This Must Be Love is (I guess) slightly Mowtown or blues influenced, but both that flavoring and the supersimple lyrics do very little for me. The melodic line in the verse has a nice loose flowing feel to it but the chorus is too repetitive. Yes, nice bass line; though the "heartfelt" performance makes me think he's trying too hard to get the blues, at traits. I'm not totally convinced but it's a nice reading and it makes perfect sense with Phil. On a literal level, it's just a "regular guy" rambling about that initial phase of a new interest/crush when emotional balance shifts; applied here to the sadness of a post-separation state (the trademarkes whining-self-pitying "I'm never gonna be happy again"). Honestly, I can't find anything more than a plain and obvious description of that. Yes, there is an aftertaste of uncertainty, but if that's the theme I'd liked a line or two with stronger statements about it. Behind The Lines has a background story about playing it back at fast speed, but I can't remember exactly. I wonder why he felt the need to include it, or even redo it. It's just one year later than Duke and it's not that extraordinary song anyway. Moreover, the new version takes away everything I liked in the original (mostly the intro!!) and replaces it with things I don't care about. So, after a brilliant start, this album rapidly shifts down to unnecessary territory for me. Even though the following triplet makes up for it more than enough.
Not discussing Behind The Lines. It Must Be Love is neither Motown nor Blues. It is not your lyric (which on present form pleases me). It is, what it is. And if you first came to Phil through But Seriously I don’t expect you to”get it”. But I suspect many did and do. A perfectly OK song and compared to much of what followed .. a masterpiece. More. It does fit perfectly with the theme of the album.
Behind the Lines: I heard this version before I heard the one on Duke and I happen to like both. There's a nice Motown era Jackson 5 feel to it. A great homepage if I say so myself. What I also like is the segue into 'The Roof is Leaking' with the chirping crickets which reminds me of the CR-78's noises that play during the segue into 'Duchess'
Behind The Lines To be honest I prefer the more Prog sounding Genesis original version rather than this more direct dance soulful Jacksons/Earth Wind & Fire flavoured version. But still a good song is a good song, and I have to give credit for it sounding rather different to the Duke album cut. 3.5/5
Me too. This album was my launch pad into Genesis, after only being familiar with "Misunderstanding" and "FYFM" from the radio. Start of a great, great journey.
I'm really glad that I've caught this thread as it's near the beginning, and I'll be going back to the start and reading what everyone's had to say so far. There was a point in time, when I was much younger, where I pretty much dismissed Phil Collins' solo career, but over time I've come to realise that I find the majority of his '80s work to be quite good, with a particular fondness for Face Value and the ultra-pop of No Jacket Required. He was derided for many years as being somewhat of an uncool figure of music who everyone got sick of because he seemed to be everywhere, but in 2019 I think it's about time everyone stopped flinging unnecessary snark at Collins and started treating him like the multi-talented national treasure he actually is, without feeling the need to like his work "ironically" ...
Of the songs mentioned so far, of course "In the Air Tonight" is an evergreen classic and there's nothing really that I can add to the many words that have been spilled over this track throughout the years by various people. I love the swaying, laid-back groove of "This Must Be Love", particularly the bass playing and the take on "Behind the Lines" on this record is interesting, but ultimately I prefer the barnstorming Genesis version for its power.
I do prefer the Genesis version of Behind The Lines - probably because it was the one I heard first, but this one is a really nice alternative and it has a great feel. I think he probably included it to give the album some light to go with the shade. On the flip side I wonder what would have happened if Genesis had taken a few more of his tracks and he'd never gone solo. I refuse to start one of those tedious "what if album X was a triple boxed set and only released in Mongolia" threads, but Duke as a double album with the best bits of Smallcreep's Day, Curious Feeling and Face Value in addition to the original album...? Hmmm could have been interesting.
I have no trouble picturing quite a fair few Collins solo tracks on '80s Genesis albums, actually. I would have loved to have heard what they would have done with "In the Air Tonight", "The Roof is Leaking"/"Droned" or "If Leaving Me Is Easy" just from this album alone.
I like most everything about this...except the melody, which doesn't immediately arrest me. I get what he's doing with the sixties/seventies soul/funk thing and I think he does a pretty good job, but the song itself doesn't excite me. I bet it cooked live, though. Lot of energy in this performance and, yes, the drumming is captivating.
The Roof Is Leaking I love this song, and strange as it may seem, it may be my favourite track off the album. The first thing that always strikes me, it has this raw, not so much home studio sound, as recorded in somebody's basement after some Cognac or something. We have the piano come in very gently and Collins vocal has no obvious effects on it, it has a raw, recorded in a dead room sound, and that suits it perfectly. When we move into the change we get a bit of an uptempo change with some dobro sounding guitar, I think this arrangement sounds wonderful. We get really nice dynamics and instrumentation, but not a sign of over production at all. It may sound crazy to most, but it somewhat feels like this could almost be on Dylan's Times Are A Changin' album, it just has that raw sparse sound with that desperate and despairing lyric and sound. Definitely one of Phil's most successful songs for me.
but the version of this song i like the most is this live performance from 1990, wrongly left off Serious Hits Live:
Curiously, even though I own & like a few Phil Collins records, I've never heard Face Value. Enjoying everyone's opinions though.
I did too. I may well be wrong, but this morning it sounded like a dobro .... I did have a noisy background though.
It’s pretty much my favourite on the album for the reasons you mention. It has a real resonance with me and the transition through the next two tracks is kind of seamless. This is Phil’s best album and this is its cohesive heart.
Face Value is still one of my favorite albums of all time. Got it pretty close to release, around 82/83, on cassette, and I still listen to it (not the cassette version, though I may still have it). Side 1 it my favorite, but side 2, though lighter, has great stuff on it as well.
Another great song. The credits list "slide guitar", could be Dobro or just a plain acoustic. Daryl plays the banjo. Sounds like it was recorded in the house where the roof was leaking. Sure that was intentional. Everything is close miked and intimate. The lyrics are delivered with urgency and have always liked the delivery of "God, I hope's it's not late". Could Phil have done a whole record in this style? Love the tremolo Rhodes that ends the song and takes us into India.
