The slavishness of these recreations puts Going Back<\/i> in a strange limbo, hanging somewhere between heartfelt homage and well-intended cultural appropriation; Collins is, after all, a very white, very British senior citizen recreating the works of young African Americans. There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with that\u2014Lamont Dozier himself contributed a laudatory message to the liner notes, and the writers of these songs probably got a nice royalty bump from this album\u2014but for at least this listener, it just feels weird<\/i>. <\/p>\n
The best part of the album is the pure enthusiasm and passion heard in every one of Collins\u2019 vocals. Calling this album a labor of love is an understatement; it\u2019s clear that Collins absolutely adores these songs (as well he should). High points include giddy remakes of familiar classics like \u201c(Love Is Like A) Heatwave,\u201d \u201cUptight (Everything\u2019s Alright),\u201d \u201cTake Me In Your Arms (Rock Me For A Little While),\u201d and \u201cStanding In The Shadows Of Love.\u201d Collins\u2019 efforts are given polish and authenticity by the presence of Babbitt, Willis and Monette, who play with the same ebullience, groove, and precision as always. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s also an element of poignancy given that Collins likely understood this would be his last go-round behind the drum kit. At this point in his physical deterioration, he was forced to duct-tape the sticks into his hands in order to play, which he does serviceably well, although it\u2019s probably fortunate that these songs don\u2019t require the kind of powerhouse drumming he often contributed to Genesis in younger days.<\/p>\n
The closest Collins comes to a misstep here is his decision to tackle \u201cPapa Was A Rolling Stone\u201d; as meticulous as his musical recreation of the song is, it\u2019s just too much of a socio-cultural reach. It feels almost like someone had taken a filmed performance of the song from 1972 and CGI\u2019d Collins into it\u2014that cool, and that strange. As the song played I couldn\u2019t help thinking of the old Sesame Street<\/i> routine: \u201cOne of these things is not like the others; one of these things does not belong.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s just me. If what matters most to you is the passion poured into a performance, then Going Back<\/i> is a very enjoyable hour spent in the company of a musically gifted Motown superfan. Maybe someday the mild queasiness that comes over me when I listen to this album will fade; I hope so, but in the meantime I\u2019m going to go back and listen to the originals again instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5661],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46486","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-phil-collins","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46486","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46486"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}