For some reason our Phil isn't cool. But he ought to be, based on his debut post-Genesis masterpiece. Kicking off on side one with In The Air Tonight, everyone's favourite air-drum solo - performed by a gorilla on the Cadbury's chocolate TV ad (I see a pattern emerging here with this and my previous two Vinyl On Tap choices).
I was about 16 when I went walking arm-in-arm with my friend Kim along Barnet High Street, called into Harum Records and came out with my bargain £1.99 secondhand copy of this great LP.
Maybe love was indeed in the air that night, which made some of the tracks, like Behind The Lines, I'm Not Moving, and If Leaving Me Is Easy ever more so poignant, when I placed the plastic on the turntable to listen intently to the beautiful music emanating from my new Wharfdales.
Closing Side One we have Droned and Hand In Hand. I used to pick the needle up and skip these tracks because I didn't get them at the time. Now I do. The beginning of Droned is positively like Nitin Sawhney before his time, and the brass section, courtesy of Earth Wind and Fire throughout the LP is so crisp and sharp on all the songs on which they play.
And the closing track - Tomorrow Never Knows - must go down as one of the best Beatles covers of all time.
Do yourself a favour; put your anti-Phil Collins prejudice in the closet and revisit one of the best LPs of the early eighties.
