Product Description

This platinum collection takes in three of the biggest albums of the former Genesis drummer's solo career. Included is 1981's 'Face Value' (his first solo album) which contains hits such as 'In The Air Tonight' and 'This Must Be Love'. Theother albums featured are 1985's 'No Jacket Required' (containing 'Sussudio' and 'One More Night') and 'But Seriously' (best known for 'Something Happened' and 'Another Day In Paradise').

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. In The Air Tonight
2. This Must Be Love
3. Behind The Lines
4. Roof Is Leaking
5. Droned
6. Hand In Hand
7. I Missed Again
8. You Know What I Mean
9. I'm Not Moving
10. If Leaving Me Is Easy
11. Tomorrow Never Knows
12. Thunder And Lightning

Disc 2:

1. Sussudio
2. Only You Know And I Know
3. Long Long Way To Go
4. Don't Want To Know
5. One More Night
6. Don't Lose My Number
7. Who Said I Would
8. Doesn't Anybody Stay Together Anymore
9. Inside Out
10. Take Me Home
11. We Said Hello Goodbye

Disc 3:

1. Hang In Long Enough
2. That's Just The Way It Is
3. Do You Remember
4. Something Happened On The Way To Heaven
5. Colours
6. I Wish It Would Rain Down
7. Another Day In Paradise
8. Heat On The Street
9. All Of My Life
10. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning
11. Father To Son
12. Find A Way To My Heart

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6775 in Music
• Released on: 2004-05-31
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: Box set

Customer Reviews

3 classics
Three classic albums in one - a bargain. I bought this to replace my old cassettes of 3 great Phil Collin's albums. Most fans I know will already have these but this 3 CD set is a must for anyone wishing to here some of Phil's older material not all of which is featured on his greatest hits albums.

Ignore the criticism of others if you like Phil Collins you will Love this set......go buy it!

Against all logic...
First up let me explain that I'm a big Genesis fan, and like a lot of Phil's solo work, particularly 1981's 'Face Value', 1982's 'Hello I Must Be Going' and 1994's criminally underrated 'Both Sides'.

With that in mind, I can't argue with the music that's on offer here, three of the man's most popular and best loved albums (although not neccesarily his best), and containing most of his big hit singles from the 80s and early 90s.

But therein lies the problem - 'most of'. It's unclear who this package is actually aimed at: people who buy regular albums will already have all three of the CDs contained within, and none of the 3 discs differ to the versions that have been available for years (they're not even remastered, although hardcore collectors might like to know that the discs themselves have a picture of the album cover on each one, for the first time.)

And those casual fans who are looking for a greatest hits package will find that many of their favourites are not included: 'Against All Odds', 'You Can't Hurry Love', 'Two Hearts', 'Easy Lover' and 'Groovy Kind of Love' being just some of the classic Phil tunes that are not covered by the selection here.

Surely it would have been far better, keeping with the theme of EMI's other 'Platinum Collections', to have selected 3 discs' worth of greatest hits and popular album tracks, spanning Phil's entire career from 1981 to the present day. 1998's 'Greatest Hits' was good up to a point but many great tracks were left off to fit the single-CD format, and Phil has enjoyed something of a renaissance recently with the Oscar winning song 'You'll Be In My Heart' from Disney's Tarzan, hit single 'Through My Eyes' from Brother Bear and his first new album in 5 years with 2002's "Testify". A career-defining retrospective would have been a fitting tribute at this point to one of the country's most important musicians (terminally uncool though it may be to admit), and would have tied in wonderfully with his farewell tour currently playing to sold-out crowds across Europe.

All in all, if you don't have these 3 albums in your collection, then this is as good a way as any to buy them, and you certainly should, since they contain some of the best pop songs of the 1980s as well as some more unusual tracks like jazz-fusion workout 'Hand in Hand' from 'Face Value', the amazing two part-epic 'Colours' from 'But Seriously', and the wonderfully uplifting ballad 'We Said Hello Goodbye' from 'No Jacket Required'.

But if you're after a 'Greatest Hits' then buy 1998's 'Hits' CD which is all a casual fan really needs.

If I were reviewing the albums separately, I'd give 4 stars for 'Face Value' and 'But Seriously' with 'No Jacket Required' getting 3. However, as a package, this belongs in the 2 star category for the sheer wasted opportunity.

Chronicles the decline of MOR music in the 1980s
These three albums -- from 1981, 1985 and 1989 -- clearly delineate the downward sweep of Phil Collin's musical career. He wasn't helped by 1980s music technology innovations, which of all instruments, did most damage to the drummer's craft. (Even Bill Bruford was taken in by the craze for Simmons electronic drum sounds.)

But it's not just the technology that lets Collins down. It's that he's a good drummer, but only a fair pianist, fair singer and fair composer. Put together, these ingredients don't add up to sufficient justification for three 'solo' albums. In Collins' case, 'solo' simply means that no members of Genesis took part in the recordings; actually the cast of musicians on these solo albums is far larger than on any Genesis album.

In retrospect, his compositions are thin -- hear 10 seconds of most of his tunes, and you can guess precisely how the rest of the tune will go. But this doesn't stop them being catchy. Despite my wondering how I ever liked Collins' albums, I still caught myself humming 'Another Day in Paradise' yesterday. It's just the formulaic nature of Collins' compositions that bugs me: "If in doubt, change key and start shouting."

The trilogy started off quite promisingly, when Collins was at the of of his game. After rescuing Genesis from Gabriel's departure, and having built up much credibility with the jazz-rock band, Brand X, Collins produced 'Face Value'. Its key influence seemed to be Weather Report (try out either 'Tale Spinnin' or 'Black Market' for a real education). And his key model seemed to be Joe Vitale's 'Roller Coaster Weekend' -- a magnificent example of a drummer (in this case, Joe Walsh's) suddenly revealing a talent for writing catchy pop tunes.

But the follow-up albums -- 'No Jacket Required' and 'But Seriously' -- saw Collins abandon any jazz-rock pretensions and go wherever the money led him. He had enjoyed his involvement in 1985's Live Aid, and 'But Seriously' tries to extend his concern for the downtrodden and disadvantaged. His heart seemed to be in the right place, and perhaps we overestimated his music at the time.

This triple-CD box set is being marketed, as I write, as a great gift for Father's Day. Somehow I don't think so. All it will trigger is the pained thought "What did I ever see in this stuff?".