Phil Collins – The Singles – Review

There was a lot of speculation and hope among Phil Collins fans when it was announced that his albums would be reissued. There were dreams of beautiful box sets, all kinds of outtakes, all B-sides, 5.1 surround mixes and much more. But what has been released so far is a disappointment. Apart from his idea of re-recording all the album covers with the current version of his face, the reissues offered little quality. The digipaks contained all the albums and these were sometimes better, sometimes worse remastered, plus a bonus disc with rather randomly compiled extras. There were a lot of gaps and sometimes the quality of the live recordings, all of which had to be available as soundboards, was subterranean (sometimes they were obviously rips from YouTube videos!). It doesn’t help that the extras were hand-picked. With the exception of Going Back, we have reviewed all the albums in the Take A Look At Me Now series – you can read the details here.

Now it continues. In addition to the autobiography Not Dead Yet, which will also be released in October 2016, we now have a new compilation of his hits in our hands. Unlike Serious Hits … Live, …HITS and Love Songs, this time all the singles will be available on one set. However, as this requires three CDs, there is also a reduced double CD. There’s nothing wrong with that – vinyl fans are also offered a 4LP set based on the reduced 2CD – which raises the first question.

Let’s start with the contents of the sets:

Tracklist of the 2CD-Version / 4LP-Version

CD 1 / LP1

01. Easy Lover
02. Two Hearts
03. Sussudio
04. I Missed Again
05. Wear My Hat
06. Don’t Lose My Number
07. You Can’t Hurry Love
08. Something Happened On The Way To Heaven
09. We Wait And We Wonder
10. Can’t Stop Loving You
11. Dance Into The Light
12. It’s In Your Eyes
13. Hang In Long Enough
14. Thru These Walls
15. I Wish It Would Rain Down
16. Both Sides Of The Story
17. (Love Is Like A) Heatwave

CD 2 / LP 2

01. Going Back
02. In The Air Tonight
03. Against All Odds
04. If Leaving Me Is Easy
05. One More Night
06. Separate Lives
07. A Groovy Kind Of Love
08. That’s Just The Way It Is
09. Do You Remember?
10. Everyday
11. True Colors
12. You’ll Be In My Heart
13. The Least You Can Do
14. Look Through My Eyes
15. Another Day In Paradise
16. Take Me Home

Tracklist of the 3CD-Deluxe Edition

CD 1

01.  In The Air Tonight
02.  I Missed Again
03.  If Leaving Me Is Easy
04.  Thru These Walls
05.  You Can’t Hurry Love
06.  I Don’t Care Anymore *
07.  Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away *
08.  Why Can’t It Wait ‘Til Morning *
09.  I Cannot Believe It’s True *
10.  Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)
11.  Easy Lover
12.  Sussudio
13.  One More Night
14.  Don’t Lose My Number
15.  Take Me Home

CD 2

01.  Separate Lives
02.  A Groovy Kind Of Love
03.  Two Hearts
04.  Another Day in Paradise
05.  I Wish It Would Rain Down
06.  Something Happened on the Way To Heaven
07.  That’s Just the Way It Is
08.  Hang in Long Enough
09.  Do You Remember?
10.  Who Said I Would *
11.  Both Sides of the Story
12.  Everyday
13.  We Wait and We Wonder
14.  Dance Into The Light
15.  It’s In Your Eyes

CD 3

01.  No Matter Who *
02.  Wear My Hat
03.  The Same Moon *
04.  True Colors
05.  You’ll Be In My Heart
06.  Strangers Like Me *
07.  Son of Man *
08.  Two Worlds *
09.  Can’t Stop Loving You
10.  The Least You Can Do * 
11.  Wake Up Call *
12.  Look Through My Eyes
13.  No Way Out *
14.  (Love is Like A) Heatwave
15.  Going Back

*only available on the 3CD-Deluxe Version

Selection of tracks / completeness / arrangement / presentation

Due to the large number of singles, some of which were only released in certain countries, all relevant singles are actually included on the 3CD. Individual tracks, for example This Must Be Love or It Don’t Matter To Me, were only released in selected countries. Other tracks, for example Can’t Turn Back The Years, were only radio singles and not available for purchase. What is definitely missing is the ‘88 remix of In The Air Tonight – if only because it was an independent version and also became a big hit. Overall, however, the track list on the 3CD is fine. In addition, the songs have been arranged chronologically …. well, almost. More on this later.

