From his debut on Genesis' line-up as a drummer in 1970 to the release of the smash hit Another Day In Paradise in 1989, Phil Collins' popularity increased steadily year after year up to the very top. A tremendous hit maker during the 80s, the artist has been more discreet lately.

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Even before joining Genesis, Collins was already busy building his artistic career, even playing a few drums on George Harrison's legendary album All Things Must Pass. At first, it wasn't easy for him nor for his band. They first made the UK album chart in 1972 after 3 years and 4 albums. The following year, they reached the Top 10 with a live set and #3 a couple of month later with Selling England by the Pound. In 1975, the departure of their singer Peter Gabriel concluded on Collins taking the mic. Then, they waited until 1980 to top the British sales ranking thanks to Duke.

The name of Collins was already quite popular at that point. It was going to grew even more in 1981 after with the release of his debut solo album Face Value. The LP contained the cult song In The Air Tonight. The singer and his band weren't household names in the US yet, which explains why the song peaked only at #19 there. Its lasting appeal opened the door to playlists of the main radios for the singer though who amassed 7 solo #1 American hits by the end of the 80s.

Unlike Michael Jackson, Madonna or even U2, Collins is never mentioned among the top selling acts of all-time. Was his fame short-lived? Was his success axed around a few markets only? Or is he wrongly forgotten?

Original Albums Sales

Face Value (1981)

Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982)

No Jacket Required (1985)

Buster (1988)

…But Seriously (1989)

Both Sides (1993)

Dance into the Light (1996)

Tarzan (1999)

Testify (2002)

Brother Bear (2003)

Going Back (2010)

Original Album Sales - Comments

During the 80s, Collins was unstoppable. His four studio albums sold nearly 70 million units combined. It is all the more impressive since their healthy catalog sales were truncated soon after the explosion of the CD market by the 1990 release of the best of-like set Serious Hits... Live!.

In-between, he starred the comedy movie Buster, a la Madonna on Who's That Girl. A flop on theaters, the Soundtrack was home for 2 #1 hits in the US, selling a solid 3 million units despite the poor reception of the movie.

The transition into the 90s hasn't been so good when we consider that only the aforementioned Michael Jackson and Madonna were bigger music acts than him during the 80s. All his new studio albums failed to produce big hits, selling decently still thanks to the popularity of Collins. The Soundtrack Tarzan did rather well on its side, powered by the single You'll Be in My Heart.

In total, Collins sold 93,78 million units of his 8 studio albums and 3 soundtracks.

1981 Face Value - 15,640,000
1982 Hello, I Must Be Going! - 9,990,000
1985 No Jacket Required - 23,310,000
1988 Buster - 3,090,000
1989 …But Seriously - 20,810,000
1993 Both Sides - 7,710,000
1996 Dance into the Light - 3,480,000
1999 Tarzan - 4,550,000
2002 Testify - 3,260,000
2003 Brother Bear - 680,000
2010 Going Back - 1,260,000

Physical Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

The 80s

Collins sold large quantities of albums during his hey-days. Fact is, he was also massive in the singles field. From 1984 to 1990, he issued 13 singles in the US, the worst performance came from Take Me Home which went as high as #7.

All his 5 albums included at least one million selling single. The relatively low sales of the Buster Soundtrack due to its nature opened the way to high sales for its singles. Logically, the top seller of all ends up being A Groovy Kind of Love at nearly 3 million units.

These singles sold a whopping 20 million units and that doesn't account for the orphan songs which are listed next...

Face Value (1981) - 1,194,000 equivalent albums

In the Air Tonight - 2,100,000
I Missed Again - 640,000
Thunder and Lightning - 10,000
If Leaving Me Is Easy - 140,000
In the Air Tonight (1988) - 780,000
In the Air Tonite (2001) - 310,000

Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982) - 774,000 equivalent albums

I Don't Care Anymore - 240,000
I Cannot Believe It's True - 110,000
You Can't Hurry Love - 2,060,000
It Don't Matter to Me - 10,000
Thru These Walls - 130,000
Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away - 20,000
Why Can't It Wait 'Til Morning - 10,000

