Phil Collins ‘Face Value’ Gets 40th Anniversary Picture Disc Release

Phil Collins will celebrate the 40th anniversary of his debut album, Face Value with a special, limited-edition picture disc reissue.

Released in 1981, not long after his 30th birthday, Phil Collins’ debut album marked his departure away from prog rock behemoth Genesis and the beginning of a brilliant solo career. Face Value, shot to No 1 on its release in the UK, as well as scoring No 2 in Germany and Australia and No 7 on the US Billboard charts.

The album’s lead single, In The Air Tonight, was released on 5th January 1981 and has remained a massively successful pop song ever since. It appears on Face Value alongside singles I Missed Again and If Leaving Me Is Easy. The album also featured a cover of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows and a re-recorded, funk-influenced version of the Genesis song, Behind The Lines, which Collins rerecorded with the Earth, Wind & Fire’s horn section, The Phenix Horns [sic].

Face Value, with its name and cover artwork – which shows a close up of Phil Collins’ face and the back of his head on the rear, was a very personal album, and Collins went so far as to hand-write all of the sleevenotes, something he’d continue doing for other, later records. On the 2016 reissue of Face Value, Collins updated the artwork to a current photo of himself.

This new, anniversary picture disc will use the remastered audio from the 2020 edition of the album and will feature a die cut gatefold sleeve, and the original printed inner bag will feature as a two-sided printed insert.

The picture disc will also mark the beginning of a celebration of Phil Collins’ solo career, as well as his 70th birthday, on 30th January 2021.

The limited-edition picture disc edition of Face Value will be released on 12th February 2021. You can pre-order a copy here