35th Anniversary of "No Jacket Required"

    • Official Post

    35 years ago today, NO JACKET REQUIRED was released. It remains Phil's most successful album, selling more than 12 million copies in the USA alone!


    What do you think about the album today? Did you buy it when released? Favorite tracks?


    Our review: https://www.genesis-news.com/c…uired-CD-review-s327.html


  • I must have bought this when it was released because I certainly had the video compilation.


    It has had a lot of criticism over the years, not least from Phil himself in his book. As far as I am concerned it goes without saying the best tracks aren't those dominated by brass & synths no matter how commercially successful they were. The lyrics of Sussudio & Don't Lose My Number just are not very interesting. My favourite tracks are Take Me Home, Inside Out, Long Long Way To Go , Doesn't Anybody... and We Said Hello Goodbye. I always go for the more considered, thoughtful stuff on Phil's albums (but I miss the anger from Hello... I guess he thought he had done enough in that vein).


    But this quote from the review:


    f he had never done Face Value it would not matter. But he did and touched something real with it. He lost that later. He could have become a John Lennon, but he decided to become Paul McCartney.”


    I don't know how often it has to be said that there is nothing wrong with 'being McCartney rather than Lennon. People forget how self-indulgent and pompous a lot of Lennon's stuff was and they always choose to ignore some of the Double Fantasy songs, which were more McCartney than McCartney ever was. I digress. It's not a fair comparison. All I would say is yes, Face Value and Hello are both more 'real'.

  • I was never a great fan of Phil's sad and sentimental songs.

    And that’s why NJR always appealed to me. It’s comparably upbeat and it includes some of my favourite songs, Take Me Home and Inside Out among them.


    While Face Value (my 2nd favourite album of Phil's) hit higher heights for me with tracks like In The Air Tonight and The Roof Is Leaking, the ballad-heavy second half of that debut album always brought me down.

  • This is the album where Phil really lost me, I did buy it, just like I had bought FV, liking it immensely, HIMBG, liking it OK, although I started having trouble with his lyrics and some cheesy ballads.

    Jacket came to epitomize and embody some of the things that went wrong with mid-80s music, rightly so IMO. I can still listen to Take Me Home and, Long way to go and I think vocally he was in top shape but I see the album as a disposable piece of plastic.

  • I don't know how often it has to be said that there is nothing wrong with 'being McCartney rather than Lennon. People forget how self-indulgent and pompous a lot of Lennon's stuff was and they always choose to ignore some of the Double Fantasy songs, which were more McCartney than McCartney ever was.

    A bit off topic and I am not sure the comparison applies here but as a longtime Beatles fan, I share that sentiment and I think it would be deserving of an entire thread. People are and have always been far too indulgent with Lennon.

    Edited once, last by Fabrizio ().

  • I was already becoming a fan by that point but No Jacket Required was the first new Phil Collins album I bought.


    I probably wore out the copy I bought in 1985 and if I didn't it was only because it was pretty easy to hear half of that album on the radio every day for the next five years. At the same time, I was diving deeper and deeper into Phil's (and mostly Genesis') back catalog and really being amazed by the depth of the older stuff.


    Because of that, I spent a long time not really listening to NJR very much. I've since revisited it a bit more since the reissues came out, and I like a lot of it a lot more than I remembered. Some of it is still fairly disposable, but there are some great songs on there. Long Long Way To Go is one of my all-time favorite PC songs, and Inside Out is really good too. Because of all the radio play I had forgotten just how good Take Me Home really is. It's still a mixed bag, but I enjoy it a lot more than Dance Into The Light or Testify.

    • Official Post

    I became in fan in 1989/1990, exploring Phil's work more or less backwards at the time.


    I got NJR on a tape from a friend, without any titles. So I wondered what the hell he was singing on Sussudio.

    Was it "Sourien"? What does it mean?

    Also, I first thought he was singing "Doesn't Anybody Stay To Get Her Any More". Still makes me laugh!


    Naturally, I came across We Said Hello Goodbye years later. And this track is one of my all time Collins favorite.


    And I gave a smile. It's the only way :)

  • When both sides of the story came out i feel in love with that song and video and bought the single. First time i really new who phil collins was. The next thing i got was genesis we cant dance. I would guess all of this took place around 93/94. I was 12 or 13


    I want to say it was 1994 when VH1 did for the first time a fourth of July special of music videos from A-Z. I stayed on too of that for phil collins genesis peter gabriel.


    This weekend changed my life. I was a hooked diehard fan then. And a lot of the tracks were from No Jacket Required. Oddly enough thinking about it now i didn't realize then that both. Sides of the story wasn't played.


    26ish years of being a fan of the big tree and its splinters. Happy 35 years to NO JACKET REQUIRED!!!

  • Also, I first thought he was singing "Doesn't Anybody Stay To Get Her Any More". Still makes me laugh

    My late cousin, god rest his eternal soul, to whom I introduced the world of Genesis and Phil Collins, always thought Phil was singing "My pants keep falling..." in the same song.

  • I had this album on tape, then on vinyl and now I have it on CD courtesy of the Take A Look At Me Now campaign. Along with Brothers In Arms, No Jacket was one of those albums that everyone seemed to have in the eighties. And I think it sounds just as good as it ever did. Top-hole production from messrs Collins and Padgham with spot-on playing from all the musicians. I don't know if it was because Phil had just done the album with Frida that he decided to do a more dance-orientated album (There's Something Going On being a huge hit on the dancefloors) but I think it was an experiment that worked extremely well.


    Phil was digging Prince and and The System (David Frank appears on this album) and he wanted to create a sound that was reminiscent of that. The American r'n'b artists loved it while, in England, the NME did a hatchet job on Phil's new musical direction.


    Despite the heavy rhythmic numbers, Phil delivered one of his most powerful "angry songs" with Inside Out as well as the beautiful ballad One More Night. In addition, we have Long Long Way To Go about issues such as terrorism and war being reduced to snippets on the news that we can switch off and thus make it all go away. The other "serious" song was Take Me Home which was inspired by One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.


    If anyone has but one Phil Collins album, it's usually this one. And for good reason; No Jacket Required was the point at which his popularity reached an all-time peak.

  • 35 years .... can't believe it's that old already.


    I don't wann a know is a track I like more these days

    others, like OYKAIK, are rather bad today, imo


    standout tracks for me are Long long way to go, Inside out, Take me home and We said hello goodbye

    some are wise ... and some otherwise

  • One of my least favorites album of him. I love Take me Home (one of my favorites songs) and i like also Sussudio, Don't Lose My Number, We said hello Goodbye and Inside out, but the rest of the album was so weird. Would Said i would was not good at all, the Live version was very better. One more night was a so so ballad (i listen very better ballad of him like Do You Remember or We Fly so Close) and I don't Wanna Go was a very bad song.


    For that, I return to listen ...But Seriously, Both sides and Face Value.

  • Obviously I also do like Take me home ;)


    For me, the standout track on the recor dis Long long way to go. I was really happy when he did that in 97

    ... make tomorrow today!

  • If I remember rightly, when I saw Phil at the Manchester Apollo on that tour the album wasn't even out.


    Even months later it seemed inconceivable to have seen Phil in such a small venue.


    At the show, I remember being particularly impressed with Inside Out and OYKAIK, which was more powerful live I think.