For the 2CD, songs from the late phase have been omitted. This can also be easily explained, as Phil was much more successful until the beginning of the 90s than later. However, a completely different arrangement of the songs has been chosen for the 2CD: They are no longer in chronological order. Instead, it has a different concept. CD1 contains the ‘power songs’, CD2 the ballads.

The 3CD set does not come in a beautiful, fold-out digipak, but as a thick jewel case, as was common at the beginning of the CD until the early nineties, but is rarely used today. The three CDs are securely anchored inside and the booklet is inserted. The booklet itself only contains the basic information, the individual single covers (with the exception of I Cannot Believe It’s True, where only the vinyl is shown, but not the cover motif – of which there was only a real cover in Brazil anyway) and a few promo photos from 1981 onwards. This could certainly have been approached with a little more care. A digipak, plus a full booklet with accompanying text on all the singles, as Queen did in their Greatest Hits series, for example: Information on the genesis, the authors, chart positions etc.

The cover motif shows the 33 covers of the singles as posters on a wall. It is used in a colour variation for both versions. This also results in a ‘mistake’ here – a different collage could certainly have been used for the 3CD set. But even the 33 covers are not all correct. While the 2CD from the album Testify contains The Least You Can Do as well as Can’t Stop Loving You, the cover shows the single cover of Wake Up Call, which is only included on the 3CD set. An unnecessary mistake! The booklet of the 3CD set shows all the covers of the set in chronological order.

For vinyl fans, as already mentioned, there is only a reduced version based on the 2CD. As the vinyl set is expensive anyway, an even more lavish set based on the 3CD could have been produced.

The Album Versions from the Singles I released

The title of the compilation should actually have been something like this, because: The versions of the songs used are exclusively album versions. However, there are a number of single edits, some of which differ considerably from the album versions. In addition to various single edits, which are generally just shorter, there were, for example, much more powerful, better versions of the songs Strangers Like Me, Son Of Man and Two Worlds on Tarzan. These single versions were not used. Two songs were released as singles in live versions as part of the Serious Tour 1990: Do You Remember and Who Said I Would. Although at least Do You Remember was released as a studio version in the USA, the cover of the single with the live version is also shown here. Both songs are represented here in the album versions. This is particularly annoying in the case of Who Said I Would: on the one hand, it is debatable whether it would have been better to use In The Air Tonight (Remix ‘88) instead of this track, which was not available everywhere as a single. On the other hand, it’s strange to hear a song from No Jacket Required at the end of the single releases from …But Seriously.

Not all tracks that were not previously part of the Take A Look At Me Now remaster series have been remastered here. Against All Odds, Separate Lives, A Groovy Kind Of Love, Two Hearts and True Colours have been remastered. However, the Disney songs and Easy Lover are not. Here, too, the question arises: why not? Easy Lover in particular could certainly have benefited from this.

All in all

The Singles unfortunately joins the ranks of Phil Collins’ lovelessly compiled re-releases. In addition to logical errors (cover artwork, studio versions used instead of live versions), the consistent ‘we’ll just use the album versions’ realisation is particularly annoying. For the normal listener who buys such a Phil Collins compilation, it wouldn’t have mattered that there were single versions to be heard here. For the fans, however, it would have been a bonus if the single versions had been used consistently. Added to this is the simple presentation, which lacks much attention to detail. Once again, an opportunity was missed and unfortunately it was shown once again that fan culture has no meaning at all in the house of Genesis and co. This is and remains not only a pity, but highly regrettable.

Author: Christian Gerhardts