Phil Collins / Face Value and Both Sides deluxe reissue details

An close up look at the live recordings, as they were not m,entioned in the booklet of face value.

1. Misunderstanding (Live 31-8-2004 Staples Center, Los Angeles)
2.If Leaving Me Is Easy (Live 16-12-1982 Berkeley Community Theatre, San Francisco)
3.In The Air Tonight (Live 8-12-1997 Palais Omnisport, Paris)
4. Behind The Lines (Live 29-5-1985 Reunion Arena, Dallas)
6. Hand in Hand (Live 8-12-1997 Palais Omnisport, Paris
7. I Missed Again(Live 16-6-2004 Palais Omnisport, Paris)
8. …And So To F (Live 19-12-1982 Perkins Palace, Pasadena)

”Face Value” CD 2 – Live tracks:

1: Misunderstanding (Finally, the First Farewell Tour 2004)
2: If leaving me is easy (The Hello, I Must Be Going Tour ’82/’83)
3: In the air tonight (“Live And Loose In Paris” DVD)
4: Behind the lines (“No Ticket Required”)
6: Hand in hand (“Live And Loose In Paris” DVD)
7: I missed again (“Finally… The First Farewell Tour” DVD)
8: …And so to F… (“Live at Perkins Palace” outtake)

“Both Sides” CD 2 – Live tracks:

2: Both sides of the story (The Both Sides of the World Tour ’94/’95)
3: Can’t turn back the years (The Both Sides of the World Tour ’94/’95)
4: Survivors (The Both Sides of the World Tour ’94/’95)
5: Everyday (The Both Sides of the World Tour ’94/’95)
6: We wait and we wonder (Finally, the First Farewell Tour 2005)
9: Both sides of the story (MTV Unplugged: 30. Aug. ’94 at Fountain Studios, London, England)

I’ve been a huge Phil fan since the 80s…… these reissues are a very mixed bag……..

– The new covers are interesting. I don’t mind them, but it would have been nice to include the original material as well. Here’s the old, and the new…..

– No 5.1 mix is ridiculous, considering Nick Davis has done the entire Genesis catalog and is now working on Tony Banks solo material.

– This should include all b-sides from the era. Same with the live material. Having recordings from different eras on the Face Value Bonus disc is distracting…. The sound quality is not what it should be, considering there’s bootlegs that sound better.

The only people that will be buying these are your hardcore fans. Getting feedback and taking it to heart would be nice.

A missed opportunity to give this catalog of work the respect it deserves.

Dreck! Where are the discrete, “lossless,” 5.1 tracks of this iconic material from this iconic, 80’s POP, master, musical artist. “Miami Vice” would not have been what it was (and arguably, still is) without Mann’s use of Phil’s (Genesis/Solo career) material! I’m a buyer (“all day”) in discrete, “lossless” surround format…a defiant “hater,” otherwise!

Someone said Phil Collins Face Value wa so unwanted, charity shops refused to take anymore! My point is whatever my views on the reissues, Face Value was and always will be a brilliant iconic album.

Have just taken delivery of the vinyl box and although mastering is ace (to my ears) there is warping on all three discs but only when the flip-side is played! How can that be?!

It seems very likely that at least 3 songs from the 2nd disc of Face Value are mp3 sourced: the demos of Please Don’t Ask, This Must Be Love and Against all Odds are all confirmed as 95%-99% mpeg sourced by Audiochecker.
Please Don’t Ask in particular reveals awful sonic artifacts caused by some old mp3 encoders.
Buyers beware!

Oh dear – Nick Davis did the remastering (the same guy who made such a mess of the Genesis remix/remasters). Does that mean these are different to the Warner/HDTracks remastered catalogue?

Today the deluxe box set “Take a look at me now” arrived and I am listening to it right now! But how can that be!? It is supposed to be released on the end of January! Can someone help? Thanks!

Considering the near-unanimous negative reaction to the tracklistings, the postponement until 2016 may as well be a cancellation, since Collins defiantly refuses to reconsider the reissues’ contents.

I really like the live versions of Both Sides being presented. It was a killer tour with Ricky Lawson (RIP) on drums. Many of the songs were much better live, especially Survivors! Awesome.

People here generally would want the remixes on the reissue. I have to say that I enjoyed 12″ers (1985 No Jacket Remixed). However, the Ben Liebrandt 1988 remix is horrible and not original album period piece. I don’t know any original legitimate remixes from these 1981 and 1993 albums. Wasn’t it mid-80’s thing and 1981 too early for that and 1993 too late?

