Phil Collins - VH-1 Storytellers, MTV-VH-1 Studios, Santa Monica, CA, 4-14-1997

This album came about as a happy accidental side effect of posting the previous acoustic Genesis album. When Mike sent me that album, he didn't have the mp3 tag information for the songs, so I looked that up. In doing so, I noticed that two of the songs came from a Phil Collins VH-1 Storytellers concert. I'm not a huge Phil Collins fan; I like him about on the greatest hits level, but I liked him enough to give the whole Storytellers concert a listen. I decided I liked it enough to keep it in my music collection, and also post it in full here. So the two Genesis songs Collins does for this appear here instead of on the acoustic Genesis album Mike made.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have noticed that I have a special fondness for acoustic music. I like hearing a strong stripped down to its most basic essence. Collins' poppy hits are usually very produced, and sometimes overproduced with 1980s and 1990s excesses, so hearing them done in this acoustic manner is especially revealing. It's made me appreciate his musical talents more than before. He also talked a fair amount between songs, telling interesting anecdotes about the songs and how they were created.

The last two songs don't actually come from the 1997 Storytellers concert. Instead, they come from a benefit concert one year later, where he played two songs in the same acoustic format. They fit right in, with him even having some of the same entertaining banter, so I've added them at the end as quasi-bonus tracks.

I believe this concert has been released on DVD, but never in audio format. So I converted the video file of the DVD into mp3s. This album is 54 minutes long, including the two songs from a different concert at the end.

UPDATE: On September 2, 2024, I changed the album cover, and updated the title after I discovered a more accurate location for the concert.

01 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
02 talk (Phil Collins)
03 In the Air Tonight [Reprise] (Phil Collins)
04 talk (Phil Collins)
05 talk (Phil Collins)
06 Against All Odds [Take a Look at Me Now] (Phil Collins)
07 talk (Phil Collins)
08 I Can't Dance (Phil Collins)
09 talk (Phil Collins)
10 No Son of Mine (Phil Collins)
11 talk (Phil Collins)
12 Since I Lost You (Phil Collins)
13 talk (Phil Collins)
14 Take Me Home (Phil Collins)
15 talk (Phil Collins)
16 I Wish It Would Rain Down (Phil Collins)
17 talk (Phil Collins)
18 This Must Be Love (Phil Collins)
19 talk (Phil Collins)
20 Home by the Sea (Phil Collins)
21 talk (Phil Collins)
22 Sussudio (Phil Collins)
23 talk (Phil Collins)
24 Both Sides of the Story (Phil Collins)
25 Another Day in Paradise (Phil Collins)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17053517/PHILCLLNS1997StrytllrsMTVH1StdosSntaMncaCA__4-14-1997_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nx6es38d

The cover art photo comes from a video still of the DVD of this concert. It's a bit low-res, but that's the best I could find.