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Category:    Home > Reviews > Concert > Pop > Soul > Phil Collins – Going Back: Live At Roseland Ballroom NYC (Eagle Blu-ray)

Phil Collins – Going Back: Live At Roseland Ballroom NYC (Eagle Blu-ray)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C-     Concert: D

 

 

Back in 1982, Phil Collins did a remake of The Supremes’ classic You Can’t Hurry Love that was so bad, Diana Ross (before sadly backtracking) stated at a concert before she sang it that “some guy named Phil Collins” stole the song and she was going to steal it back from him for them.  It was a horrible, shallow sound-alike of the #1 hit original, but with a terrible, goofy vocal and was somehow a hit.  It was not even as good as anything Billy Joel did on An Innocent Man when he was trying to recreate the sound and feel of songs from the 1960s.  Collins trashed a classic and it began a hit run of some of the worst songs ever made.

 

Decades later, as he has been forgotten, fallen out of favor, is not talked about much (save when he insults dead musicians and/or singers not here to defend themselves or over any false rumors of a Genesis reunion) and has not had a hit in decades, he has decided to finish what he started in 1982 by disemboweling as many Motown classics as possible.  The result is one of the worst Blu-ray concerts to date, Going Back: Live At Roseland Ballroom NYC.

 

To kill the suspense (but sadly, not this release), here are the classics he chose to absolutely ruin:

 

1)     Intro: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

2)     Ain't Too Proud To Beg

3)     Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)

4)     Dancing In The Street

5)     (Love Is Like A) Heatwave

6)     Papa Was A Rollin' Stone

7)     Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer

8)     Jimmy Mack

9)     You've Been Cheating

10)  Do I Love You

11)  Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever

12)  Going To A Go-Go

13)  Blame It On The Sun

14)  Ain't That Peculiar

15)  Too Many Fish In The Sea

16)  You've Really Got A Hold On Me

17)  Something About You

18)  The Tears Of A Clown

19)  Nowhere To Run

20)  In My Lonely Room

21)  Take Me In Your Arms, Rock Me A Little While

22)  Uptight (Everything's Alright)

23)  Going Back

24)  Talking About My Baby

25)  You Can't Hurry Love

26)  My Girl

 

 

Even with three of the former Funk Brothers (Bob Babbitt, Ray Monette and Eddie Willis), the band that originally played on all the Motown classics, cannot save this and Collins is not inspired by any of this whatsoever.  He just moans and croaks out each vocal performance like he is the center of the world and is somehow the greatest singer of his generation, but you never believe one word he sings for a minute.  Michael McDonald just did two albums too many and even more concerts of the same and he is a far superior singer, yet his covers were also awful and misguided.  Collins makes McDonald sound like Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes with how boring he is from start to finish here.  This is a desperate revival and Collins was not even smart enough to pick some other sets of classics McDonald had not already addressed, no matter the particular songs.

 

Yet, this is part of a sad trend where older singers with no more hits try to have more hits with hits that are not originally theirs to begin with.  Diana Ross tried an album of this and it went nowhere, McDonald was too successful with his covers, Rod Stewart is doing songs from the 1930s and 1940s (!?!?) and Barry Manilow is doing Rock classics!  Yet Collins manages to put out a worst product than Stewart or Manilow.  Wow!

 

Yes, it is that bad.  Unless you are a diehard Collins fan or like train wrecks, Going Back is not even worth thinking of going back to.  Hopefully, this is the last you’ll hear of this.

 

 

The 10801 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition has some good color throughout, but is softer and has more motion blur than a new production like this ought to, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes both have problems with more compression than should be there and soundfield limits that are odd.  The PCM 2.0 Stereo is even weaker.  Extras include an unenlightening interview with the singer and painful rehearsal footage that show in detail how he fails to do these songs well at all.  Oh, and beware of his new studio album doing more of the same.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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