Dire Straits "Money Fof Nothing"

Money for Nothing is a greatest hits album by British rock band Dire Straits released on 17 October 1988, featuring highlights from the band's first five albums. The vinyl edition omits the song "Telegraph Road" and has a different running order.

The first track on the album, "Sultans of Swing", which was the group's first hit single, was re-released as a single in the UK in November 1988 to promote the album.

The album was remastered and reissued with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States, before being deleted in 1998 and replaced by another compilation, Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits.

The cover art is a screenshot taken from the "Money for Nothing" music video. The version of the song included on the album omits the controversial Verse 2 lyrics entirely.

A newly-remastered version of the compilation was issued in the UK to streaming platforms and on vinyl on 17 June 2022. This reissued vinyl includes the live version of "Telegraph Road" omitted from the original vinyl release. The version issued to streaming services originally included an alternate version of "Sultans of Swing" used for release as a single in 1978, before being replaced with the album version.

Track listing

All songs written by Mark Knopfler, except the intro to "Tunnel of Love" (extract from "The Carousel Waltz" by Rodgers & Hammerstein) and "Money for Nothing" by Mark Knopfler and Sting.

Original 1988 CD release

1. "Sultans of Swing" Dire Straits, 1978 5:46
2. "Down to the Waterline" Dire Straits 4:01
3. "Portobello Belle – Live" Previously unreleased outtake from Alchemy: Dire Straits Live, 1984 4:33
4. "Twisting by the Pool (Remix)" ExtendeDancEPlay, 1983 3:30
5. "Tunnel of Love" Making Movies, 1980 8:10
6. "Romeo and Juliet" Making Movies 5:56
7. "Solid Rock" (Japanese release only) Making Movies 3:19
8. "Where Do You Think You're Going?" (Alternative mix) Previously unreleased mix; original mix on Communiqué, 1979 3:30
9. "Walk of Life" Brothers in Arms, 1985 4:08
10. "Private Investigations" (Single edit) Love over Gold, 1982 5:50
11. "Telegraph Road – Live (Remix)" Alchemy: Dire Straits Live 11:59
12. "Money for Nothing" (Single edit) Brothers in Arms 4:06
13. "Brothers in Arms" (Single edit) Brothers in Arms 4:49

Dire Straits "Money For Nothing (Single & Video)"

"Money for Nothing" is a song by British rock band Dire Straits, the second track on their fifth studio album, Brothers in Arms (1985). It was released as the album's second single on 28 June 1985 through Vertigo Records. The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of two working-class men watching music videos and commenting on what they see. The song features a guest appearance by Sting who sings the signature falsetto introduction, background vocals and a backing chorus of "I want my MTV". The groundbreaking video was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987.

It was Dire Straits' most commercially successful single, peaking at number 1 for three weeks on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and Top Rock Tracks chart and number 4 in the band's native UK. In July 1985, the month following its release, Dire Straits and Sting performed the song at Live Aid. At the 28th Annual Grammy Awards in 1986, "Money for Nothing" won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year as well. At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, the music video received 11 nominations, winning Video of the Year and Best Group Video.

"Money for Nothing" is a pop rock song. Knopfler modeled his guitar sound on ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons' trademark guitar tone, as ZZ Top's music videos were already a staple of early MTV. Gibbons told Timothy White of Musician in late 1985 that Knopfler had solicited Gibbons' help in replicating the tone, adding, "He didn't do a half-bad job, either, considering that I never told him a goddamned thing!"

Following the initial sessions in Montserrat, at which that particular guitar part was recorded, Neil Dorfsman attempted to recreate the sound during subsequent sessions at the Power Station in New York but was unsuccessful.

The recording contains a highly recognisable hook, in the form of the guitar riff that begins the song proper. The guitar riff continues throughout the song, played in permutation during the verses, and played in full after each chorus. The song's extended overture was shortened for radio and music video.

Mark Knopfler described the writing of the song in a 1984 interview with critic Bill Flanagan:

The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/​custom kitchen/​refrigerator/​microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real....

In 2000, Knopfler appeared on Parkinson on BBC One and explained again where the lyrics originated. According to Knopfler, he was in New York City and had visited an appliance store. At the back of the store was a wall of televisions which were all tuned to MTV. Knopfler said that standing next to him, watching the TVs, there was a male employee, dressed in a baseball cap, work boots, and a checkered shirt, who was delivering boxes. As they were watching MTV, as Knopfler recalled, the man came out with lines such as, "What are those, Hawaiian noises?... That ain't workin'," etc. Knopfler then requested a pen to write some of these lines down, and eventually put them to music. The first-person narrator in the lyrics describes a musician "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee" and a woman "stickin' in the camera - Man, we could have some fun". In the second verse, the performer is described as "that little faggot with the earring and the make-up", and the narrator bemoans that these artists get "Money for nothing and chicks for free".

