Phil Collins - Why Can't It Wait 'Till Morning (Virgin)

Tut tut, Phil - not another track from the album? Hardly worth buying, was it? Anyway, this is soft and sloppy like a badly set blancmange and should smack of tasteful elegance and cocktails on the patio, but is really just music to brighten up those dreary coffee mornings with 'er from Number 14. (Simon Tebbutt, Record Mirror, May 14, 1983)

I actually like his voice but this track doesn't come close to anything on Face Value. By the way, the art director who created the 'amazing' cliched photo on the cover needs shooting. (Gary Kemp, Smash Hits, May 26, 1983)

Phil Collins - Sussudio (Virgin)

It must have happened like this. Mr Collins, famous for his heart-rending ballads like "Against All Odds", was idly tuning his kid's transistor radio looking for Radio 2 when he caught just a snippet of a trendy electrofunk dance record. "I can do that," he thought. So he did. Only thing was, he'd heard a really bad (not 'baaad' bad, just lousy) example of it - no tune, cluttered arrangement, silly title. Still, all credit to him for copying it so well. (Chris Heath, Smash Hits, January 31, 1985)

Note: Later interviews confirmed that Prince's "1999" was an inspiration for this one. And that the word 'sussudio' was made up as a generic name with the intention of replacing it later, but it stuck around.

Phil Collins - One More Night (Virgin)

Already firmly lodged in the US Top Three, "One More Night" sees workaholic Phil taking a breather from his exertions with "Sussudio" and Philip Bailey's "Easy Lover". The tempo recedes to walking pace, the lights dim, the smooch-level goes off the barometer and, well . . . the rest is obvious. (Dave Ling, No 1, April 6, 1985)

In films, no-one cares that Clark Gable probably said 'Frankly my dear I don't give a damn' 120 times before he got it right - it still felt like he meant it - it sounded real. Nor that he was probably thinking more about going and having a piss than about Vivien Leigh - it didn't matter. In records, it's so much harder to get the emotion that love songs such as this demand. "One More Night" probably meant something when Phil wrote it from the heart, but what feeling it may have had has been lost somewhere among the 65 saxophones and 150 pianos. Great for the radio but lousy for the tear ducts. (Eleanor Levy, Record Mirror, April 6, 1985)

This is Number One in America and it'll probably be Number One here. Can this man do no wrong? Luckily, like most of his solo stuff, this isn't a bit pompous, painfully clever or even 87 minutes long (like a lot of his Genesis stuff), it's just an easy, pleasing ballad that floats by quite painlessly.  (Peter Martin, Smash Hits, April 11, 1985)