I’m hoping the ‘No Jacket Required’ album including the brilliant ‘Long Long Way To Go’ with Sting will sound awesome in remastered form…probably one of the most haunting and beautiful pieces he’s ever recorded…also ‘We Said Hello Goodbye’ only on the CD version was brilliant too..both songs put the throwaway chart fodder like ‘you can’t hurry love’ to shame.

Perhaps it is accurate to say, that Collins had a sound that was, commercially right for its era, in that these were records for people who liked Collins voice and the shorter, more commercial songs on Genesis’ “And Then There Were Three” & “Duke” albums(“Follow You, Follow Me”, “Misunderstanding”, “Turn it On Again”), but didn’t like progressive rock. And Collins once stated that he personally didn’t care for progressive rock. I guess that he auditioned for “Genesis” because his previous group disbanded, and he needed a gig.

Pass, pass, pass! Maybe, fail, fail, fail!

on the other hand… depending if you buy some or all of the cds, the live tracks, when placed end to end, is going to make one mega Phil Collins concert.

Perhaps this is a record in SDE for the largest number of negative reactions in the shortest amount of time!? I recommend the original vinyl versions as the best sound until we can compare with these remastered liqorice pizzas ….interesting ” shoot outs” to come. Please does anyone know the source for the LP’s? Same digital files as the CDs? Many thanks!

The majority of comments are spot on although Mr PC will ignore them. It makes me think that if he is not interested in doing remastered versions then he shouldn’t have done them at all but teasing us this way is a dreadful idea. When you look at the wonderful job that was done by Rhino on the VM Moondance album it is so so disappointing that they couldn’t have done the same with the FV album which was simply the best album that PC released. The concept of live bonus tracks is always dodgy idea and could have been put on a separate project. The new cover I will refrain on commenting- but what a missed chance!

I never really understood the appeal — a few singles aside — You Can’t Hurry Love, Sussudio, certainly Easy Lover — I can even hang with Something Happened On The Way To Heaven. But what is Phil Collins to the masses? George Michael for *really* straight people. :-)

I would of preferred that he would of released the b’sides and era related material instead of the live material [maybe no edits unless not butchered].
As it is the second discs for each are probably under 60 minutes each. Plenty of room to fill in another 5-6 tracks each.
Like many here, a DV or BR audio disc would of been nice – either part of the set or separate. But I think WB has a history of not releasing them – with exceptions.
Pete Townsend remasters are expected this fall. He was on WB. But since recent Who albums had DVD or Br audio, there is hope there.

Humm !

What a lot of negative comments…

Some clarifications are needed from y point of view:

– Allen Sides was the man who works a decade ago on 5.1 mixes but, to my knowledge, none of Phil studio albums has been completed in that way, only some tracks (we have an example of a new stereo mix of “One More Night” on the Love Songs compilation)

– Perhaps these 5.1 were cautionned by Virgin and Rhino couldn’t use them for this campaign.
– I agree for FV that the ommission of “In The Air Tonight” 1988 remix is a mistake but M. Collins isn’t interested in these kind of things and I totally agree with him

– We’ll have a live version of “…And So To F…”, which is probably the one available on the B-side of the “Don’t Le t Him Steal Your Away” Maxi (it was played on the first solo tour of M. Collins in 1982-1983), so it’s the first time we have this very good version on CD.

– The three demo versions called “Drawing Board” are lo-fi quality and totally unnecessary IMHO. Hope the demos presented here on FV are better sound quality and have a reel interest.

– About “Both Sides”, 3 studio B-sides are missing : “For A Friend” is a good song and there are 2 instrumentals (“Don’t Call Me Ashley” and “Rad Dudeski”), not the best ones yet but I agree it’s a shame that they are not included.

– About live tracks from “Both Sides”, those who were available on the differents CD-Maxi edited by Warner or Virgin at the time : they were all extracts from the concert in Berlin (recorded in 1990) : so I can understand that they were not used for this re-issue.

– Some tracks recorded at the time of “Both Sides Tour” have been published later : an EP called “Live From The Board” with 4 tracks live was issued in 1995 and some tracks from the “MTV Europe Unplugged” sessions recorded in 1994 have been published as B-sides of CD-Maxi from the “Dance Into The Light” era.
It is clear that these 6 tracks don’t appear all in the “Extra Sides” CD….

