Phil Collins - No Jacket Required

There was a period of time (it was actually pretty short when you look back on it - but at the time it seemed like forever) when Mister Collins was pretty much everywhere. Either with Genesis, or solo, or behind the kit just being a drummer (I saw him with Robert Plant, and there was little fanfare made about it). He first started making inroads with his early solo career, come on, who hasn't played air drums to "In the Air Tonight" but when Genesis took the world in 1983 with their self titled monster it seemed like everyone needed a little more Phil in their lives, and we got our Phil until we were all filled up.

No Jacket Required is the album where he and Hugh Padgham fitted all the sonic pieces together and where Phil's now patented gated reverb drum splat sound would practically define the 80s. The song where all of this sonic mayhem manifested itself on a grand scale was the ear-worm "Sussudio" a song that elicits a pretty strong reaction both positive and negative.

The song to me is a four and a half minute long steaming pile of incontinent pudding plops. Yeah, time and nostalgia haven't really softened my opinion of this thinly veiled reworking of Prince's "1999" with a middle aged Englishman wearing one of David Byrne's oversized suits dancing in a pub. Now, I do have to admit that I did look up the video for the song, and it is pretty good, and more entertaining than I wanted to admit. Watching Daryl Stuermer play his headless guitar, and the brilliant Leland Sklar mime playing bass on a song where there was only a programmed bass is pretty great. Dang, am I softening on this one? Is nothing sacred?

The album though is really good, and I will sheepishly admit to not skipping the first song when I played the album. My reasoning is simple - it's the first song, and once it's out of the way I can enjoy the album, and there's a lot to enjoy. I had a cassette copy back in the day (I can't remember why, as I never bought cassettes) and listened to it quite a bit.

I guess at the time Phil was a safe bet. He wasn't controversial, he was a cute little nebbish who seemed to have a sense of humour and didn't seem to take himself to seriously, but was a serious musician. He was basically a one man version of ABBA without the benefit of Agnetha Faltskog's posterior. I'm not sure what I was going for - I think I should have stopped at Phil being "safe" music that could be played in your parent's car, and you didn't have to worry about whether or not there'd be a Tipper Gore sticker on the album cover warning of bad words ahead.

One of the unsung heroes on the album was the previously mentioned Daryl Stuermer who is a monster player (I have a couple of his solo CDs in the cave) and is all over the record lending tasty licks and elevating the music. The other stalwart on the album is the wonderfully bearded Leland Sklar - he may not have been on "Sussudio" but when you hear a bass on the album, that's him.

It's a decent album with a few great songs. Not counting the "Sussudio" as a great song, but a huge hit, I will admit to being a sucker for "One More Night" and the album's closer "Take Me Home" is solid and even has Peter Gabriel and Sting on backing vocals. The rest are listenable but kind of just there. Oddly the lines kind of blur between what constituted a Genesis song and a Phil solo song and even here there are elements that would be at home with Tony and Mike, and in later Genesis efforts there was a lot more of Phil on them.

I've always gotten a kick out of the fact that Phil loves drum machines to create patterns and rhythms and will mix them along with his acoustic kit. So it was kind of funny to see a little disclaimer in the fine print proclaiming "There is no Fairlight on this record." Kind of reminded me of when Queen and Boston would proclaim they didn't use synthesizers.

Still whatever the reason this album came out at the right time and combined with a little luck made Phil a megastar. The album has gone on to sell more than 25 million copies worldwide (did you read that as Doctor Evil? If not, go back and read it again. That's 25 Meeeeellion!) which is incredible. He wanted people to take him home, and they did.