I know what you are thinking and just stop right there. You just think you've heard it. Don't believe me? Ask the person sitting to your left if he/she has heard it. Now the right. Thought so.
Face it, it you are under 40 you certainly didn't buy this album when it came out. You just remember hearing In The Air Tonight some 84 billion times during the first season of Miami Vice several years after the album was released in February of 1981. And no, it is not a song about Phil Collins watching somebody watching somebody else drown. In fact, it's a song about someone catching their lover cheating on them.
See, Old Phil was going through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e during this time in his life, and channelled that into the lyrics on this album. But despite the dark tone of the album, Phil's debut solo recording blends a vast assortment of musical styles to pop perfection.
Phil takes us on a roller coaster of love and loss, from the sweet sultry ballad This Must Be Love and the bittersweet remorsefulness of If Leaving Me Is Easy to the upbeat funky ditties Behind The Lines and Thunder And Lightning. He had also had minor hits with Misunderstanding and I Missed Again that have held up quite nicely.
So go ahead and treat yourself to an album that still sounds as fresh today as a breezy spring afternoon. Take that leap and dismiss everything you remember about Phil Collins and hear him for the first time before he became a Top 40 hit making machine.
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