Songoftheday 7/6/13 - How can I just let you walk away, just let you leave without a trace...

Phil Collins - "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)"
from the album Against All Odds (Original Soundtrack) (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's Song of the Day is by half Genesis drummer/half solo artist Phil Collins, whose sophomore album Hello, I Must Be Going! (one of my top-ten favorite albums of all time) scored him his first top-10 hit with his faithful remake of the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love", and another top-40 hit with his more acerbic "I Don't Care Anymore". After spending the second half of 1983 off the charts, Collins returned with an epic tearjerker ballad recorded for the Jeff Bridges/Rachel Ward movie Against All Odds, which brought him from drum-heavy territory to a focus on his vocals. Written by Collins and produced by Arif Mardin, the song would go on to be much bigger than the movie...

"Against All Odds" became Phil Collins' first #1 hit either with Genesis or solo in April of 1984. Surprisingly it did better on rock radio, where it was Phil's only chart-topper, than adult-contemporary, where it stopped at #3. It also topped the singles chart in Canada, Ireland and Norway as well, and stopped at #2 in Collins' native Britain.

Phil won the Grammy for Pop Vocal for the record in 1985, and nominated for Song of the Year. It also got an Oscar nod, though for some bizarre reason they had Ann Reinking sing it on the broadcast.

This song was for a while my top pick to play on every breakup to induce flooding of tears. Worked every time.

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In 2000, Mariah Carey recorded a cover of "Against All Odds" for her last record with Columbia, Rainbow. The original version was released as a single in certain countries, and made the top-20 in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy...

Later that year, she re-released the track as a collaboration with the Irish boy-band Westlife, and topped the British and Irish charts with it....

British singer Steve Brookstein, who won the first season of the UK X Factor in 2004, put out "Against All Odds" as his first single, and it went to #1 at the beginning of 2005...

...That same year, for the Josh Hartnett movie Wicker Park the Postal Service recorded a highly regarded version of the ballad..