3 keepers
keeper avg .300 (original album)
Phil Collins' third solo album begins with one of the most massively successful songs with an egregiously stupid title, "Sussudio"****; it was a number one hit (his second), and helped make "No Jacket Required" one of the best-selling albums of the 80's. Yes, it's a silly and trivial excuse for a song but the dense, giddy blend of Collins' busy programmed percussion, the peppy Phenix Horns, and Daryl Stuermer's frantic guitar is mightily catchy. The album is filled with various middling upbeat pop, including a cleaned-up copy of "Just a Job to Do" (Genesis, 1983), "Only You Know and I Know"; the guitar-driven "I Don't Wanna Know," like Survivor but without all that grit (I know, ha ha); and "Who Said I Would," which is kind of like Prince but without all that funk.
Side one closes with the album's other number one hit, the tender, sleepy "One More Night," a harbinger of the deluge of insipid ballads to come in the late 80's. And ever so appropriately, Sting lends his voice to gloomy, mysterioso ballad "Long Long Way to Go." There are also stealth ballads, songs with ballad-like verses terminated with explosive choruses. But in his way, Collins sometimes does rock, with the hyper-dramatic (like a lot of music at that time) number 4 hit "Don't Lose My Number," and especially with the delightfully bombastic "Inside Out"*****, like Collins channeling the "In The Air Tonight" breakdown for several potent choruses. The album closes with a fourth top ten hit, the atmospheric "Take Me Home"****, which gradually builds from unassuming world-beat synth-pop to magnificently lush orchestral pop with pounding percussion.
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