Starts to whistle as he crosses the street

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

29/07/90 : But Seriously... - Phil Collins

I really liked his previous album, No Jacket Required (and no, that's not a cool thing to admit to),  but I don't think I ever listened to this one (or owned it - 6/23), which seems like an odd omission - so I'm quite looking forward to it.

I didn't mind it and it's definitely in NJR territory, but most of it was pretty forgettable and he's definitely getting unnecessarily earnest - but I liked "Something Happened On The Way To Heaven", "I Wish It Would Rain Down" and "Another Day In Paradise" which were the singles so maybe if I listened to it some more I'd grow to like the rest of it.  But that's not gonna happen, Phil - sorry.  I do quite like the album cover though and I also liked the fact that the 2016 remaster had an updated picture of Phil on - a nice touch.

We're at #5 in the charts this week on his 36th week of a 64 week run with it having spent FIFTEEN weeks at the top (an eight week run, a week off and then a seven week run).  The rest of the top five were Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti, Madonna and The Beach Boys - it's not exactly a rocking top five, is it?  And the highest new entry this week was Bob Geldof's The Vegetarians Of Love (which isn't a title that inspires confidence) at #21.

Wikipedia tells us this is his fourth album after a period where he decided to reduce his musical profile to prevent the public suffering from Phil overload.  And how did he do this?  Only by acting in Buster and releasing two singles off the soundtrack, both of which got to #1 in the US - way to go, Phil!  The album was produced by Hugh Padgham who did a LOAD of albums in the 80s/90s, winning four Grammies in the process (including two for No Jacket Required and one for "Another Day In Paradise").  

There's actually surprisingly little info on the album - there's no word on critical reception, but I suspect they mostly didn't bother because they knew it wouldn't make any difference.  And boy was it successful - third best selling album in the UK in '89 (despite only being on sale for three weeks), best selling album in the UK in '90, second best selling album in the US in '90 and the second best selling album in Germany EVER!  The only country listed where it didn't get to #1 was Japan and globally it's shifted something like 14 million copies - which is a few!  I think we forget exactly how popular he was at the time.

"Customers also listened to" Genesis (who knew!), Philip Bailey, Glenn Frey and Paul Young - some smooth sounds there.  As Phil also produced throughout his career and there are certainly some here, but the album didn't quite click for me - but it appears I am very much in the minority.

22/07/90 - Surprisingly bearable
05/08/90 - A peculiar album

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