Face Value by Phil Collins

cassette, CD, or digital?

this one is for the audiophiles.

as a music enthusiast, i have a few different devices for listening at my disposal: two record players (one is an all-in-one entertainment center), a CD player, a Walkman, an mp3 player, a cellphone, a tablet…

it also goes without saying that i have a sizable music collection. there’s a handful of albums that i’ve collected in more than one format, including Face Value by Phil Collins. this album was first released on February 13, 1981. a week past the album’s anniversary, i listened to it on both cassette and CD to see if its impact would be any different. i also gave it a spin on streaming for good measure.

truth be told, this might have been my first experience listening to the album from start to finish in any format. if i had listened to Face Value in its entirety before now, it probably didn’t resonate because i don’t remember it. however, i don’t always listen to the music i add to my library (physical or digital) right away. some music is waiting to be experienced at just the right moment. perhaps for moments like this.

the tech specs: 

• the Sony Sports Walkman first debuted 40 years ago, in 1984. this specific Walkman i own was made in 1991. i picked it up during the 2010s at Value Village. i was excited to take it home and discover that it still worked. IMO, it is a little clunky for working out — even though it does have a belt clip on the back, it doesn’t really latch onto anything since it’s so heavy.

  

• the CD player is one i recently got on Amazon. it’s ok. nothing to really write home about.

• my iPad served as the vessel for listening via streaming and composing this piece.

• headphone choice also played an important factor: i used a pair of JBL Tune 660NC — they are wireless Bluetooth on-ear headphones, but i used the detachable cord to listen across all formats.¹

the listening sessions:

Face Value is giving blue-eyed soul. it’s the debut solo album of someone who’s been through the emotional depths of hell, but is now looking forward through the pain. maybe a little more jaded, perhaps a little wiser.

sequentially, the album is well-organized. while the lyrics are often somber and heavy, it’s a fairly easy listen with random moving parts that eventually make sense (even if they seem a bit gimmicky in retrospect). this progressive rock album is full of prominent horns, soulful yearning, ballads, and a mishmash of influences. also, is it fair to say that recording studios in the 1980s and 1990s definitely had Black children’s choirs on retainer?

the heartache, desolation (bordering on desperation), and angst smack you in the face on the opening track “In The Air Tonight”. Collins came out swinging with this heavy-hitting single, like he had something to prove. he had been the drummer for the English band Genesis from 1970 until 1975, when Peter Gabriel departed to focus on family. then Collins stepped up as lead vocalist. from that point until the release of Face Value, Collins wasn’t even a prominent songwriter for Genesis. there was also his divorce, which served as so much of the subject matter for this album. yeah, maybe he had a lot to prove.

it often seems like he’s cycling through the different stages of grief across the album’s run. like he acknowledges that there’s an issue with his marriage on “The Roof is Leaking,” but he’s in denial that it’s over on “I’m Not Moving.”

elsewhere, “Thunder and Lightning” foreshadowed the type of beloved bangers that Phil Collins did on the soundtrack for Tarzan. and you just know he knew he was in his bag whenever he did that funk-inspired howl across the track.

the refrain during the outro of “If Leaving Me is Easy” seemed a little punchier on both cassette and CD than it did on streaming — there was a more distinct crescendo. originally, i wasn’t sure if that had more to do with the degradation of the physical media over all this time, or if this was corrected in the remastered version. but after listening to the original version on YouTube, i think they overcorrected this quality on the remastered digital version. i personally liked the moment when the horns were jarringly louder than everything else, but perfectly harmonized with Collins’ falsetto.

i also think he could have ended the album with “If Leaving Me Is Easy” (instead of a cover of “Tomorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles), and it would have had a different, more dramatic impact. the album would have resounded in a much more compelling way.

the consensus:

overall, i definitely prefer the seamless quality of listening on the Walkman. i wish the CD player i had was more seamless. for instance, the transitional gap between songs was more noticeable from “Droned” to “Hand in Hand” on the CD player. streaming was cool too, but it occasionally sounded too polished. paradoxically, the album only skipped when i listened to it on streaming.

one of my favorite things about this album has nothing to do with the music itself, but rather with how Collins took an updated photo in the same pose for the deluxe edition in 2016. it’s the same man, weathered by age and time, but he’s now able to look back on his emergence as a solo artist through more mature eyes.

Face Value is very much of its time. i don’t mean that with praise or disdain, but rather with indifference. while i’ll be adding some of the songs to my current rotation, i won’t be in a rush to re-listen to the full album anytime soon.² but if you feel like taking a trip to the early 1980s, be my guest!

1. obviously, they were not putting Bluetooth on cassette players in the early 1990s. i’m old enough to remember the widespread emergence of Bluetooth on cellphones and had forgotten until recently that we used to use it the same way we use AirDrop, but i digress.

2. my favorites: “In The Air Tonight”; “Droned”; “Thunder and Lightning”; “If Leaving Me Is Easy”; “I’m Not Moving”