No Jacket Required (1985) - 1,205,000 equivalent albums

Sussudio - 1,290,000
One More Night - 1,690,000
Don't Lose My Number - 550,000
Who Said I Would - 5,000
Take Me Home - 480,000

Buster (1988) - 1,545,000 equivalent albums

Two Hearts - 1,820,000
A Groovy Kind of Love - 2,940,000
(Four Tops) Loco in Acapulco - 390,000

…But Seriously (1989) - 1,488,000 equivalent albums

Another Day in Paradise - 2,490,000
I Wish It Would Rain Down - 990,000
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven - 700,000
Do You Remember? - 540,000
That's Just the Way It Is - 80,000
Hang in Long Enough - 160,000

The 90s, 00s, and orphan songs

If all 80s albums got their million selling single, none since the 90s contains even one half a million seller. This highlights the clear lack of hits from the singer during the last decades.

Outside of his proper eras, Collins issued a few more singles. The first of them is the smash hit Against All Odds which sold over 3,3 million units. Easy Lover followed one year later with a huge 2,5 million sales, while Separate Lives sold a million too. These hits bring the career tally of the rocker to 30,29 million physical singles.

Both Sides (1993) - 252,000 equivalent albums

Both Sides of the Story - 490,000
Everyday - 310,000
We Wait and We Wonder - 40,000

Dance into the Light (1996) - 117,000 equivalent albums

Dance into the Light - 290,000
Wear My Hat - 30,000
It's in Your Eyes - 50,000
The Same Moon - 10,000
No Matter Who - 10,000

Tarzan (1999) - 146,000 equivalent albums

Two Worlds - 5,000
You'll Be in My Heart - 400,000
Son of Man - 10,000
Strangers Like Me - 70,000

Testify (2002) - 149,000 equivalent albums

Can't Stop Loving You - 480,000
Wake Up Call - 5,000
The Least You Can Do - 10,000

Brother Bear (2003) - 24,000 equivalent albums

Look Through My Eyes - 30,000
No Way Out - 10,000
On My Way - 40,000

Going Back (2010) - 2,000 equivalent albums

All Singles - 6,000

Orphan - 2,193,000 equivalent albums

Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now) - 3,310,000
Easy Lover - 2,510,000
Separate Lives - 1,180,000
Hero - 190,000
True Colors - 90,000
Home - 30,000

Digital Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

The 80s

Among all Collins' 80s hits, its the breakthrough smash In The Air Tonight which became his signature song. The track is a huge catalog force with nearly 5 million digital sales. No other song comes close although Another Day In Paradise is past a million sales.

Face Value (1981) - 810,000 equivalent albums

In the Air Tonight - 4,940,000
This Must Be Love - 120,000
If Leaving Me Is Easy - 140,000
Remaining tracks - 200,000

Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982) - 216,000 equivalent albums

I Don't Care Anymore - 450,000
You Can't Hurry Love - 910,000
Remaining tracks - 80,000

No Jacket Required (1985) - 266,000 equivalent albums

Sussudio - 450,000
One More Night - 820,000
Don't Lose My Number - 160,000
Take Me Home - 290,000
Remaining tracks - 50,000

Buster (1988) - 209,000 equivalent albums

Two Hearts - 610,000
A Groovy Kind of Love - 680,000
Remaining tracks - 100,000 (non-Collins)

…But Seriously (1989) - 422,000 equivalent albums

Another Day in Paradise - 1,380,000
Do You Remember? - 350,000
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven - 280,000
I Wish It Would Rain Down - 460,000
Remaining tracks - 340,000

The 90s, 00s, and orphan songs

Impressively, tracks from Tarzan became more popular with time than most of Collins' biggest hits from his peak. Obviously, the frequent airing of the movie helps. It doesn't change the fact that nearly 2 million sales for You'll Be in My Heart is a stunning achievement.

Close behind is Against All Odds which lands at #3 among the artist's most downloaded tracks, slightly ahead of Easy Lover. In total, Collins sold a decent 22 million units with his songs digitally, nearly all of them with catalog tunes.