So, it’s not the total collapse that some mentionned but it could be better, that’s sure !

These new ‘deluxe’ editions are so underwhelming, I can only hope that ‘super deluxe’ releases – with hi-res 5.1, the complete demos/b-sides/12″/7″ edits/you know, ***everything****- are slated for some future release…

Wouldn’t be the first time that a company reintroduced a catalogue and then followed up that catalogue with extra material down the road (Bananarama springs to mind, as does Roxy Music – with deluxe 5.1 mixes of the first two album just out in time for Christmas….)

If Phil can put the 3 missing demo’s & the 2-3 seven/twelve mixes. So 5-6 live tracks less I guess most of us here are satisfied ;) It’s that easy :P

Given Collins’ decline in popularity, and the fact that he’s been out of the public eye (More than a decade since his last album of original songs), Collins(who owns his recordings) is lucky to get a major label to buy a license to reissue his recordings; a deal that hopefully brought in substantial money for Collins. The deal may not have included video materials or an agreement to supply surround sound mixes. Collins may not have as much say in the contents of these reissues as we think or may be inclined to go along with whatever Warner Music marketing “experts” advise him. Warner Music may see this CD series mainly as a chance to introduce these albums to a new generation of consumers, so what Collins’ avid original fans think of the bonus tracks may be of little or no concern to Warner Music.
If these reissues are an abject commercial failure, then there will be a re-think about what audience Collins’ recordings should be marketed to. After all, Warner Music doesn’t want the money(that they paid for the license) go down the drain.

The question is, should fans dictate what an artist puts out (product) or should we respect the artist’s view (art)? Isn’t it up to Mr. Collins how he wants to present something to the public? This is not a new smart phone or tablet coming out, where input from the consumer can help to better the product. No, this is music, first and foremost an art form, offered to us by an artist, who -until proven otherwise- thrives on sincerity. It’s up to the public to like it or not, sure. However, it is not up to the public to question “how” it is presented, as it is exactly how Mr. Collins wants it to be, so I presume. If the public is going to tell how an artist should create his art, what’s the point in having an artist at all?

Sure, I myself would have preferred to see all related material in one place and I can still ponder why it didn’t happen. However, I am only to accept the artist’s view and work with what I do get. Just a thought.

I think its a shame that artists/labels dont listen more to what fans actually want on re-issues rather than what artists/labels putting out what they want.

UK pre-order now available:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-Look-Now-Collectors-VINYL/dp/B014S08OJQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441455612&sr=1-2&keywords=phil+collins+take+a+look

@bob : since last Genesis tour he lost a lot of weight, it’s surprising, I sincerely hope he’s well enough to continue doing music.

Now if I speak outside of a fan point of view, I don’t think changing the covers is a good point. Surely that’s innovative,but a bit weird. I hope Q or NME will do a bit of review about these reissues (and hope they’ll judge the music and product, not the man, nobody’s perfect) and, in my wildest dreams, an interview!!!!

I believe most of us are interested in buying if they put on the things we want: remixes/demo’s & NOT live stuff. We have those remixes already. We want to celebrate with Phil, buying/paying for his stuff again, where all the stuff collected in/on one place, officially, legally, in remastered quality. And we want to hold the physical CD/package. Of course you can listen to them online or illegally download etc. But that’s not the point. I believe the other live stuff might also have been on youtube or illegal download or on bootleg CD’s. Buy/get those. Why bother with all these reissue then.

This is a place (thanks to Paul S.) where we fans can communicate with the artists/record companies tell them what we want. If they decide to stick with their original plan not to change a thing. No problem. But most of us won’t buy them.

I believe most of us were happy with most Paul Young reissues. Still Paul Young can have his way/say for example of the track Oh Woman-Live (6mins instead of the original 9mins)! It’s a win-win-win situation (we get what we want/record companies get the money/artists are happy about it)!

Phil never looks great anyway ! LOL. Probably should have kept the original covers to stay true to the release. I get with a retrospective like the recent David Bowie release that you see him change through the years, but the Phil re-releases should be just that. I was never a fan anyway so not something I would buy.

Fan, Phil Collins is 65 next birthday, what do you expect him to look like? He is not sick and looks perfectly fine for his age.

