Your favorite PHIL COLLINS studio album

    Quote from jwckauman

    It's hard to pick the top album because I have two competing criteria. In terms of the number of tracks I enjoy, NJR wins (love Inside Out, We Said Hello Goodbye, Take Me Home, etc.). In terms of ground-breaking and most "Genesis-like" I go with Face Value.

    I think that one aspect of Phil's solo albums is that they're about as far from Genesis as you can get! Face Value being no exception to that - indeed, at the time of that record's release I think Phil would have been most distressed to hear anyone describe his efforts as being "Genesis-like"!

    I chose Face Value as my #1. But Seriously was my second choice but another day it could just as easily been Both Sides.


    I love FV for the variety; there really is a little bit of everything else Phil ever did all on this one album.


    But Seriously has some really great songs, and the band is so clean and tight but it's all so much more organic-sounding that No Jacket Required. In the end that's what pushes But Seriously to number two; Both Sides has some really good songwriting but it's held back by the synths. Those songs recorded with a real band would have been amazing, as the live versions illustrate.

    Quote from bromleybruce

    Testify for me.

    Love the songs and production.

    That's interesting. At the time Testify came out, I really thought Phil had lost his mojo. With the exception of Can't Stop Loving You, which I thought was brilliant (but then, do we really want Phil covering songs by Leo Sayer?), the songs sounded very un-inspired to me. When I bought the re-mixed albums recently, I stopped at Dance Into The Light and consequently never heard what Nick Davis did with Testify. Maybe it's time I gave the album another go?

    Testify has major strengths from wake up call, come with me, testify: great first three. I also adore 'the least you can do', and 'can't stop loving you' . The newish remaster has fab live tracks too and another John martyny 'tearing and breaking'.

    Additionally on a John Martyn extra there is a unique video featuring Phil on YouTube. 'Ways to cry'. I have watched this video many times recently and it just about sums up life for me.

    Quote from bromleybruce

    Testify has major strengths from wake up call, come with me, testify: great first three. I also adore 'the least you can do', and 'can't stop loving you' . The newish remaster has fab live tracks too and another John martyny 'tearing and breaking'.

    Additionally on a John Martyn extra there is a unique video featuring Phil on YouTube. 'Ways to cry'. I have watched this video many times recently and it just about sums up life for me.

    That's a good one but I'm biased with John Martyn. Testify to me sounds and have always sounded kind of 'tired'' and at that stage, I had also started to find his voice much less interesting than what it used to be. He had lost a lot of power and became quite nasal.

    Edited once, last by Fabrizio ().

    • Official Post
    Quote from bromleybruce

    Testify for me.

    Love the songs and production.

    But Face Value also for sentimental reasons.

    well, so far your vote doesn't appear in the list of the poll ....

    Quote from bromleybruce

    Testify has major strengths from wake up call, come with me, testify: great first three. I also adore 'the least you can do', and 'can't stop loving you' . The newish remaster has fab live tracks too and another John martyny 'tearing and breaking'.

    Additionally on a John Martyn extra there is a unique video featuring Phil on YouTube. 'Ways to cry'. I have watched this video many times recently and it just about sums up life for me.

    Yes, I have Tearing And Breaking on the Love Songs compilation. It's a great track as is Ways To Cry (love the video for that one). John Martyn and Phil were soul brothers. They connected around about the late seventies and the bond held fast and true until John's untimely death.

    Problem with Testify probably is: He could have taken a different direction, at least production wise. In some ways, he did, but he was not very brave or innovative. So in the end you have a couple of nice songs with average production and others which sinply sound awful.


    Still, I'd love to hear a complete stripped down record. Like the stuff Rubin did with Jonny Cash

    'dance into the light' is a guilty pleasure for me. it has an actual band sound, maybe as a reaction to 'both sides'. unfortunately, phil went back to his old ways on 'testify'.

    While Testify is my least favourite album it is at least slightly more uptempo than his beloved Both Sides wihich is so SLOW. I was listening in the car - not the right place for it. Don't Get Me Started & The Least You Can Do are the pick of the Testify tracks along with Wake Up Call.

    Testify is a great track indeed, but there a quite a few things on that album which are simply below average.

    Driving Me Crazy, You Touch My Heart, This Love This Heart.

    Other tracks are okay, like Through My Eyes or Swing Low, but it's nothing special to me.

    After Dance Into The Light, which I enjoyed a lot, it was raher disappointing for me

    Yes, there's two sides to Phil's career: the chart-busting imperial years of 1981 - 1989 and then the uneven period that started with Both Sides and ended with Going Back.


    Both Sides missed the mark with a lot of people. It was looked upon as an indulgent album that didn't break new ground. Following that, he left his wife during the Both Sides of The World tour and a lot of his fans deserted him (he'd unwittingly become housewifes' choice by this point, thanks to a slew of hit ballads that had little to do with the jazz fusion leanings of Droned or And So To F or the angry vitriol of I Don't Care Anymore or Inside Out).


    Dance Into The Light had a much welcome organic sound and saw genuine attempts to break out of the mould with, variously, African and something of a sixties vibe to some of the tunes. But there seemed to be something lacking.


    Of everything he did during this period, his big band tour and album was - for me - the most successful. It would have been a dignified and, dare I say, respectable way to round out his career.

    Quote from bromleybruce

    Don't forget the brilliant Testify title track which I once saw a pub do. At the time I had disregarded the album too but I re-examined after that.

    Well, you see, I don't like the title track much. I find it far too overwrought. I prefer Phil when he winds it back a bit, mostly.

    Several years ago I made Testify the car CD for a couple weeks straight because I never really gave it a fair shake when it came out.


    After spending a lot of time with it I thought it rated a lot higher than I thought it would, and for me I like it a lot more than Dance Into The Light now.


    There is an unfortunate same-ness to some of the tracks in his use of drum machines and sequencers that hurts the overall album feel, but individually I think the songs are pretty good.