Both Sides (1993) - 45,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 300,000

Dance into the Light (1996) - 60,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 400,000

Tarzan (1999) - 546,000 equivalent albums

Two Worlds - 430,000
You'll Be in My Heart - 1,890,000
Son of Man - 300,000
Strangers Like Me - 400,000
Remaining tracks - 620,000

Testify (2002) - 54,000 equivalent albums

Can't Stop Loving You - 240,000
Remaining tracks - 120,000

Brother Bear (2003) - 111,000 equivalent albums

On My Way - 360,000
Remaining tracks - 380,000

Going Back (2010) - 38,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 250,000

Orphan - 642,000 equivalent albums

Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now) - 1,840,000
Easy Lover - 1,610,000
Separate Lives - 490,000
True Colors - 240,000
Remaining tracks - 100,000

Streaming Sales

Streaming is made up of two families - audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream - 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream - 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Streaming Part 1

The terrific appeal of In The Air Tonight is confirmed one more time with its streams. On Spotify the track is close to 150 million while it is well over 400 million on YouTube. It is responsible for 194,000 equivalent album sales (EAS) among Face Value's total of 222,000.

You Can't Hurry Love is much more of a surprise. The cover of the classic song by the Supremes stands on an impressive 104 million Spotify plays. It is more than the original Motown song which is up to 94 million. The song is also far and away the biggest one from its parent album. Hello, I Must Be Going! has 143,000 EAS.

Streaming Part 2

No Jacket Required is often regarded as Collins' biggest album because it went Diamond in the US. Its success is uncontested, but its songs aren't as remembered as the rest of the singer's catalog. Sussudio remains the strongest with 33 million streams on Spotify while One More Night comes second at 21 million. The album is up to 118,000 EAS.

The Soundtrack Buster included 4 new tracks, 3 of which are sung by Collins while he wrote the last one, Loco In Acapulco, performed by the Four Tops. These songs are mostly disappointing on streams but they still add for 40,000 EAS.

...But Seriously was an unreal smash in Europe when it came out, selling 8 million units in 9 months. It was due to its lead single Another Day In Paradise which shot the LP to #1 for several months everywhere. This song has been losing ground though and while its 79 million streams on Spotify are solid, they do not reflect its initial success. Its 310 million YouTube views are more in line with its former reception. The remaining songs have average results although they contribute greatly to the 177,000 EAS of the album.

Streaming Part 3

The lack of popular songs from Both Sides and Dance into the Light is visible once again, this time with their weak streams. They combine for less than 40,000 EAS.

The music of Disney movies is forever popular among kids. Tarzan is no exception. The album has 5 songs over 25 million streams on Spotify, led by You'll Be in My Heart at 108 million. It must be said that while Disney Soundtracks are rarely 100% linked to one artist, Phil Collins is responsible for all its songs, singing all of them and even performing versions translated into foreign languages. At 315,000 EAS, the record is his biggest one on streaming platforms!

Streaming Part 4

Except Can't Stop Losing You and On My Way at over 20 million a piece on Spotify, most songs released this millennium by the singer have average to poor results. In spite of the massive results of You Can't Hurry Love, the album of Motown covers Going Back is nowhere near as strong with only 37,000 EAS. It trails behind Testify and Brother Bear at 47,000 and 54,000 EAS, respectively.

Streaming Part 5

Big hits upon release, Against All Odds and Easy Lover remain popular to this day. Around 50 million Spotify streams each, they improve notably the EAS total of orphan songs to 166,000 units.

Full Length related record Sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era - studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams - to get the full picture of an album's popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

How to understand this table? If you check this example of Serious Hits... Live! those figures mean it sold 15,300,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all the songs included on this package add for 730,450 equivalent album sales from streams of all types.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Face Value songs are responsible for 27% of the Serious Hits... Live! tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 4,069,000 of its 15,300,000 album sales. We will now apply this concept to all compilations, live albums, music videos and EPs.

