Phil Collins – Hello, I Must Be Going!

i have the smaller circular die-cut but the runouts are more like the 2nd pressing, hmmm.. (V2252 A-1U-1-3-/V 2252 B-1U-1-6)..

His best if I say so honestly. . . .

When Phil Collins came to make this album, he was following up an unexpected success that no-one saw coming. It is therefore no surprise that this album generally follows the same blueprint as Face Value, basing itself around similar themes of heartache while including a few happier songs and R&B instrumentals to balance things out.

Collins continues to find songwriting inspiration in his personal life, but with slightly less effect this time around. This produces songs like ‘I Don’t Care Anymore’, ‘I Cannot Believe It’s True’ and ‘Do You Know, Do You Care’, and while they’re still good songs, you can’t help but feel you’ve heard him do it better before.

On the other hand, many of the uptempo tracks work very well, as an increase in R&B influences gives the album more groove than Face Value. His hit cover of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ is a very good match for his voice, and despite an almost identical arrangement to the original he totally does it justice. However, I have to say that ’Like China’ wastes its emotional potential, with Phil’s Artful Dodger-like accent limiting its effect. ‘The West Side’ is a decent instrumental, although not on the level of Face Value’s ‘Hand in Hand’.

Production values are a step higher from Face Value, with the album having a more sophisticated sound. The album features an increased use of guitar work which is executed well by Daryl Stuermer. Horn arrangements are great once again, and vocally Collins sounds more confident on up-tempo tracks than he had before.

Overall, this album has many good songs that are neither peaks nor valleys, and sounds somewhat like the halfway point between Face Value and No Jacket Required. It doesn’t reach the heights of those two records, but is a good listening experience and certainly recommendable.
7/10

Yesterday I did some record digging for my birthday and found 2 copies of this masterpiece for 1 dollar a piece, they are like new! What a blessing!

The production of this album is simply astonishing. This pressing sounds very fat and gooooood.

Picked up a mint copy of this release. Sounds incredible. Not a single crackle. A really nice recording. Totally worth getting hold of a mint copy if you can.

I have an early pressing of this CD from Atlantic that I bought new back around 1985 in Canada. It is identified as CD80035-2 SRC 05. It has a "pressing" defect on the very first second of audio: the left channel volume level is lower by about half for 1 second. Also, the name of the audio engineer, printed on the CD itself, is misspelled as Hugh Padoham instead of Hugh Padgham. Wonder if I could exchange it for a non-defective copy, some 27 years later ? (I doubt it)