No Jacket Required (1985)
1.Sussudio
2.Only You Know And I Know
3.Long Long Way To Go
4.I Don't Wanna Know
5.One More Night
6.Don't Lose My Number
7.Who Said I Would
8.Doesn't Anybody Stay Together Anymore
9.Inside Out
10.Take Me Home
11.We Said Hello Goodbye
"Have you noticed that this guy Phil Collins is all of the sudden everywhere? I mean we got Phil Collins by himself, Phil Collins with Genesis, Phil Collins with that black guy...."
David Letterman 1985
This was the record that sealed it;
Phil was now a star. Between this release and his last, Hello I Must Be Going, he had also released two
singles that flew up the charts, Easy Lover and Against All
Odds. The former was a duet with Phillip Bailey of Earth Wind and
Fire and the latter was a beautiful love song from the film of the same
name. Both of these songs made Phil a household name, not to mention
that he and his Genesis buddies also released their most successful
album to date a year earlier. So it was no surprise that this release
was his commercial apex.
To be fair, however, in retrospect it's safe to say that this release
has not aged particularly well. In 1984 MTV was in full force and the
music culture started to shift focus for the worse. Suddenly, it
started to become more important how artists "looked" rather than
how well they sounded. Although it's safe to say that Collins would
never win any beauty contests, the style of music here reflects many of
the dance oriented hair bands that started to emerge out of the muck and
mire. Everyone remembers Sussudio and Don't Lose My
Number, two of the best known singles from the album, that fit this
category well. How well would these have sold ten years later? There
are a lot of moments like that here, good songs that seem to get caught
up in all that was acceptable for the time.
Others have fared better over the years. One More Night is one
of his best ever from his catalog and holds well after a decade plus.
His other platinum single Take Me Home is also a great listen
that always serves as his final song in concert. A couple other
standouts that aren't too dance oriented are the overlooked Inside
Out that remains mostly forgotten on this disc full of hits and the
last track (not originally on the vinyl album) We Said Hello
Goodbye which is a pleasant listen that probably should not have been
left off the vinyl release even if there were strict time
limitations.
What is also nice to see here is the beginning of Phil's "socially
conscious" side. He would never become too preachy, but he did sing
about various causes in the latter years and he begins here with the
very poignant Long Long Way To Go which echoes the
obliviousness to human suffering world wide. Singing backing vocals
with Phil is Sting, another eighties icon and the two do a beautiful job
together. It's a shame they never did anything together again.
Despite the MTV friendly sound here, it was still a breath of fresh air
to see Phil Collins in the midst of this decade. For a frumpy balding
guy who seemed to always wear clothes a size or two too large, it was
obvious that you didn't have to evoke the latest fashion or look like a
movie star to make it big. And make it big is what Collins was doing -
in a very big way.
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