Face Value

Face Value
Regardless of how much criticism Phil Collins has received over the years for his solo career and for "what he did to Genesis", serious music listeners know better, and Phil's timeless, remarkably eclectic solo debut "Face Value", which came out in early 1981, is a masterpiece. It's an album that makes good on the theory that an artist does their best work in times of personal turmoil. Phil simply began 'fooling around' as a means to comfort himself in the wake of a painful divorce. Apart from a cover of the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", a retooling of the Genesis song "Behind the Lines", and a brief uncredited acapella snippet of "Over The Rainbow" at the very end of the record, Phil wrote everything here himself, and not only is his songwriting consistently terrific, Phil is really all over the map stylistically, and yet, somehow it all holds together beautifully. That said, this ain't some run-of-the-mill soft rock or adult contemporary album.

Even with all of the brilliant songs Phil has written over the course of his career, the first track here, "In the Air Tonight", remains a signature song that's perhaps his most enduringly popular, and for good reason. Although the idea of suddenly switching from a very quiet part to an ear-blastingly loud part was not a new one, the song is staggeringly powerful and was a very innovative production, containing ominous drum machine, creepy synth, atmospheric Fender Rhodes, vocoder, violins, smoky electric guitar (played by long-time Collins and Genesis cohort Daryl Steurmer), heavily echoing vocals, and of course, those ferocious, booming gated drums.
Face Value