Faster than you could say “Sussudio!,” Phil Collins’ music was suddenly everywhere in the mid-’80s. All these decades later, many of his biggest hits are still very much with us, thanks to classic rock stations, Disney movies, and reaction videos. Yet there is so much more to explore in Collins’ body of work—and that’s when we set aside his dozen albums with Genesis.
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Not including his 2010 Motown and soul covers album, Going Back, Collins released seven solo albums, beginning with Face Value in 1981 and ending with Testify in 2002. With Collins likely done with recording original material (and possibly with touring as well), now is as good a time as any to rank his solo albums and see how they stack up against each other.
7. Dance into the Light
On this 1996 release, Collins splits the difference between the stripped-down sound of Both Sides and the brassy bombast of No Jacket Required. Dance into the Light’s crisp production suits Collins well, but there aren’t enough memorable songs to put it on a par with his other albums. “Lorenzo,” which features some of Collins’ most interesting drumming from his solo work (which is saying something since he’s likely the most underrated drummer in rock history), and “That’s What You Said” are the only tracks that, if put on one of his other albums, wouldn’t stand out as filler.
6. Both Sides
Collins’ fifth album is his most spare-sounding, and it’s the only one in which he plays all of the instruments. The relative lack of sonic clutter gives Both Sides the most intimate feel of any Collins album since Face Value. “Can’t Turn Back the Years” and “Can’t Find My Way” feel as genuine as any songs Collins has recorded, and on “We Fly So Close,” he perfectly executes a dramatic buildup without making the song feel like a rehash of “In the Air Tonight.” If anything, Both Sides suffers from too few changes of pace.
5. Testify
After Both Sides and Dance into the Light failed to deliver what many of Collins’ fans had come to expect from him, a good number of listeners who had been buying his albums dropped out. Too bad for them, because Testify turned out to be an unexpectedly stellar comeback album.
“Come with Me” and “Don’t Get Me Started” have some of Collins’ catchiest hooks, while the title track features one of his classic buildups. Collins’ cover of Leo Sayer’s “Can’t Stop Loving You” is simply a great pop song and would have conceivably been far more popular if released in the ‘80s, when everything he touched turned to radio gold.
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4. No Jacket Required
All of the momentum Collins built up through the first half of the ‘80s led to the explosion of popularity that this album enjoyed. Because Collins dropped any pretense of a connection to his progressive rock and jazz fusion past on No Jacket Required, it’s a polarizing album for his fans.
With hits like the Prince-inspired “Sussidio,” “One More Night,” “Don’t Lose My Number,” and “Take Me Home,” Collins tapped into the heart of the ‘80s zeitgeist, and as a result, the album spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. With that wild success in mind, No Jacket Required also boasts tracks that can satisfy Collins’ fans who weren’t ready for his ultra-poppy turn, including “Long, Long Way to Go” (featuring Sting), “Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Anymore” (a fantastic installment in Collins’ catalog of bitter divorce-rock songs), and bonus track “We Said Hello Goodbye.”
3. Hello, I Must Be Going!
Collins’ sound got a little bigger on his second album, and for those who thought No Jacket Required went too far, this album likely hit the sweet spot. It’s on “Hello, I Must Be Going” where Collins found the best way to utilize his horn section (which in this case, was Earth, Wind & Fire’s Phenix Horns), as they give “I Cannot Believe It’s True” and “It Don’t Matter to Me” an extra burst of energy without being overwhelming. ‘Angry Collins’ is at his agitated best on “I Don’t Care Anymore” and “Do You Know, Do You Care?,” while “The West Side” is a tasty jazz fusion instrumental that hints at his work with Brand X.
2. …But Seriously
As the title suggests, Collins retreated from the fun, poppy feel of No Jacket Required on his follow-up, but that doesn’t mean the album lacks hooky, melodic tunes. The songs take a little longer to unfold and, in some cases, deal with heavier issues than his previous fare, but even the nine-minute track about South African apartheid, “Colours,” is catchy.
…But Seriously didn’t lack for hits, and most notably, “Another Day in Paradise” topped the Billboard Hot 100. “Find a Way to My Heart” echoes “Take Me Home” as a bigger-than-life album closer that leaves the listener wanting to flip the record back to Side 1 (or click the repeat button) to start the journey all over again.
1. Face Value
There’s no way to recreate the adrenal rush of hearing the drum break in “In the Air Tonight” for the first time, but even with the element of surprise long gone, we have to give Collins kudos for leading off his solo debut in such a memorable and gutsy fashion.
On Face Value, Collins had yet to develop his sound, so the album is a hodgepodge of different elements—and that’s the key to its charm. The mostly-acoustic “The Roof Is Leaking” and the piano ballad “You Know What I Mean” are straightforward and affecting, and they sit comfortably among funkier numbers like “I Missed Again” and “Thunder and Lightning” and the captivating instrumental “Droned.” Even on Collins’ better efforts after Face Value, there is sometimes an ever-so-slightly contrived feel. But there is nothing forced about this album’s eclectic mix.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
