Take that look of worry - I'm an ordinary man

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

16/03/86 : No Jacket Required - Phil Collins 

It certainly wasn't the cool option, but I liked and owned this album (bringing us to five for the year). I've not listened to it in years though, so it will be interesting to see how it stands up.

Hmmm - it's a game of two halves really. The more up-tempo numbers like "Sussudio" and "Who Said I Would" have definitely dated - I enjoyed them in a kinda "oooh - the 80s!" way but I can accept that they aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. But I think the slower numbers like "A Long Long Way To Go", "One More Night" and particularly "Take Me Home" have held up well and I enjoyed being reminded of them. All in all, it was a fun revisit - it probably didn't deserve to be quite as successful as it was, but there's plenty to appreciate here.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on his 56th week of an impressive 92 week run, with it spending the first five weeks at #1 and the first seventeen weeks in the top ten. The rest of the top five were Dire Straits (just finishing up a ten week run at the top and on a 56 week run in the top ten and a 3.5 year run in the chart!), Hits For Lovers, Whitney Houston and the Rocky IV soundtrack and the highest new entry this week was a Frank Sinatra best-of - there really is no escaping the man!

Wikipedia has loads (302 milliPeppers) on the album - it tells us that it's his third solo album and the title relates to a time he tried to get into a restaurant and they wouldn't let him because he didn't have a jacket. He really stuck it to the man by recording this though, didn't he? He had some reasonably big names to call on for backing vocals - Sting, Peter Gabriel and Helen Terry (best known for her fine work with Culture Club) all appear. The critics were surprisingly nice about it at the time, but retrospective reviews have not been so complimentary - including by Mr Collins who now claims he wasn't being himself on it. Commercially, it did OK I guess, getting to #1 in a load of places including the US, being the second best selling album in the UK in 1985 and shifting 25 millions units globally.

There are also some great random facts in this entry - it probably won't surprise you to hear that three of tracks on this album featured in Miami Vice episodes - one of which featured Phil acting, which I can imagine is perfectly dreadful. It also reminds me that the album tour ended on quite the high, with Phil playing both sides of the Atlantic for Live Aid, including being part of a Led Zeppelin reunion. There's also a very bizarre story that came out of an interview which noted his resemblance to Bob Hoskins and Danny DeVito, out of which Phil suggested they could play the three bears in a Goldilocks film - and people actually thought this was a good idea! However, "problems arose (mostly involving the script)" so we were spared such nonsense.

"Customers also listened to" Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Philip Bailey and Steve Winwood - I think we can see why those names popped up. I enjoyed this - I wouldn't say it's a great album and it's certainly not a cool album, but it all works together pretty well and the good bits are really very fine.

09/03/86 - Another fine first listen
23/03/86 - An interesting listen