Face Value Is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Friday is always fun because it's music. And playlists. And this week it's a look at a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Trust me.

Back in 1981, Face Value was the debut album from Phil Collins of Genesis. He’d done some interesting session work outside of his main gig and had a jazz-rock band too. But this was his debut as a solo artist. And though his solo career and the music of Genesis dovetailed across the 1980s and he seemed an unstoppable force (and that seemed to annoy a few of the early diehard Genesis fans) Face Value has never really sounded like the work he was doing as drummer and lead singer in that band. (Even as he ‘covered’ a Genesis song, his version reframing it somewhat).

Face Value is a set of (barely) polished up demos that came from a writing binge on the back of a marriage bust-up, Face Value is a diary-like stroll through Collins’ fragile headspace and it’s also very moving – particularly musically.

The big single – and shock – is the album opener, In The Air Tonight. You’re sick of it now, from far too much radio play, but in its rightful place as the album’s lead statement it’s still a sonic powerhouse, hypnotic and moody and a masterclass in Collins’ great skill for blending live and programmed drums. He’s probably still telling anyone that interviews him that he arrived at it by accident, merely set up a mood on the machine to write to, and/or to give a rhythm while he sketched the demo, but his patterns and the interplay (and overplay) of the acoustic drums has been a huge influence in pop and hip-hop. It’s also a statement of intent, a moody intro – determined, eventually bold. It reads now as the clue that this album means something to Phil, and is gonna mean something to us. It’s also a song that Genesis rejected. Collins played it, in demo form, to the other members. You either like it or you don't. But it's a perfectly sustained, dark piece of pop music. It builds. And it is a beautifully controlled build, teetering on tension. Collins is singing for a retribution, a retribution that will only make him happy in the sense that he will release some frustration. It's a harrowing song, particularly from the songwriter's point of view and in the performance of the singer - surprising, then, that it became so well known. And loved. It really is a lot darker than you think. But not this dark!

We move from there to balladry (with a twist – still the moodiness on This Must Be Love) and then we get the first hint of Collins’ huge Motown fixation on Behind The Lines.

Where Paul McCartney was busy making his cartoon-funk on McCartney II (an album I’ve often paired with this, both find auteur figures stepping out and away from big band franchises and experimenting, indulging themselves, in home studios; both were recorded and released in the same era, from people that seemed to have very little to do with the actual era besides living in/through it) Collins doesn’t go colourful, instead he aims to trace around the original feels. He uses the Earth, Wind & Fire horns for clarity, for kudos, they give soul and light and air to the songs. Their lines dance along the songs much as they had when E,W & F made moves toward the pop charts.

The Roof Is Leaking is another dark exploration into the marriage falling apart. That's the main theme of the album – it's the subject of so many of the songs, as both chance for exploration and a release of sorts. The Roof Is Leaking is odd and spiteful and the sort of song that’s actually more in line with Lennon than McCartney, if anything. It has hints of the very early Elton John too, but all of the textures beneath the piano and vocal distract and unnerve in a way Sir Reg wouldn’t bother – particularly as it might affect the bottom-line.

The Roof moves into Droned which reminds that Collins worked with Eno, learned a lot it seems – the drone-instrumental could have found a home on Eno’s collaboration of the time with David Byrne (another album that lines up well with this and McCartney II, an odd triptych then, but worth it, give it a go…)

And from there we roll into Hand In Hand, it became the show-opener, always a  show-highlight for many years and another showcase for Collins drum-machine/drums interplay/overlap. More hints at Motown and funk in the horns but it sets us up for the album’s second half where the soulful side of pop music becomes the focus.

Here he gets to show off too – a Motown drum fill to open I Missed Again, the horns slamming down into the sides of the tune. Collins showing off his falsetto, a classy piece of songwriting, this. I Missed Again is a song he would rewrite several times across his career. I think he nailed it the first time. A great wee pop song.

You Know What I Mean is a McCartney-esque ballad that rolls on into Thunder and Lightning, where Collins, an adaptable and talented vocalist (it’s not mentioned often enough) borrows that little Lionel Richie snarl from several Commodores songs. I’m Not Moving is slight, but fun. It’s needed to break up the record, to make a space for If Leaving Me Is Easy – a song worthy of inclusion on any heartbreak-ballad list. Except it’s on a Phil Collins record! So we need to bring in silly mentions of divorce-by-fax apocrypha rather than appreciation for a job well done. In this case a beautiful early-am song of clarity (after just the right number of drinks) gets overshadowed by some retrospective referencing of whether the song’s creator was (or is) ever “cool” enough…

The record closes with Tomorrow Never Knows, a Beatles cover that swirls and charms and is of course in tribute to John Lennon – but given Collins’ primary instrument it’s a tribute, too, to the innovative playing of Ringo Starr. (Collins was leading the charge there in giving Ringo his dues).

I think only of Prince and Beck as examples of the one-man-band that ever got this close, writing-wise, to nailing a sound and serving up so many slight variations on the theme on the one album.

Take a look at this now…and a listen too. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Face Value has a lot of movement, a lot of mood and a great flow. I first heard it in its entirety about 10 years after it was released. It has always been my favourite Collins album. And one of my favourites from its time. It’s always been the example I hold up, whenever anyone is too quick to dismiss Phil Collins as anything beyond being a great drummer.

Face Value is a cinematic set of songs – wide in scope, huge in both actual sound and evocation; proof you can think big within the confines of a three-minute pop song.

But that's me.

You probably hate Phil Collins.

But it’s not all Phil Collins today. There’s also Vol. 117 of our regular weekly playlist. Also in the heartbreaking mood/mode for this one I reckon. I hope you like it. Thanks for reading. And happy weekend.