Phil Collins

Hits

Some Big Hits Missing, But This Is Still Worth Picking Up

Review Score:

(8/10)
Anybody who has listened to Adult Contemporary radio at least on occasion or top 40 radio in the 1980s would know that Phil Collins's voice is one of the most distinctive in both groups- especially since many of his hits continue to get airplay on AC radio frequently. These hits became songs many people loved, so ...HITS, the first studio collection of Collins' hits, is probably a welcome inclusion to their catalogs.

As expected, ...HITS carries along some flaws in its package. Probably the big problem with ...HITS is that it is only a single disc collection, even if it does have sixteen tracks. Now, it made perfect sense to leave out any and all Genesis cuts (Collins and Genesis used different templates for their song structures, even if the styles between the two forms were often indistinguishable), but Collins still had twenty-plus solo hits under his belt.

And the compilers' apparent decision to represent at least one song from each of his six albums is questionable in the case of his last two albums; even though Collins had a few chart hits through these particular albums (the ones represented here are "Both Sides of the Story" and "Dance Into the Light"), it hurts that they bumped off bigger hits such as "I Missed Again"; "I Don't Care Anymore"; "Don't Lose That Number" (a Top 5 hit); and "Do You Remember" (another Top 5 hit). And the new recording of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" may present a wonderful delivery from Collins, but its inclusion is questionable in retrospect, since it never made the Hot 100. The non-chronological sequencing also presents problems, especially when "In the Air Tonight," Collins's darkest song, follows what is probably his softest tune, "A Groovy Kind of Love."

Despite those flaws, however, many of Collins's hits still come up here in one place or another. This should be a collection that any fan who likes Phil Collins should consider buying, especially since it has big hits such as "In the Air Tonight"; "Against All Odds"; "One More Night"; "Sussudio"; "Separate Lives"; "Another Day in Paradise"; and "I Wish it Would Rain Down." It would probably be nice to see one collection that contained all of Collins's hits, both solo and with Genesis, on the shelves some time in the future so as to remind ourselves how powerful of an artist Collins was in his heyday. But as for now, the closest you can come to get all of Collins's hits is to buy ...HITS with TURN IT ON AGAIN...THE HITS, which contains many of his big hits with Genesis.

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