Love Songs:A Compilation...Old and New (2004)
Disc One
1. Tearing and Breaking
2. Do You Remember?
3. One More Night
4. Against All Odds
5. Can't Turn Back the Years
6. Groovy Kind of Love
7. Everyday
8. Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away
9. Please Come Out Tonight
10.This Must Be Love
11.It's In Your Eyes
12.Can't Stop Loving You
Disc Two
1. Testify
2. True Colors
3. You'll Be in My Heart
4. If Leaving Me is Easy
5. I've Been Trying
6. I've Forgotten Everything
7. Somewhere
8. Least You Can Do
9. Two Hearts
10.Separate Lives (Live)
11.My Girl (Live)
12.Always (Live)
13.The Way You Look Tonight (Live)
 
This is one of those records that's so
botched up, you have to wonder why anyone would buy it. Those that
did end up buying this double CD probably wish they hadn't after
they heard it and received much less than they expected. It should be
noted that this could have been a great CD. Sort of a greatest
hits album, but not really just hits - we'll just include all the soft
stuff. It wouldn't even have been necessary, as some critics pointed
out, to whittle down to one CD. Yes, Phil Collins does have a lot of
great love songs. It's just a shame that a lot of them aren't
here. What's really a shame is what is here
instead.
Now, to be fair, about half of this disc is o.k. A lot of well known
songs are here, as are a lot of great songs that a casual fan wouldn't
know because they've never heard. So that's a good thing. Sadly, the
bad things are abundant. First off, why the desire to record
"alternate" versions of your hits? There's a live version of
Separate Lives that, it itself, makes you feel cheated as well as
a rehearsal version of True Colors. The biggest sin of
the album is the big band/jazz version of Against All Odds. A
big sin because this is so radically different than the "love" song from
1984 that anyone interested in buying something like this would
expect. This was arguably his best love song ever, so including
a bastardized version is unforgivable. You have to wonder if this was a
choice that Phil made himself. Phil never really liked the "love song"
monicker that critics assigned him, so maybe he was trying to challenge
the status quo here. He should have challenged it somewhere else.
These are fans that are wanting to buy this.
Being a double CD vastly improves the selection of songs to choose from,
yet many of his classic love songs are surprisingly absent. This
includes some of the hits (where is I Wish It Would Rain Down?)
and some of his more obscure, yet great, love songs (The Same
Moon? We Said Hello, Goodbye??) These exclusions wouldn't
have necessarily been bad if this compilation would have left off crap like the obscure covers
and strange choices such as My Girl
and The Way You Look Tonight. I guess I'm thinking it's o.k. for
an artist to put garbage out on a compilation CD such as this, but only
after you put out what your fans want and expect.
The label "old and new" is a little misleading as well. The only "new"
song that I can find in this mess is Tearing and Breaking. Not
without its charms, but certainly not anything special. Unless you
count all the unreleased covers and live songs as "new".
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