Face Value by Phil Collins

Face Value, Phil Collins's first solo album, came out in February 1981 on Virgin in Britain and Atlantic in North America, and it's the sound of the Genesis drummer and singer working through a broken marriage in public. He had split from his first wife around 1979 and started writing during a lull in the band's schedule; the sessions ran from mid-1980 into early 1981, with Collins and Hugh Padgham producing and the Phenix Horns, Alphonso Johnson and Eric Clapton sitting in.

The prog is gone. In its place come bruised ballads, horn-punched soul and plenty of space around that voice. "In the Air Tonight" is the one that haunts, all simmering dread until the drums come crashing in, huge and gated with reverb, a sound that would stamp itself on the decade. The album went to number one in the UK and set Collins's solo career in motion.

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