The songwriting credits are shared between Mark Knopfler and Sting. According to Knopfler, he used the network slogan "I want my MTV" after seeing an MTV advertisement featuring the Police and setting it to the tune of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" (written by Sting), hence the cowriting credit. "Sting used to come to Montserrat to go windsurfing," recalled John Illsley, "and he came up for supper at the studio. We played him 'Money for Nothing' and he turned round and said, 'You've done it this time, you bastards.' Mark said if he thought it was so good, why didn't he go and add something to it. He did his bit there and then."

Sting elaborated on his co-writing credit in a 1987 interview:

Mark [Knopfler] asked me to go in the studio and sing this line, "I want my MTV." He gave me the melody, and I thought, "Oh, great, 'Don't Stand So Close to Me', that's a nice quote, it's fun." So I did it, and thought nothing of it, until my publishers, Virgin - who I've been at war with for years and who I have no respect for - decided that was a song they owned, 'Don't Stand So Close to Me'. They said that they wanted a percentage of the song, much to my embarrassment. So they took it.

However, keyboard player Alan Clark claims the "I want my MTV" intro was his idea and not Knopfler's. According to him, the song originally began with the guitar riff, and then he developed the intro on keyboards and sang "I want my MTV" on top during a break in rehearsals for the album.

The music video for the song features early 3D computer animation illustrating the lyrics. The video was one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters and was groundbreaking at the time of its release.

Two other music videos are also featured within "Money for Nothing". The Hungarian pop band Első Emelet and their video "Állj, Vagy Lövök!" ("Stop or I'll Shoot!") appears as "Baby, Baby" by "First Floor" during the second verse (The name "első emelet" translates to "first floor", and the song is credited as being on "Magyar Records": "Magyar" means "Hungarian" in the Hungarian language.) The other one is fictional, "Sally" by the "Ian Pearson Band". The fictional album for the first video was listed as "Turn Left" and the second was "Hot Dogs". For the second video, the record company appears as "Rush Records", and it was filmed on Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest, Hungary.

Originally, Mark Knopfler was not at all enthusiastic about the concept of the music video. MTV, however, was insistent on it. Director Steve Barron, of Rushes Postproduction in London, was contacted by Warner Bros. to persuade Knopfler to relent. Describing the contrasting attitudes of Knopfler and MTV, he said:

The problem was that Mark Knopfler was very anti-videos. All he wanted to do was perform, and he thought that videos would destroy the purity of songwriters and performers. They said, "Can you convince him that this is the right thing to do, because we've played this song to MTV and they think it's fantastic but they won't play it if it's him standing there playing guitar. They need a concept."

Barron then flew to Budapest to convince Knopfler of their concept. Meeting together after a gig, Knopfler was still unimpressed, but this time his girlfriend was present and took a hand. According to Barron:

Luckily, his girlfriend said, "He's absolutely right. There aren't enough interesting videos on MTV, and that sounds like a brilliant idea." Mark didn't say anything but he didn't make the call to get me out of Budapest. We just went ahead and did it.

Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair created the animation, using a Bosch FGS-4000 CGI system and a Quantel Paintbox system. The animators went on to found computer animation studio Mainframe Entertainment (today Mainframe Studios), and referenced the "Money for Nothing" video in an episode of their ReBoot series. The video also includes stage footage of Dire Straits performing, with partially rotoscoped animation in bright neon colours, as seen on the cover of the compilation album of the same name.

When Dire Straits performed "Money for Nothing" at the 1985 Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium, the performance featured a guest appearance by Sting. Knopfler performed "Money for Nothing" during the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute and the Prince's Trust concerts in 1986 with Sting, as well as the Nordoff-Robbins charity show at Knebworth in 1990 and the On Every Street world tours in 1991/1992. These versions featured extended guitar solos by Knopfler, backed by Eric Clapton and Phil Palmer.

