Phil Collins – You Ought To Know – EP review

As the Volkswagen Group did when it sponsored Genesis’ We Can’t Dance Tour, Toyota also released a special CD as part of the promotion of Phil’s Dance Into Europe Tour, along with other “goodies”. Unlike the Wolfsburg We Dan’t Dance edition, which contained practically no new material but only six edited songs from the album, Collins fans receive four non-album tracks here in addition to two songs from the Dance Into The Light album (Oughta Know By Now and Wear My Hat) in the familiar versions. Two of them are already familiar to single collectors:

It’s Over

… is a song left in the home demo version without drums and drum machine (!!) – Phil hasn’t done that since Why Can’t It Wait ‘til Morning! The piano part is joined by a few keyboard sounds à la Both Sides, and the listener is finally pleasantly surprised by a (keyboard) bagpipe solo; It’s Over was the only non-album track on the Dance Into The Light single, and – had you known it – you would have been spared buying it.

I Don’t Want To Go

…is a compact, optimistic song full of guitar drive and should actually be called I Don’t Wanna See You Go according to what Phil sings. It was included on one of the two It’s in Your Eyes singles (which were not released in Germany). The song later found its way here on The Same Moon single. A small difference to the single B-side version: Here, a short bass glissando can be heard after the actual end of the song. What makes this CD most interesting, however, are two songs that are not available elsewhere. These were also recorded with the Dance Into The Light Band …

Another Time (5:30)

… builds on a guitar pizziccato riff, begins quietly – the drums play straight bars throughout – and increases slightly, leaving time after two minutes for a few bars of a solo by Brad Cole in the style of Just Another Story, only to suddenly increase in volume and instrumentation after the third minute. The song tells of a young love that is threatened from the outside – let nothing stand in the way of autobiographical interpretations …

It’s Everywhere (3:31)

…leans heavily on Take Me Down in its overall style and has a nice drums/horns intermezzo.

The inlay card of the MaxiCD jewel case contains pictures of the Toyota Corolla and a funny pale coloured photo with Phil. Also included is a flyer on which Phil – in German for us – advertises the Youth Action Europe campaign supported by Toyota…

Author: Andreas Lauer
first published in German language in it-Magazin 26 (March 1998)

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Post Script 2024:

It’s Everywhere was released in 2019 on the digital album Other Sides. It’s Over, Another Time and I Don’t Want To Go were released as bonus tracks on the 2CD remaster version of Dance Into The Light in 2016. You Ought To Know, on the other hand, was never reissued and thus remains a Toyota collector’s item.