Part 1 - Live Recordings

We use to start the full length section with the list of main compilations. This time we start with live recordings since this is how the discography of Collins was exploited. Serious Hits... Live! from 1990 was his first greatest hits-like package. It sold a terrific 15 million units, the 3rd highest selling live album of all-time and the biggest non-Unplugged live record. It was the perfect product to replace former LPs and to get all the hits of the pop star in one CD.

The biggest strength on that record comes from Face Value's recordings, mainly In The Air Tonight. The package also includes the appeal of Hello, I Must Be Going!, No Jacket Required and ...But Seriously which all bring 15-20% of its strength. On top of these songs, it includes orphan tracks like Against All Odds. These distribution patterns are representative of the entire discography of the artist.

Part 2 - Compilations

The track list of Hits is similar to the one of Serious Hits... Live! with the addition of some news unpopular songs. Logically, distribution patterns are similar. In spite of the huge sales of the live set, Hits went on to sell well over 13 million units to date on its own.

On its side, Love Songs left out his most popular smashes, focusing on former moderate hits and recent songs. This concludes on Tarzan leading the way among its sales providers. The compilation sold over 3 million copies, an impressive number considering all the hits it misses.

The Singles is a recent career-spanning best of. It cannibalizes pretty much the entire discography of Collins and has sold 600,000 units to date.

Part 3 - Music Videos pre-2000

Considering its popularity in strong markets for music videos like Germany, France and Brazil, it is no surprise to see how many units Collins sold in this format. Except videos themed around one specific studio album, they all display the expected pattern of sales generators with Face Value ahead of the remaining big 80s albums.

Part 4 - Music Videos post-2000

More music videos including the million selling set Finally... The First Farewell Tour. Once again, they all milk the same list of songs.

Part 5 - Box Sets and EPs

At his peak, Phil Collins was able to hit Platinum with a 3 CD package of catalog albums in Spain. Sales of these box sets, all of which got limited releases, are listed in this final table and reassigned in full to the albums they include.

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

Face Value, Hello I Must Be Going!, No Jacket Required, ...But Seriously and Orphan songs all produced between 5 and 10 million sales of compilations and live albums. There is less to exploit from the rest of his catalog although hits from Buster and Tarzan still sell records.

Serious Hits... Live! (1990)

...Hits (1998)

BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

• America

  • US - 42,625,000
  • Canada - 7,080,000
  • Argentina - 1,415,000
  • Brazil - 2,150,000
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia - 5,615,000

  • Japan - 2,560,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 2,390,000
  • New Zealand - 550,000

• Europe - 61,140,000

  • UK - 15,110,000
  • France - 7,945,000
  • Germany - 15,140,000
  • Italy - 3,770,000
  • Spain - 3,075,000
  • Sweden - 1,325,000
  • Netherland - 2,410,000
  • Switzerland - 1,445,000
  • Austria - 830,000
  • Finland - 320,000

• World - 127,350,000

Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.

Phil Collins Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Phil Collins achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

His best years may be long gone, the success of Collins' has been mind-blowing. During the 80s he dropped a trio of massive sellers. No Jacket Required, ...But Seriously and Face Value are all up to 28-31 million CSPC units to date. This kind of one-in-a-lifetime results rarely happen 3 times for the same artist. In fact, only Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Queen, and Pink Floyd have 3 albums or more at this level of sales.

Hello, I Must Be Going! is a strong 4th with 16,6 million units in total. His 5th biggest sales avenue is more surprising as it is his Orphan tracks which produced more than 10 million equivalent album sales. At 6-8 million stand releases like Both Sides, Tarzan and Buster. While the last two have been successful for several reasons, the former completely broke the huge momentum Collins was having by then.

Dance Into The Light, Testify and the more recent Going Back never managed to reverse the curse of his career. At 67 and semi-retired for 15 years, we aren't expecting much from new releases of the artist. Still, at a stunning 147 million equivalent albums sales he is one of the biggest male singers ever.

Thanks to our new ASR (Artist Success Rating) concept, we can also see that the exploitation of his discography has been poorly handled. Indeed, his Equivalent Discography Sales (EDS) stand on 44 million, which means that because of compilations, the entire worth of his catalog was purchased every 3,36 sale of albums. This indicates a very high cannibalization factor on his catalog. His studio albums which were all going very strong during the 80s were replaced by a unique record - Serious Hits... Live! - when the market was booming, dramatically killing their catalog sales. Releases of compilations also tend to diminish the interest in new recordings since the general public feels they own already his best tunes.