The lyrics for the song have been criticised as being homophobic. In a late 1985 interview in Rolling Stone magazine, Knopfler expressed mixed feelings on the controversy:

I got an objection from the editor of a gay newspaper in London – he actually said it was below the belt. Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings – you have to be direct. In fact, I'm still in two minds as to whether it's a good idea to write songs that aren't in the first person, to take on other characters. The singer in "Money for Nothing" is a real ignoramus, hard hat mentality – somebody who sees everything in financial terms. I mean, this guy has a grudging respect for rock stars. He sees it in terms of, well, that's not working and yet the guy's rich: that's a good scam. He isn't sneering.

Dire Straits often performed the song in live concerts and when on tour, where the second verse was included but often altered slightly. For the band's 10 July 1985 concert (televised in the United Kingdom on The Tube on Channel 4 in January 1986), Knopfler replaced the word faggot with queenie:

"See the little queenie got the earring and the make-up" and "That little queenie got his own jet airplane, he's got a helicopter, he's a millionaire."

When the song was included in the 1998 compilation, Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits, a censored version was used, which completely omitted the second verse. In January 2011, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruled that the unedited version of the song was unacceptable for air play on private Canadian radio stations, as it breached the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' code of ethics and their equitable portrayal code. The CBSC concluded that "like other racially driven words in the English language, 'faggot' is one that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so." The CBSC's proceedings came in response to a radio listener's Ruling Request stemming from a playing of the song by CHOZ-FM in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, which in turn followed the radio listener's dissatisfaction with the radio station's reply to their complaint about the word 'faggot' in the lyrics.

Not all stations abided by this ruling; at least two stations, CIRK-FM in Edmonton, Alberta and CFRQ-FM in Halifax, Nova Scotia, played the unedited version of "Money for Nothing" repeatedly for one hour out of protest. Galaxie, which was owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the CBC) at the time of the controversy, also continues to play the song. On 21 January 2011, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission asked the CBSC for a review on the ban, in response to the public outcry against the CBSC's actions; the commission reportedly received over 250 complaints erroneously sent to them, instead of the CBSC. The regulator requested the CBSC to appoint a nationwide panel to review the case, as the decision on the ban was reviewed by a regional panel for the Maritimes and Newfoundland.

On 31 August 2011, the CBSC reiterated that it found the use of 'faggot' to be inappropriate; however, because of considerations in regard to its use in context, the CBSC has left it up to the stations to decide whether to play the original or edited versions of the song. Most of the CBSC panelists thought it was inappropriate, but it was used only in a satirical, non-hateful manner.

Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms (20th Anniversary Edition)"

Brothers in Arms is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 13 May 1985 through Vertigo Records internationally and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. It is credited with being the first album in recorded history to sell over one million copies in CD format.

Brothers in Arms spent a total of 14 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart (including ten consecutive weeks between 18 January and 22 March 1986), nine weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States and 34 weeks at number one on the Australian Albums Chart. It was the first album certified ten-times platinum in the UK and is the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart history. It is certified nine-times platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and is one of the world's best-selling albums, having sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

The album won a Grammy Award in 1986 for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Best British Album at the 1987 Brit Awards; the 20th Anniversary reissue won another Grammy in 2006 for Best Surround Sound Album. In 2020, Rolling Stone placed Brothers in Arms at number 418 on its "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. Q magazine ranked Brothers in Arms number 51 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever".

Brothers in Arms was recorded from November 1984 to February 1985 at AIR Studios on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. The album was produced by songwriter Mark Knopfler and Neil Dorfsman, who had engineered Dire Straits' 1982 album Love over Gold and Knopfler's 1983 soundtrack album Local Hero.

Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The decision to move to digital recording came from Knopfler's constant striving for better sound quality. "One of the things that I totally respected about him," Dorfsman observed, "was his interest in technology as a means of improving his music. He was always willing to spend on high-quality equipment."

Before arriving at Montserrat, Knopfler had written all the songs and rehearsed them with the band. The studio lineup was Knopfler (vocals, guitar), John Illsley (bass), Hal Lindes (guitar), Alan Clark (keyboards), Terry Williams (drums) and keyboard player/backing vocalist Guy Fletcher, who was new to the band. Lindes left the band early on in the sessions, and was replaced in December 1984 by Jack Sonni, a New York-based guitarist and longstanding friend of Knopfler. (Sonni's only contribution to the album was the guitar synthesizer on "The Man's Too Strong", with all the other guitar parts played by Knopfler).

