Fave Value (1981)
Artist: Phil Collins
Label: Virgin
Format: Tidal Hi-Res FLAC (24/96)
Year: 1981
Equipment
- DAC
- Gold Note DS-10 Plus DAC
- Amp
- Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum III
- Speakers
- DeVore Fidelity O/96
- Sub
- REL T/5x SE Powered Subwoofer (Racing Red)
- Interconnects
- Morrow MA3
- Speaker Cables
- Tellurium Q Black II
One of my favorite videos in high school was a Phil Collins concert I videotaped off of HBO after the release of No Jacket Required in 1985. Of course I was familiar with Collins’ pop releases and Genesis’ current catalog from the early eighties, but hadn’t really heard Collins’ earlier music: this was the first time I had heard “Hand in Hand” and it blew me away. The brass section was something else, and it inspired me as a young trumpet player, fitting right into my life soundtrack. I believe I wore out this VHS tape from overuse. Fortunately, I found a Spanish-language DVD of the concert sometime in the nineties.
Stylistically, Collins’ solo 1981 debut Face Value is all over the map—but not in a chaotic way. It’s more like a scrapbook of everything Collins loved: Motown, funk, jazz, prog, R&B, pop, even baroque string arrangements (“If Leaving Me Is Easy” is practically lying on a velvet fainting couch sobbing into a wine glass; there’s something about the hyper-emotional schmaltz that appealed to my young sensibilities). You’ve got synths and brass, live drums and LinnDrums, orchestras and soul grooves all playing nicely together.
This album practically invented the ’80s drum sound. Collins and engineer Hugh Padgham stumbled into that gated reverb thing (famously during a Peter Gabriel session), and on Face Value, it becomes a calling card. Nowhere is this clearer than on “In the Air Tonight”—that drum break? Still gives people chills 40+ years later and really sounded powerful on my system. But across the album, the drums aren’t just rhythm—they’re characters in the story. They’re raw, punchy, upfront, and often dominate the scene, even above the lead vocals. They are a treat to listen to.
Let’s not beat around the bush: this is a divorce album. Collins had just split with his first wife, and you can feel it. Not just in the lyrics (though, yeah, “You Know What I Mean” is basically a breakup letter), but in the arrangements. Everything sounds just a little emotionally unstable in the best way—like the drums are venting, the bass is groaning, and the keys are whispering regret. “In the Air Tonight” is famously vengeful, but even the instrumentals feel like they’ve been through something.
Yet despite the heartbreak, Face Value isn’t just misery porn. It’s honest. It’s full of rage, sure, but also reflection, catharsis, and surprising warmth. Songs like “I Missed Again” almost fool you with their upbeat bounce, until you hear the ache under the bravado. And “Thunder and Lightning” leans into funk and blues to channel frustration, a kind of emotional weather report from someone caught in a storm of their own making. “Behind the Lines,” originally a Genesis tune from Duke, gets reborn here. Collins speeds it up, tightens it, and blasts it with those tight, funky Earth, Wind & Fire horns (courtesy of the Phenix Horns). It becomes a hybrid of prog bones and R&B muscle. You feel like you’re watching someone stretch their limbs for the first time and realizing, “Oh wait, I can dance too.”
And then there’s “Hand in Hand”—a personal favorite of mine. First that delicate bit of keyboard ambiance, then bam!—those horns drop in like a sunrise through fog, warming everything up. Then the thunder of those drums again, maybe the most dominant and raw on the album. Collins builds tension slowly, looping that childlike chorus, giving it this weirdly spiritual, humanist vibe, then releasing it all in those rhythmic horn stabs. “Hand in Hand” reminds me of Chuck Mangione at his best: it’s pop big-band, orchestral and expansive. It’s got that same cinematic sweep, but filtered through a more British, slightly melancholy lens. There’s an orchestral quality—it’s got movement and arcs, the way it builds and releases like a big-band suite condensed into five minutes. It’s like jazz-fusion meets symphonic soul.
And then there’s Leland Sklar—what a legend. What a beard! His bass tone is deep, articulate, and emotional—right where it needs to be. On “Behind the Lines,” he holds the groove down like a velvet anchor while the horns dance above. On “Hand in Hand,” he’s practically melodic, weaving in countermelodies that complement the brass without competing. He’s the kind of player who makes everything feel intentional.
As for sound quality? On my system, it’s pretty spacious. Face Value has that early-’80s analog warmth, but also a bit of that transitional graininess—before digital clarity took over, but after the full lushness of ’70s vinyl had begun to fade. The drum kit is absolutely front-and-center, sometimes almost aggressively so (especially with that gated reverb), which can crowd other frequencies a bit on lesser systems. But on a good setup? It breathes. Even a second-rate track like “Droned” sounds great on my system, so it was worth having another listen to. You get those wide stereo pans, the reverb tails, the careful use of silence and decay. It’s not quite as pristine or open as, say, Joshua Judges Ruth, where Lyle Lovett’s team captures every air molecule, but it’s got character. A stand out to me was “It Must Be Love”; the drum machine provides a solid foundation on which the song is constructed. The textures of the keys and rhythm section bloom beautifully and lift the whole thing skyward.
I took off a half-star because of Phil’s cover of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” I never liked it, and my opinion has not changed. The original Beatles’ song from Revolver is a psychedelic mind-melt: hypnotic, experimental, full of backward tape loops and Lennon’s droning vocal floating over a minimalist trance beat. Collins clearly admired its weirdness and wanted to pay homage, but what he delivers instead feels…well, more like a fever dream during a thunderstorm. Where the rest of Face Value has groove, clarity, and emotional depth—even when it’s raw—it all kind of gets sucked into a black hole here. His version of “Tomorrow Never Knows” is dense, cluttered, and aggressive, almost industrial in its textures. The drums, usually his pride and joy, here become chaotic, clattering against distorted synths and harsh effects. The result isn’t trippy or hypnotic—it’s exhausting. It feels like trying to listen to three radios at once in a wind tunnel.
I’ll add that there’s a brief unlisted snippet at the very end of the track (one that I forgot about because I never used to make it through “Tomorrow Never Knows”): a hidden coda of “Over the Rainbow,” played quietly on piano and voice, like a haunted lullaby. It’s oddly touching—too little, too late—but it almost feels like an apology. “Sorry about that—here’s a little Judy Garland to ease the blow.”
So yeah, Face Value is a breakup album, a soul album, a funk record, a pop experiment, and a Genesis-adjacent oddity all rolled into one. But above all, it’s a Phil Collins album. Every snare hit, every plaintive vocal line, every horn stab—it’s him claiming his own voice, loud and clear. I think that Face Value is still my favorite of Collins’ solo ventures.