With 44 million EDS along with his 147 million CSPC units, Phil Collins scores an ASR of 455. This puts him close behind Whitney Houston and Celine Dion while he beats Bob Marley, Mariah Carey, and Billy Joel.

The following sections list his most successful songs as well as his records and achievements.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Chartmasters.org.

Phil Collins' biggest tracks

The list of most successful songs is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each of them. It includes the song's own physical singles sales with a 0,3 weighting, its download and streaming sales, and with appropriate weighting too, plus its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1. 1981 - Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight [Face Value] - 25,090,000
2. 1989 - Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise […But Seriously] - 19,230,000
3. 1982 - Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love [Hello, I Must Be Going!] - 14,310,000
4. 1985 - Phil Collins - Sussudio [No Jacket Required] - 10,760,000
5. 1984 - Phil Collins - One More Night [No Jacket Required] - 9,190,000
6. 1984 - Phil Collins - Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now) [Against All Odds Soundtrack] - 5,340,000
7. 1985 - Phil Collins - Take Me Home [No Jacket Required] - 4,940,000
8. 1999 - Phil Collins - You'll Be in My Heart [Tarzan] - 3,870,000
9. 1985 - Phil Collins - Don't Lose My Number [No Jacket Required] - 3,810,000
10. 1985 - Phil Collins & Philip Bailey - Easy Lover [Chinese Wall] - 3,560,000
11. 1989 - Phil Collins - I Wish It Would Rain Down […But Seriously] - 3,190,000
12. 2002 - Phil Collins - Can't Stop Loving You [Testify] - 2,710,000
13. 1989 - Phil Collins - Something Happened on the Way to Heaven […But Seriously] - 2,480,000
14. 1989 - Phil Collins - Do You Remember? […But Seriously] - 2,390,000
15. 1988 - Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind of Love [Buster] - 2,380,000
16. 1993 - Phil Collins - Everyday [Both Sides] - 2,290,000
17. 1993 - Phil Collins - Both Sides of the Story [Both Sides] - 2,220,000
18. 1996 - Phil Collins - Dance into the Light [Dance into the Light] - 1,840,000
19. 1988 - Phil Collins - Two Hearts [Buster] - 1,810,000
20. 1993 - Phil Collins - Can't Turn Back the Years [Both Sides] - 1,540,000

Records & Achievements

• At 27,602,000 equivalent album sales, Face Value is the 2nd most successful album from 1981.
• At 16,598,000 equivalent album sales, Hello, I Must Be Going! is the 3rd most successful album from 1982.
• At 30,956,000 equivalent album sales, No Jacket Required is the 2nd most successful album from 1985.
• At 29,736,000 equivalent album sales, ...But Seriously is the most successful album from 1989.
• At 25,090,000 equivalent album sales, In the Air Tonight is the most successful song from 1981.
• At 14,310,000 equivalent album sales, You Can't Hurry Love is among the 5 most successful song from 1982.
• At 19,230,000 equivalent album sales, Another Day In Paradise is the most successful song from 1989.
• Phil Collins is one of the two persons who sold over 100 million equivalent album sales both as part of a group and as a solo act.
• At 15,140,000 pure album sales, Phil Collins is the highest selling international solo act of all-time in Germany.
• At 15,300,000 pure album sales, Serious Hits... Live! is the 3rd highest selling live album of all-time.
• At 3,225,000 pure album sales, ...But Seriously is the highest selling international album of all-time in Germany.
• At 9,640,000 pure album sales, ...But Seriously is one of the best selling albums of all-time in continental Europe.
• ...But Seriously was the 3rd fastest selling album ever in the UK upon release with 250,000 sales during its first week. Issued 42 days before the end of 1989, it closed the year on 1,17 million sales.
• From 1984 to 1990, Phil Collins registered 13 consecutive Top 10 hits in the US, 7 of which went to #1.

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