Going Back (20120)
1. Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)
2. (Love is Like A) Heatwave
3. Uptight (Everything's Alright)
4. Some of Your Lovin'
5. In My Lonely Room
6. Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me for a Little While)
7. Blame it on the Sun
8. Papa Was a Rolling Stone
9. Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer
10.Standing in the Shadows of Love
11.Do I Love You
12.Jimmy Mack
13.Something About You
14.Love is Here and Now You're Gone
15.Loving You is Sweeter Than Ever
16.Going to a Go-Go
17.Talkin' About My Baby
18. Going Back
-Bonus Edition Tracks-
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg
- You've Been Cheatin'
- Don't Look Back
- You Really Got a Hold on Me
- Ain't That Peculiar
- Nowhere to Run
- Dancing in the Street
By the time Going Back arrived in 2010, it was clear that time hadn’t exactly been kind to Phil Collins. Years of drumming, touring, and recording had left him with a host of physical ailments—hearing loss, nerve damage, and back issues—that would eventually lead to his unofficial retirement from music. Reports from the recording sessions included details like Collins having to tape drumsticks to his hands just to keep playing. A sobering reality for someone once considered one of pop’s most tireless performers.
Emotionally, he seemed to be in a different place too. Gone was the buoyant, cheeky persona that helped carry him through the 1980s. In its place was a more subdued, reflective artist—one perhaps more inclined to look back than move forward. Which makes the idea behind Going Back feel particularly appropriate. This wasn’t an album aimed at reinvention. It was a tribute, plain and simple.
Collins had long made his affection for 1960s Motown no secret. While it might seem odd on paper—this coming from the man who played drums in the prog-rock labyrinth of Genesis—it had always been there in the details. You could hear it in his solo records, in the horn lines, the grooves, the phrasing. With Going Back, he simply dives all the way in.
Rather than rework or reinterpret the material, Collins opts for straightforward reverence. These are not updated versions—they’re recreations. In many cases, near carbon copies. And that’s where opinions may start to diverge. For casual listeners, the familiarity is comforting. For longtime Motown devotees, it might feel like déjà vu with a slightly different voice. But where the album really shines is in the deeper cuts—the songs not already burned into the collective memory. Tracks like Something About You and Uptight (Everything’s Alright) sound just as faithful as the big hits, but carry a freshness simply because they haven’t been overplayed for the past fifty years.
And while the execution is admirable, the sheer volume becomes an issue. Eighteen tracks on the standard edition, twenty-four if you spring for the bonus version—it’s a lot. One begins to wonder what the criteria was for bonus status, as the overall vibe doesn’t shift much from track to track. Still, everything is expertly performed and lovingly rendered. Collins clearly cares about this material, and that sincerity comes through.
Going Back isn’t going to convert any skeptics, and it certainly doesn’t break any new ground. But it doesn’t try to. It’s a respectful homage by an artist paying tribute to the songs that shaped him. And for that reason alone, it works. Maybe it’s a bit long. Maybe it’s overly familiar. But it’s also heartfelt and beautifully done. And at this stage in his life and career, that’s more than enough.
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