I already have all the 7/12″ and a good turntable. If I was about to pay, it would be for a complete product. CD=80 minutes. Face Value: cd1-enough space for original album+b-sides+remix. Cd2 the bonus CD as it is now. I had enough of being milked by record companies, that’s all. As pointed somewhere else, Phil Collins was basically reluctant about all this. The main reason behind all this is the new contract, not Phil enjoyement about the past,especially when you know that every album=a divorce.

“.you don’t have to look at a grim old man”

I’d like to do so, if he decides to write and publish new material.
Orianne’s gone, so maybe there’ll be a new album…

Whomever (Phil Collins or Warner Music executives) vetoed the more extensive Deluxe Editions that the fans so clearly wanted, now must find a face-saving way out.
One good way to start would be several boxed sets of CD singles, not unlike the sets issued by Duran Duran & The Rolling Stones; I.E. sets where each CD disc contains everything from the 7″ single, 12″ single and all CD single variations for each hit. This way, these recordings will be back in print, and Collins gets his way(that these songs/versions not be added to the albums). Otherwise, if Illegal uploaders detect renewed interest in Collins’ music, uploads similar to the one I found a year or so back, will soon reappear .
For someone who clearly aspired to be a middle of the road “All Around Entertainer” like Collins, he seems to have forgotten that one of the essentials of being a mainstream entertainer is that you have to keep the audience happy. I would say, that in the final years of his recording career, that Collins veered too far towards M.O.R., and it was his commercial downfall. Doing songs for Disney cartoons was an Elton John type of things. Phil Collins was not cut out to be the next Elton John.

For those who reeeeeeeeally want to hear remixes of “In The Air Tonight,” and don’t care whether Collins himself liked them, disliked them, had anything to do with them, or even ever heard them, there are dozens available on youtube and elsewhere on the web. Download some, strip the audio, burn to CD, print a copy of young Phil’s shining face from a scan of the original cover so you don’t have to look at a grim old man, and Bob’s your uncle. It’ll make excellent background music for complaining about musicians who have the unmitigated gall to put previously unreleased demos and live tracks on their reissues; rather than extended versions slapped together at the label’s behest in a bid for club play, adaptations for advertising jingles, or karaoke versions without the artist/songwriter’s annoying vocal track.

If the live tracks had been on the vinyl reprint, I’d have sent the money, I’m a real fan of Phil. But since I have all the LP’s (Face Value>Dance Into The Light) I’ll wait until they print post 1997 albums on vinyl. Fingers crossed for the Disney OST’s !

As for the cd’s I don’t buy them anymore since 2009.

As for the cover,damn he looks sick/old, I’m 27 so I still don’t care , but I think about people the age of my parents, I don’t think that psychologically, they want to “buy” the fact that they (the buyers) also got old.

Do Elvis fans would buy a posthumous album with the picture cover of him sick,or on stage with a nice glittery costume at the prime of his age?

Well, I’ve cooled off a little since my original assessment –since I believe I already have the “In the Air Tonight” remixes and single edits from here and there. I could go for a nice remaster of ‘Face Value’ for sure. But I do find the pairing of ‘Face Value’ & ‘Both Sides…’ to be curious. Wasn’t ‘Sides’ one of his lesser successful albums? Maybe they are going to pair each of the big sellers (‘Jacket’ and ‘But Seriously’ come to mind) with one of the more minor hits to help draw attention to them?

Meh!

Elsewhere on the internet, alarm has been expressed over the involvement of engineer Nick Davis in this series, with some people claiming that all of Davis’ Genesis remixes and remasters sound terrible. It is true that Davis’ new stereo & surround mixes of “A Trick of The Tail” & “And Then There Were Three” were drenched with excessive reverb, and mastered harsh and blaring, but the other albums in the Genesis “1970-1975”, “1976-1982” & “1983-1998” boxes sound generally good. I have no complaints about the mixes and masterings of the other albums in those boxes.
I wish that I had held onto my early(mid-1980’s) West German CD of “And Then There Were Three”, because all subsequent CD editions sound poor. There were remasters of the original mix, but they were sibilant and unpleasant…and then there was Davis’ remix.
Davis has had a long-term career at the Genesis recording studio, “The Farm”, so it is highly unlikely that the group will ever permit any other engineer to make an attempt at remixing the music of Genesis.
As for Collins’music, I think that I’ll stick with my existing CD’s(I’ve got the albums up through “Both Sides” via original Atlantic CD’s, excepting “Face Value” on Atlantic 24kt. Gold CD, and “No Jacket Required” on Audio fidelity 24kt. Gold CD), plus High resolution downloads of the first four albums, and many 12″ singles, CD singles, soundtrack songs, all of his concert videos and whatever additional rarities I have found on the web. I’ve got an extensive Collins collection.
There’s going to be so much great archival CD, DVD & Blu-ray product coming from other artists later this year, that there’s no need to be anguished over Collins’ inadequate deluxe editions. There’ll be no shortage of “product” from other artists to buy. The artists who give their fans what they want will get our business.

