And the lights are all on - the world is watching now

Completing my trip back through the 1994 album charts.

02/01/94 : Both Sides - Phil Collins


Our fourth visit with Mr Collins and I'm not sure I was even aware this existed - you never quite know what you're going to get from Mr C, but I'm happy enough to find out.

Yeah, I didn't mind this - I can see that some people would think it's a bit wet but I don't think Phil would argue too hard against such accusations. They're "nice" songs, if maybe a bit too downbeat and a bit too long (all but one of them are over five minutes long) where the lyrics have a little bit of an edge to them, but not too much because we don't want to scare off the punters. I enjoyed "Both Sides Of The Story" and the rest of it just kinda slid by me without being offensive (I was reminded of Peter Gabriel in quite a few places) - I didn't need the two hour deluxe version though. Coincidentally, and somewhat bizarrely, this was the second album in a row which features a bagpipe sound.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on his eighth week of a 22 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week. The top five this week were Take That, Dina Carroll (starting a three week run at #2), Bryan Adams, Meat Loaf (who had three albums in the chart this week) and M People and there were no new entries in the chart. 

Wikipedia tells us this is his fifth album and he recorded it all by himself. He wasn't in the best of states because his second marriage was failing and he believed there was "the daily cloud of terrorism Britain seems to live under", so I guess he just wasn't in the mood for happy songs. Critically, the album was received well enough with Wikipedia bizarrely telling us that it got 9/10 from PowerMetal.de and 10/10 from The Scunthorpe Telegraph, but there were complaints from radio stations that it was all a bit too depressing for them to play. Retrospectively, the album's reputation has improved and Mr Collins himself stated in '16 that it was his "favourite album from a songwriting and creative perspective". Commercially, it did very well in Europe, getting to #1 in Austria, The Netherlands, France, Germany (it sold 1.5 million copies there!), Italy, Portugal and Switzerland and it got to #13 in the US - he's certainly managed to tap into something that people respond to over the years.

With so many copies about, it's no surprise that discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for 75 pence but if you want Both Sides (All The Sides), the five vinyl LP box set from '24 it's going to set you back £100 - I think you'd have to be QUITE the fan to subject yourself to that. But if you're in the mood for something to wallow in, then I can see this ticks the boxes nicely - and as a casual listen I found it perfectly pleasant.

And with that, we're done with '94 which has been a surprisingly varied year - there's going to be a lot to cover in the write-up of the year (which might be a couple of days yet because it's currently only half finished). And I'm taking a break from the charts to slog through the rest of The Guardian's list - I'll be back in '26 with a year from the good old naughties, which one exactly is yet to be decided.

09/01/94 - Quite the thing

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