Well, I was there and I saw what you did - I saw it with my own two eyes

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts.

21/06/81 : Face Value - Phil Collins

Our sixth visit with Mr Collins and I'm sure I must have heard this one, but I couldn't tell you when - I know it's got "In The Air Tonight" on it though, so I'm at least going to like one track.

Well, I think you can guess which track they started with - and yes, I still like it (and no, it's not about "that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drownin' but didn't"). And the rest of it was perfectly fine and all well put together, but maybe just a little bit bland (although there's an argument he could be applauded for his restraint). I'm desperately trying to think of anything more to say about it but I'm coming up blank - if you like this, then I can totally understand that but I struggle to imagine too many people come to it these days and are blown away by it.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on his 19th week of a decent 41 week run, with it having spent the first three weeks at #1. However, it was only just getting going really because it's been back for TWENTY SEVEN further runs, including stints of 26, 23, 33, 20, 68 and 20 weeks with it last being seen in '96, giving it a total of 275 weeks in total. Impressive! The top five this week were the Motorhead live album (a new entry), Stars On 45, Disco Days & Disco Nites, UB40 and Toyah with the next highest new entry being Siouxsie & The Banshees (#7). Part of me thought I should review the Motorhead offering but I know it would end up with the usual "if you like this sort of thing, then you'll like this" nonsense. I was also super annoyed to find out that, despite it being called No Sleep Til Hammersmith, it wasn't actually recorded there - they didn't even play Hammersmith on this tour, so I obviously had to reject it in a sulk. 

Wikipedia has a decent amount of text (185 milliPeppers) and it tells us this is his debut album (everyone already knew that, right?) and then provides a huge amount of information on the background and recording details, none of which is the slightest bit interesting - except for noting that Phil used drum programming on the album, which people weren't happy about. You do get the impression Phil massively cared about what he was doing and put a lot of thought into it though - so it's nice it all paid off for him (and boy did it pay off). Critically, it was very well received at the time and is still well regarded - commercially, it did well globally making the top five in a load of countries and getting to #1 in Canada and Sweden and #7 in the US, selling five million copies over there and twelve million globally, which really aren't numbers to be sniffed at. 

All of which means there are plenty of copies hanging around, so discogs.com tells us you can pick up a version for £1.50 - if you want to go mad you have to look at the pointless reissues, such as the numbered remastered gold CD version from '10 which will set you back £120 (although I do like the face that the '16 reissue has an updated photo with a much older Mr Collins on the cover). But whatever you spend, I think "perfectly fine" covers it.

28/06/81 - A very decent album

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