The studio itself was small, with a 20-by-25-foot (6 m × 8 m) recording space that offered virtually no isolation. "It was a good-sounding studio," Dorfsman later recalled, "but the main room itself was nothing to write home about. The sound of that studio was the desk," referring to the Neve 8078 board. Knopfler and Dorfsman utilised the limited space to best effect, placing the drum kit in the far left corner, facing the control room, miked with Sennheiser MD 421s on the toms, an Electro-Voice RE20 and AKG D12 on the kick drum, a Shure SM57 and AKG C451 with a 20 dB pad on the snare, 451s for overheads and the hi-hat, and Neumann U87s set back a little to capture "some kind of ambience". They placed the piano in a tight booth in the far right corner of the studio, miked with AKG C414s. The Hammond B3 was placed nearby, with its Leslie speaker crammed into an airlock next to the control room. Illsley's bass amplifier was recorded inside a small vocal booth with a Neumann FET 47 and a DI unit. Knopfler's amplifiers were miked with 57s, 451s, and Neumann U67s. Fletcher's synths were placed in the control room.

During the recording of "Money for Nothing", the signature sound of Knopfler's guitar may have been enhanced by a "happy accident" of microphone placement. Knopfler was using his Gibson Les Paul going through a Laney amplifier. While setting up the guitar amplifier microphones in an effort to get the "ZZ Top sound" that Knopfler sought, guitar tech Ron Eve, who was in the control room, heard the "amazing" sound before Dorfsman was finished arranging the mics. "One mic was pointing down at the floor," Dorfsman remembered, "another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up—it was probably just left from the night before, when I'd been preparing things for the next day and had not really finished the setup." What they heard was exactly what ended up on the record; no additional processing or effects were used during the mix.

According to a Sound on Sound magazine interview with Neil Dorfsman, during the first month of the recording sessions at Montserrat the performance of Terry Williams was considered to be unsuitable for the desired sound of the album. According to Williams himself, he had recorded all his drum parts to a click track, which he felt hindered his ability to channel the rhythmic feel he wanted. About six weeks into the sessions, after listening to a playback of what had been recorded so far, he voiced his disappointment to Mark Knopfler over some of his own playing. Shortly after this, he was dismissed from the sessions.

Dorfsman and Knopfler made the decision to erase Williams' contributions. Williams was replaced in the sessions by jazz session drummer Omar Hakim, who re-recorded all the album's drum parts during a two-day stay before leaving for other commitments. All of the drumming on the final album was performed by Hakim, with the exception of the improvised crescendo at the beginning of “Money for Nothing”. (In another interview, Dorfsman has said that Williams' fills and tom-toms were also used in the rest of “Money for Nothing”). Both Hakim and Williams are credited on the album.

A defective batch of recording tape at AIR Studios resulted in the loss of part or all of three album tracks, leading to follow-up sessions being recorded at the Power Station in New York during early 1985 (including the addition of a Jack Sonni guitar synthesizer part to “The Man's Too Strong”). During this time, overdubs were recorded with further New York musicians including Michael and Randy Brecker, Mike Mainieri (who'd previously contributed vibraphone to Love Over Gold) and percussionist Jimmy Maelen, plus trumpeter Dave Plews and Average White Band saxophonist Malcolm Duncan.

When Illsley broke both elbows after a fall whilst jogging in Central Park, several prominent New York studio bassists were hired to record or re-record several basslines on the record. Tony Levin contributed to “Why Worry”. Saturday Night Live house band bassist Neil Jason was brought in for a week's work which included takes on “So Far Away”, “Walk of Life”, “Ride Across the River”, “Your Latest Trick” and “The Man’s Too Strong”, although the only fully confirmed released results from the Jason sessions were the slap-style funk bassline on “One World” and "slides on my fretless — almost like a Syndrum effect" on the intro to the extended version of “Money for Nothing”.

Although Andy Kanavan was briefly recruited as Dire Straits' new drummer, Terry Williams ended up rejoining the band for the promotional concert world tour which lasted until April 1986. All the music videos that were released from the album featured Williams.

Brothers in Arms has been described musically as a pop rock album. The music video for "Money for Nothing" received heavy rotation on MTV, and it was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987. It is one of only two Dire Straits songs on a studio album not to be solely credited to Knopfler (the other being "The Carousel Waltz", which opens Making Movies), with guest vocalist Sting given a co-writing credit due to the melody of the repeated "I want my MTV" (sung by Sting) in the song's fadeout echoing the melody of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me".

"Walk of Life" was a number two hit in the UK Singles Chart in early 1986 and a number seven hit in the US Billboard Hot 100 later that year. The song was nearly left off the album, but was included after the band out-voted producer Neil Dorfsman.

