Tony Banks, Keyboarder of Genesis, once published in a documentary: “There was a time when Phil Collins seemed omnipresent. You couldn’t escape him. It was almost ridiculous!” In February 1985, the no jacket, which was co-produced by Collins and Hugh Padgham, was published in February 1985. It was an era in which he not only acted as a soloist, but also sang duette, in which Genesis albums participated, produced and also acted. Which of course polarized at the time.
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Collins was worshiped as a genius at the same time and demonized as a cynical commercial pop service provider. In any case, his third Solo-LP proved to be the global number 1 success-also thanks to the decoupled charts racers “Sussudio”, “One More Night”, “Take Me Home” and “Don’t Lose My Number”. Collins seemed to have magical powers, he knew exactly how to move pop, jazz, funk, soul and art rock together in such a subtle way to achieve a global mass audience.
The 40th Anniversary Edition comes on the one hand as a 4-LP box set with the ten original tracks, material of the luxury edition Take a Look at Me Now, which was published in 2016, as well as other encores, including Demos and many concert recordings. Alternatively, an Audio-Blu-Ray that has to do without bonus tracks, but contains a Dolby Atmos mix, a dedicated 5.1 mix, a refreshed stereo mix and the 1985 stereo mix, all implemented by Steven Wilson. Well – who needs it!
This review first appeared in the MusikExpress 10/2025.