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Review
of Serious Hits...Live!
Along
with being a multi-talented musician and an excellent
song writer, Phil Collins is one of the best live
performers in rock. His songs usually stay true
to their original form, he puts plenty of fire into
his vocals, and best of all...every one of his in-concert
qualities transfers well into album form. Serious
Hits Live is a wonderful example of this, with not
only 15 tracks, but fifteen of Phil's best tracks,
performed with an overcharged amount of enthusiasm
and energy. There's an equal number of ballads and
fast songs on the album, but even on the slow stuff,
Collins puts a lot of passion and feeling into the
lyrics. Efforts such as "One More Night,"
"Do You Remember?," and especially his
best ballad, "Against All Odds (Take A Look
at Me Now )" are heartfelt and unhindered.
His moods shift easily without any false emotional
dramatics, which in turn enhances the ambience of
the songs. The tracks are taken from a number of
shows during his Serious Tour in 1990, but his performance
level remains enthusiastic the whole album through
and the change of venues goes unnoticed, which is
again another plus. Collins is just as sharp on
the quicker tunes, with some wonderful percussion
filling in behind him. The drumming is stellar on
"Easy Lover" and again on "Sussudio,"
but the album's only downfall is it's lack of credits,
leaving the identities of the musicians a mystery.
The album makes up for this with a spine chilling
version of "In the Air Tonight" as Collins
does a good job of capturing the song's haunting
air, and from here the album switches gears with
"You Can't Hurry Love" but doing so with
undefiled perfection. Almost all of the songs here
broke Billboard's Top Ten, and five of these tracks
hit number one, which makes Serious Hits Live truly
live up to it's name.
TRACKS:
1.
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven
2. Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
3. Who Said I Would
4. One More Night
5. Don't Lose My Number
6. Do You Remember?
7. Another Day in Paradise
8. Separate Lives
9. In the Air Tonight
10. You Can't Hurry Love
11. Two Hearts
12. Sussudio
13. Groovy Kind of Love
14. Easy Lover
15. Take Me Home