On the second side of the album, three songs ("Ride Across the River", "The Man's Too Strong" and "Brothers in Arms") are lyrically focused on militarism. "Ride Across the River" uses immersive Latin American imagery, accompanied by synthesized pan flute, mariachi trumpet, a reggae-influenced drum part and eerie background noises. "The Man's Too Strong" depicts the character of an ancient soldier (or war criminal) and his fear of showing feelings as a weakness. Written during the 1982 Falklands War, "Brothers in Arms" deals with the senselessness of war. In 2007, the 25th anniversary of the war, Knopfler recorded a new version of the song at Abbey Road Studios to raise funds for British veterans who he said "are still suffering from the effects of that conflict."

The guitar featured on the front of the album cover is Mark Knopfler's 1937 14-fret National Style "O" Resonator. The Style "O" line of guitars was introduced in 1930 and discontinued in 1941. The photographer was Deborah Feingold. The back cover features a painting of the same guitar, by German artist Thomas Steyer. A similar image was also used, with a similar colour scheme, for the 1989 album The Booze Brothers by Brewers Droop.

Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums directed at the CD market, and it was a full digital recording (DDD) at a time when most popular music was recorded on analog equipment. It was also released on vinyl (abridged to fit on one LP) and cassette. Producer Neil Dorfsman says the digital multitrack was mixed on an analog board with the resulting two track mix re-digitized via a Prism A/D converter and recorded on a DAT machine.

Brothers in Arms was the first album to sell one million copies in the CD format and to outsell its LP version. A Rykodisc employee subsequently wrote, "[In 1985 we] were fighting to get our CDs manufactured because the entire worldwide manufacturing capacity was overwhelmed by demand for a single rock title (Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms)."

It was remastered and reissued with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States and on 19 September 2000 in the United States, the remastering for both reissues was done by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering using the Super Bit Mapping process. In 2000, it was released on XRCD2 format, this edition was remastered by Hiromichi Takiguchi using K2 20bit technology. A 20th Anniversary Edition was issued in Super Audio CD on 26 July 2005 (becoming the 3000th title for the SACD format), it featured a 5.1 surround sound remix done by Chuck Ainlay at British Grove Studios, it was mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The 5.1 mix was also released on DualDisc format with DVD-Audio 24 bit/96 kHz track on 16 August 2005. Ainlay's 5.1 remix won a Grammy for Best Surround Sound Album at the 48th Grammy Awards ceremony. In 2006, a half-speed-mastered vinyl version of the album was issued. Mastered by Stan Ricker, this version consists of four sides on two 33 1/3 rpm discs, containing the full-length songs on vinyl for the first time. In 2013, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab released a hybrid SACD mastered from the original tapes by Shawn R. Britton, it includes the original stereo mix only. In 2014, a new master was released in Japan on SHM-SACD - it's made from the original analogue master tapes and contains the original LP length of the album: 47:44 min, this edition was transferred by Mick McKenna and Richard Whittaker at FX Copyroom using Direct Stream Digital. On May 19, 2014, Vertigo reissued the album on double 180g vinyl, this edition contains the full-length songs of the album, it was mastered by Bob Ludwig, Bernie Grundman and Chris Bellman from the original analogue and digital tapes, this version was also included on The Studio Albums 1978 - 1991 the previous year. In 2015, Mobile Fidelity also released the album on double 45 RPM vinyl, this edition was mastered by Krieg Wunderlich. The same year, the album re-entered the UK Album Charts at #8 following the record being made available at a discounted price on digital music retailers. In March 2021, a new half-speed mastered edition was released, mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell. The release was a double-LP, 45 rpm, 180 gram edition, with the complete version of the album, for only the second time (the first being issued by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2015). The album has spent a total of 356 weeks on the UK Album Charts.

Track listings

All songs written by Mark Knopfler, except "Money for Nothing", written by Knopfler and Sting. The CD and cassette versions feature full versions of "So Far Away", "Money for Nothing", "Your Latest Trick" and "Why Worry". Because of this, side two of the cassette version has about 10 minutes of blank tape.

