These music types from from back in the day; they’re all over the place. If it’s not the Stone Roses filling football stadiums and revelling in a Madchester revival, it’s Rick Astley selling out your local concert hall with his foghorn-voiced eighties pop.
Keen not to miss out on this latest wave of nostalgia, Genesis drummer, frontman, and phenomenally successful solo artist, Phil Collins, is all over it too. Late last year, he announced a re-release of his entire back catalogue of hits. But Seriously, originally entered the sphere of pop in 1989. It’s the latest in a line of Phil’s well-loved albums returned to transport you back to a time when you’d have belted your favourite tunes from a giant twiddly-knobbed, neon-lit hi-fi stacking system.
Each of the collections have been remastered, which in the interests of avoiding technical speak, is best described as given an audio Photoshopping. This supposedly gives the music a little more polish and improves on the quality of the original CD albums you may own from back in the day. Purists may argue that this takes away from the authenticity. Unless you have sonic bat ears however; you’re unlikely to notice. Anyway, tinkering with music production aside, there’s no doubting this is the sound of Phil. Good old Phil.
So extensive and well-known are Mr Collins’ assortment of punchy drum beat pop bangers, they could arguably soundtrack the whole of the eighties. When you think back to any of the major news events of the decade, you’d swear you could hear the toe-tapping melodies of Two Hearts, or You Can’t Hurry Love playing in the background.
But Seriously is home to some of Phil’s best loved hits, and the album treads a pop-rock path between his characteristic cheerier anthems, and slightly more morbid ballads. Chart-topper Something happened on the way to heaven is perhaps the most well-known and uplifting, and later comes the gritty issue-tackling Another Day in Paradise.
The album is a double, offering no less than 25 tunes for your money. The second bonus disc, entitled Extra Seriously, treats us to live or demo versions of songs, many of which are previously unreleased. If that doesn’t give you your fill of Phil, then nothing will.
Anyone at this point wondering whether there’s any difference between 2016’s But Seriously and the original, hold it right there and take a minute to inspect the CD’s cover. Yes it’s still Phil, and the iconic face-filling pose common to the majority of his albums is there, but look closer and you’ll see it’s a more lined and weather-beaten 65 year-old Phil. That’s right, rather than harking back to his youth, he’s embraced his older years by recreating the artwork from the original album. Nice move. In the words of the man himself: Take a look at me now.
By Lindsay Narey
@LinzeeN
