Phil Collins picks the best album of his career
Songwriting is more than an occupation to those who have mastered the craft; it can also be a form of therapy. It’s a lifeline that artists turn to at their lowest moments, using it to pick them out of the ground and contextualise their complex feelings. Phil Collins, during one particular period of despair, used songwriting as a crutch and, in his opinion, produced the best album of his career.
While he never started off with any ambitions to become a singer in a band or a songwriter, for that matter, Collins stepped up and delivered to keep Genesis alive following Peter Gabriel’s departure. With Genesis, even when Collins was the singer, songwriting duties remained fairly equally shared, but his skills developed over the years, which was proved when he stepped out alone as a solo artist.
In a similar path to his personal life, Collins’ career has been full of triumphant highs and heartbreaking moments of sorrow. During the most testing times for the musician, he’s always had his craft to fall back on and use as a source of catharsis, a channel to make sense of the endless thoughts rushing around his brain.
His love life has been far from straightforward, as he’s always been open about it in his music. Collins first encountered divorce in 1980 when he split from Andrea Bertorelli. Four years later, he married again, and with Jill Tavelman, he had his daughter, Lily. However, the relationship again didn’t last, and Collins separated from Tavelman in the early 1990s, with their divorce officially finalised in 1996. Three years before the legal papers were filed, he opened up about the agonising ordeal on the deeply personal album Both Sides.
This era was a traumatic time for the Genesis frontman from a personal perspective, but creatively, Collins was firing on all cylinders. Now that he’s had adequate distance to gain a fresh perspective on this part of his life, he can look back and reflect proudly on Both Sides, which remains his favourite album from his career. Although it was less commercially successful in the United States than his previous solo work until that point, that’s irrelevant to Collins. He didn’t record Both Sides to satisfy anybody but himself.
During a web chat with readers from The Guardian in 2016, he revealed his love for Both Sides after being asked: “Love your work Phil! What album would you say is your favourite artistically? And what album did you enjoy creating the most (solo or otherwise)?” In response, Collins said: “Both Sides is my favourite album, from a songwriting and creative perspective. It was very much a solo album.”
He added: “I played everything, the songs just streamed out of me, and as a writer, that’s the kind of thing that you dream of. It was the second divorce! Personal relationships at that time were tangled, is a better way of saying it, and it all came very spontaneously.”
At the time of the album’s release, Collins was reluctant to elaborate on the personal issues that led him to write his most intimate record yet. Instead, he wisely chose to let the songs explain themselves rather than air his dirty laundry in public. He said in an interview from 1993: “Midlife crisis? It probably also has to do with that. But on top of this, something profound has happened in my personal life. I won’t say anything else about it.”
Collins passionately added: “I have reached this point. Very intimate, very private songs seem to flow easily. I suddenly felt I had a lot to say.”
While divorce is a dark place, as Collins knows all too well, one positive from the bleak situation was the birth of the album, which he believes to represent the peak of his artistry. Turmoil is not a desirable place to rest your head, but it can offer inspiration and fuel for songwriting gold. Despite his personal life being in tatters, when he walked into the recording studio, he gained a mental clarity that allowed him to think clearly and temporarily gain salvation. All these years later, it’s still a record that holds up, especially in Collins’s mind.
