In the past few years, popular music has produced a new wave of stars like the White Stripes, Interpol, and the Strokes who have revived the early raw sounds of rock bands who hit the scene twenty, thirty, even forty years before them. To be retro now seems commonplace in all genres of modern music. But as I listen to the 1985 album No Jacket Required, I have to ask: “Isn’t it about time that someone breathes a second wind into the sounds of Phil Collins?”
After eleven years as the drummer (and later, lead singer) for Genesis, Collins embarked on his solo career with the LP Face Value (1981). From there on, he cultivated a fun and sincere brand of pop music. While many rock stars were young and getting by with good looks and minimal musical talent, Collins, a balding thirty-something, was producing successful pop albums and doubling as a jazz musician with the band Brand X. His passionate, unique voice, coupled with a stellar talent for writing catchy pop tunes, earned him 14 top ten hits in the eighties.
No Jacket Required is Collins’ shining moment, a brilliant opus that shows him at the pinnacle of his creativity. And kicking it off is a pop classic, “Sussudio,” a collage of synthesizers and horns over an intense drumbeat. The music speaks a bittersweet contrast to the song’s “boy likes girl, girl doesn’t notice” lyrical theme.
In the same vein, “One More Night” has a lovesick Collins getting closer to telling a girl how he feels. “I was wondering should I call you / Then I thought, maybe you’re not alone,” Phil sings with a hint of helplessness. He goes on to plea for just one more night – one more chance before he loses his window of opportunity. The ballad fades gracefully as two or three tracks of Collins’ “ooh, ooh, oohs” clear a steady path for the sax solo.
The body of the album weaves smoothly through various moods, while the blood is kept pumping by energetic tunes like the workout-tape worthy “Only You Know and I Know,” the hard-driving “Who Said I Would,” and the explosive opener to side two, “Don’t Lose my Number.” In the latter, Phil hits the peak of his vocal intensity the moment he sings, “I’m never coming back, back.” Action-packed throughout the moody verses, the catchy chorus line, and the echo-drenched guitar solo, it is a worthy hit single.
On the other hand, songs of a more mellow nature round out the album’s sound. In this category we find the crawling yet eerily beautiful “I Don’t Wanna Know” and the epic ending, “Take Me Home.” In this song the underlying assault of percussive instruments blends nicely into the hypnotic keyboard line, subtle guitars, ambient backing vocals and synthesizers. Over these layers of sound, Collins passionately belts out such loaded verses as “I can’t come out to find you / I don’t like to go outside / They can’t turn off my feelings / Like they’re turning out a light.” As the song and album fade out, with Sting and ex-Genesis band mate Peter Gabriel joining him to repeat the line, “Take, take me home,” you are left feeling completely fulfilled.
No Jacket Required is a masterpiece filled with pop sensibilities and songs that evoke emotions from one end of the spectrum to the other. It is too bad that I was only five when this album came out – I can only marvel at the energy these songs must have generated on stage. I only hope that a group of modern musicians will give credit where credit is due and resurrect the sounds that Phil Collins bestowed upon popular music.
Joe Lops can be contacted at [email protected]