Preorder available on Amazon UK now £13.33 each or Take A Look At Me Now (Collector’s Edition) priced at £23.22 not that i will be buying from there.

Well surely “Face Value” would benefit from a remastered edition but I have to say that albums from “Hello I Must Be Going” to “Both Sides” are among the best sounding CD’s I have in my collection, and there is not much point in remastering them. Apart from killing the amazing dynamics from those recordings I don’t know what they can achieve here.

Funny thing to see that those new editions will display a front cover that has aged but an audio content in which they try to conceal that it has…

Price for the 4x CD Box Set is only £23.22 at the moment on Amazon UK. I think thats pretty good really.

I can’t wait for this set to come out!

Inspred covers. I think it will be interesting to hear those bonus tracks when they are actually released, while it is not loaded with unreleased songs or studio content, Phil has already released many of his demos to his hardcore fanbase already. On a sonic approach these discs may work as something you may want to hear on a repeated basis rather than a content heavy curio you only listen to once. For “Face Value” there was only the single remix of “In the Air Tonight” anyway, so no big loss there. I will not underestimate his ability as a producer to come up with something brilliant, until I am given a chance to judge the content on it’s own. Actually, I’m surprised he even did these, so the bonus factor is just that, a bonus. Besides “Both Sides of The Story” essentially consisted of tarted up demos of Phil alone in the stustudio, I’m sure the live versins will show a bigger depth of sound and band ineraction.

Along with the cd, vinyl and box sets they need to release both albums on blu-ray with the 2.0 and 5.1 mixes and include all the missing pieces.

I think this 2 CD/DD remaster is pointless without some unreleased completed studio recordings that didn’t make the album, demos, B sides and the In The Air Tonight mix off of the 1981 12″ Germany maxi single. Why is “Misunderstanding” Live & Demo included on this edition of his solo work?, that was with Genesis. The only live performance I have ever truly liked by any artist is the Doobie Brothers Live In Santa Barbara performance. I never was a fan of the Both Sides album. I have all four of his first released albums on Vinyl & CD plus a few 12″ & 7″ vinyl singles and have awaited for there remaster or a expanded/deluxe edition. This is just a ridiculous mock up of a second disc of bonus content for Face Value! Live performances should be left for DVD or Blu-Ray, you feel more into them when watching the artist’s energy and performance. I hope he reconsiders the 2nd disc track listing for Face Value and add’s a few and removes some of the unnecessary live tracks and saves them for another disc or a DVD/Blu-Ray Release. If the track listing doesn’t change I see no point in buying the CD, LP or DD of Face Value.

The tracklisting of Face Value isn’t that disappointing to me as Phil Collins /Genesis collector. It contains some demo’s to songs that only exist in bootleg form and with very bad audio. Please Don’t Ask & Misunderstanding were only released as Genesis songs with band compositions. It’s nice to finally hear Phil’s demo’s, that he didn’t use for his first solo album. There weren’t any remixes (the ones we know are from 1988), 12-inch versions or B-sides from that period, only an inferior single edit of In The Air Tonight. Everything he recorded in 1981 is on that album, besides some demo’s. The only B-side you could release (but it could have been released on Hello I Must Be Going as well because it was a b-side on those singles) is the Brand X song …And so to F… (Live)… which he wrote in 1979. And that’s on this release. Too bad the Drawing Board demo’s aren’t here. So this re-issue could be better but it’s not as worse as a lot of people here seem to think.

The Both Sides re-issue however is really disappointing. It only contains a few of the B-sides that he released in that period. And he released a lot of non-album tracks on his singles in those years. He was really productive then. This release doesn’t do right to all the stuff he recorded and released (or put on a shelve) in 1993/1994. A Missed chance.

Just placed an order for the vinyl box set. I liked the Nick Davis Genesis mixes on vinyl, so I’m sure I’ll love these too. I don’t care about demos or live stuff, that can be found on YTube and The Movement. Just give me the albums, that’s all.