Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Phil Collins, …BUT SERIOUSLY

28 years ago today, Phil Collins landed atop the Billboard 200 with his fourth solo album.

Recorded partly at The Farm in England and partly at Los Angeles’s A&M Studios, ...BUT SERIOUSLY was Collins’ first proper studio album since 1985’s NO JACKET REQUIRED. Although he’d continued to secure high-placing chart hits with his singles from the Buster soundtrack (“A Groovy Kind of Love” and “Two Hearts”), Collins’ fans were primed and ready to hear a new full-length LP from their hero, and they proved it by making …BUT SERIOUSLY the best-selling album of 1990 in the UK, hitting #1 and remaining there for a staggering 15 nonconsecutive weeks. It didn’t do too shabby in the States, either, where – as you already know – it topped the Billboard 200, shifting double-platinum units.

…BUT SERIOUSLY also spawned a remarkable five top-40 hits in the UK: “Another Day in Paradise,” “I Wish It Would Rain Down,” “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven,” “That’s Just the Way It Is,” and “Hang in Long Enough.” Four of those five tracks also found the same fate in the States, with the lone exception, “That’s Just the Way It Is,” having the very good excuse of not being released as a single in America.

Alas, it would be another four years before Collins returned with his next studio album, 1993’s BOTH SIDES, but when you’ve sold that many copies of your last album, you’ve earned a bit of a grace period, wouldn’t you say?