Phil Collins The Singles Collection reviewed by Alan Hewitt.

Well, it’s almost Christmas and what better stocking filler could you ask for than a collection of videos from the most successful male vocalist of the decade? This is the fifth video release from Phil Collins as a solo artist and as such, it fills in some of the gaps quite nicely.

To the collector it is invaluable in as much as it provides the complete promotional videos for some of Phil’s songs which were only ever shown in part on TV, and to the new fan it is a useful guide to Phil’s solo career to date.

The collection kicks off with Don’t Lose My Number; a top ten hit in the US but one which wasn’t released in the UK. The video features a cameo appearance by the Hot Tub Club member; Peter Robinson as the video director obsessed with westerns and the video itself is a light-hearted look at that subject, taking in the new cult Mad Max films too!

I Missed Again is a straightforward performance of the song with Phil taking all of the musicians’ parts a thing that he does to great effect in the You Can’t Hurry Love video later on.

A Groovy Kind Of Love follows, inter splicing footage of Buster along with a moving rendition of the number one song. Who Said I Would follows, and is unusual in that it was not released as a single and that the version on the video is the Royal Albert Hall version form Phil’s previous video but a good live rendition all the same!

Next up is Phil’s first number one hit: You Can’t Hurry Love which has Phil taking all of the parts of The Temptations in a delightful send up of Sixties’ videos. After this comes perhaps the strangest Phil Collins single video ever: Thru These Walls which tells the story of a peeping Tom in prison who imagines his life before his incarceration. A very, very disturbing video but a great song.

Sussudio and One More Night segue nicely into one another, telling the story of the pub musician-cum-superstar (I wonder who that is??). Two Hearts is next featuring another delightful cameo appearance by radio DJ Tony Blackburn this time introducing Phil Collins and The Four Pound Notes in marvellous send up of Sixties’ TV music shows - I can still remember some of them and it still makes me cringe!

In The Air Tonight, Phil’s first solo hit and Easy Lover follow and are both exactly as seen on TV and both as enjoyable as ever. Against All Odds is next, and this is unusual in that it is a live version of another great song. To round off the collection comes Take Me Home and another great spoof video. All in all a great compilation and a bargain at £9.99.