Phil Collins

Hits

Collins' Chart-Topping 1980s Success On Succint "Hits" Set

Review Score:

(8/10)
This 1998 Phil Collins greatest hits collection could have expanded into two CDs. This would have allowed important chart hits ("I Missed Again," "Everyday," "Don't Lose My Number") key LP tracks ("Long, Long Way To Go," "I Don't Care Anymore") and even B-sides ("The Man With The Horn," the gorgeous "We Said Hello Goodbye") to form a career retrospective on the order of Billy Joel's 1985 best-selling greatest hits set. (It may also have choked off "Hits"'s least successful track, Collins' lukewarm, Babyface-produced cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors.")

But "Hits" testifies to Collins' success as one of the Eighties most surprising solo successes. Like another 70s-into-80s chart-topper, Kenny Loggins, Collins played second part in a better-known 1970s group before breaking its attendant image with music louder, drums heavier (and cymbal-free), songs more intimate.

Collins vocals' stayed personal and believable, inbibed with impish humor or acute pain ("Both Sides Of The Story") and even menace (most notably in his infamous signature song "In The Air Tonight"). This was true even when his hits fit behind mass-appeal films like "Against All Odds" (his first #1) "White Nights" (his #1 "Separate Lives" duet with Marilyn Martin, written by Collins collaborator Stephen Bishop) or his own 1988 "Buster" (his gentle cover of "Groovy Kind of Love")

Flying solo successfully so quickly allowed Collins to indulge his love of sparse, big beat R&B. His collaborations with Earth, Wind, & Fire's horn section ("Sussudio," "Something Happened On The Way To Heaven," "Easy Lover," his #1 duet with EWF lead singer Phillip Bailey) made their trademark sound his own. Collins collaborated with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier on 1988's #1 "Two Hearts," after his 1982 letter-perfect cover of Dozier's "You Can't Hurry Love," served as R&B balm amid the bile of "Hello! I Must Be Going."

Like Loggins, Collins would not have the same chart impact in the 1990s as in the previous decade. He'd record a big-band jazz album, collaborate with David Crosby, chart with the occassional hit single and with the "Tarzan" CD soundtrack. But as with his work in Genesis, the recent 80s music revival has shown Collins' solo work more organic and durable than most from that now mostly overrated musical era. This set, and Genesis' subsequent "Turn It On Again" best-of, are each first-rate 80s musical documents.

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