Phil Collins - Face Value
#74
By John Bland
February 13 1981
Phil Collins
Face Value
Genre: Pop? Blue-eyed Soul? R&B tinged Prog Rock? All of the above?
Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5
John’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Highlights:
In the Air Tonight
Behind the Lines
The Roof is Leaking
Hand in Hand
I Missed Again
Tomorrow Never Knows
Come on. Admit it. You do it. You love to do it. We all do it. I do it, I love to do it. I just did it and I'm ready to do it again, don't tell me you don't do it!
I’m talking, of course, about playing air drums to ‘In the Air Tonight’, Phil Collins’s classic ode to anger, despair and frustration. Possibly the most famous drum break in modern music history (I didn’t say the BEST; I said the most famous, so back off Neil Peart and John Bonham fans). ‘In the Air Tonight’ is the opening number on ‘Face Value’, Collins’s 1981 solo debut, and one hell of a ballsy way to intro a pop album.
Truth is, I was not excited about reviewing this album. I thought, ‘Ugh. Phil Collins.’ His music dominated my adolescence, along with Huey Lewis and Don Henley, forming a weird Middle-Aged White Dude Top 40 Triumvirate of the Early-Mid 1980s. I mean, I could pretty much turn on the radio in Charlotte, NC, at any time of day or night from 1982-86 -- ANY radio station, from top 40 (95.1 WROQ), adult contemporary (106.7 WBCY), AOR (99.7 WRFX ‘The Fox’), even R&B (98.1 WPEG) -- and eight times out of ten a Phil Collins song would be playing. I mean probably fucking 89.9 WDAV Fresh Air Classical would be playing Phil Collins. He was EVERYWHERE.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s 1981, and Phil Collins isn’t ‘PHIL COLLINS’ yet. He’s still the drummer/reluctant frontman for prog rock gods Genesis. And itching to make some hit music. And in 1981 I had just turned 13 and wasn’t into any kind of music. I mean, that year my favorite songs were probably “Elvira” by the Oak Ridge Boys and “Stars on 45” (look it up). Yeah. So… Yeah. (And yes, that was as painful to write as it probably was to read.)
More truth: I’m not that much into prog rock and know mostly jack-squat about Genesis. So I’m coming at this with fresh ears.
And those (gulp) 52-year-old ears say: This is a DAMN GOOD RECORD. And with the exception of some meh filler on side 2, a near masterpiece.
‘In the Air Tonight’ is iconic NOW, but it wasn’t a massive hit over here in 1981 (topped out at #19). I don’t even think I heard it until 1984, when it was used so memorably in the pilot episode of ‘Miami Vice’. (The Ferrari. The moody Michael Mann lighting. The pastels.) And then -- ‘The hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows, it’s no stranger to you and me. DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM! DUM-DUM!’ (And no, it’s not to be taken literally; Collins did not witness some guy drowning and refuse to help out, despite whatever urban legends you might have heard.)
(Frankly, these guys say it better than I ever could:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l3-iufiywU
“He dropped the beat at the END OF THE SONG!”)
My other favorites are mostly on Side 1, and veer between Latin-tinged ballads (“This Must Be Love”), semi-political dirges (the Thatcher-era “The Roof is Leaking”) and an R&B instrumental (“Hand in Hand”) which allows Collins to indulge in some serious drumming.
Side 2 opens with more R&B, the hit “I Missed Again”, which is still a great finger-snapping ditty. The rest of side 2 is… mostly forgettable to me, a lot of early ‘80s sax-heavy ballads, except for the prog-rock cover of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”. It’s weird, but I like it. I mean, looking at the album as a whole, it starts with rage and ends with a hopeful shrug.
And in this day and age, that’ll work for me.
All in all, I give it 4.5 stars. It would probably be 3.5 stars, but “In The Air Tonight” kicks it up another notch.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go teach my 3-year-old how to play air drums…
https://open.spotify.com/album/7gUgpwRHL95RLPi2WmqxgU?si=pTah4j0TTVmeHtCi-ErUQg
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