Brothers in Arms CD and cassette track listing

1. "So Far Away" A1 5:12
2. "Money for Nothing" A2 8:25
3. "Walk of Life" A3 4:12
4. "Your Latest Trick" A4 6:33
5. "Why Worry" A5 8:31
6. "Ride Across the River" B1 6:58
7. "The Man's Too Strong" B2 4:40
8. "One World" B3 3:40
9. "Brothers in Arms" B4 6:59

Total length: 55:15

Mark Knopfler – producer

Neil Dorfsman – producer, engineer, mixing

Dave Greenberg – assistant engineer

Steve Jackson – assistant engineer

Bruce Lampcov – assistant engineer

Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York, USA)

John Dent – mastering at The Sound Clinic (London, UK)

Thomas Steyer – cover painting

Sutton Cooper – sleeve design

Deborah Feingold – photography

In the Netherlands, the album broke the all-time record for most weeks on chart, with 269 non-consecutive weeks (since overtaken by Adele's 21 and the Buena Vista Social Club's eponymous debut album).

In the UK, the album spent 14 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart, and as of August 2018 has spent 271 weeks on the chart.

In the United States, the album reached number one on the Billboard 200 and remained there for nine weeks.

Phil Collins "...Hits"

Hits (stylized as ...Hits), released in 1998 and again in 2008, following the success of "In the Air Tonight" on the Cadbury ad campaign, is the first greatest hits album by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. The collection included fourteen Top 40 hits, including seven American number 1 songs, spanning from the albums Face Value (1981) through Dance into the Light (1996). One new Collins recording, a cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors", also appeared on the collection and was a popular song on adult contemporary stations. Hits was also the first Phil Collins album to include four songs originally recorded for motion pictures (all of them U.S. number 1 hits) as well as his popular duet with Philip Bailey, "Easy Lover" (a UK number 1 hit).

In 1998, the album reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and number 18 in the United States. On 4 August 2008, it became the number 1 album on the New Zealand RIANZ album chart. In July 2012, the album re-entered the U.S. charts, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 when the album price was deeply discounted very briefly by Amazon.com. It has sold 3,429,000 in the US as of July 2012.

The compilation's cover features stylized versions of the cover art for Collins' first six albums, the collection's primary sources of songs.

There are other greatest hits compilations of Phil Collins songs. A collection of Collins's more romantic songs were released on a two-disc compilation titled Love Songs: A Compilation... Old and New. 1999's Turn It On Again: The Hits, 2005's Platinum Collection and 2014's R-Kive were greatest hits collections by Collins' original group, Genesis. Most recently, Collins released the 2016 compilation The Singles as part of his "Take a Look at Me Now" album remaster series.

Track listing

...Hits – Standard edition

1. "Another Day in Paradise" Phil Collins ...But Seriously (1989) 5:22
2. "True Colors" Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly previously unreleased 4:34
3. "Easy Lover" (with Philip Bailey) Phil Collins/Philip Bailey/Nathan East Chinese Wall (1984) 5:02
4. "You Can't Hurry Love" Holland-Dozier-Holland Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982) 2:52
5. "Two Hearts" Phil Collins, Lamont Dozier Buster (1988) 3:24
6. "I Wish It Would Rain Down" Phil Collins ...But Seriously (1989) 5:28
7. "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" Phil Collins Against All Odds (1984) 3:25
8. "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" Phil Collins, Daryl Stuermer ...But Seriously (1989) 4:51
9. "Separate Lives" (with Marilyn Martin) Stephen Bishop White Nights (1985) 4:06
10. "Both Sides of the Story" Phil Collins Both Sides (1993) 6:37
11. "One More Night" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 4:46
12. "Sussudio" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 4:21
13. "Dance into the Light" Phil Collins Dance into the Light (1996) 4:22
14. "A Groovy Kind of Love" Toni Wine, Carole Bayer Sager Buster (1988) 3:29
15. "In the Air Tonight" Phil Collins Face Value (1981) 5:30
16. "Take Me Home" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 5:52

Total length: 01:14:01

Track 1 features David Crosby on backing vocals.

Track 2 features Babyface on backing vocals, keyboard and drum programming, and Sheila E on percussion.

Track 3 features Philip Bailey on vocals.

Tracks 4, 11-13, 15 feature Daryl Stuermer on guitar.

Track 6 features Eric Clapton on guitar.

Tracks 8, 13 feature Nathan East on bass.

Track 9 features Marilyn Martin on vocals.

Track 16 features Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Helen Terry on backing vocals.

The original pressing of the album lists "Another Day in Paradise" with an incorrect running time of 6:22 and "One More Night" with a running time of 5:12. This is not the case for the Virgin pressing.

The Police "Every Breath You Take: The Classics"

In 1995, A&M released Every Breath You Take: The Classics to replace the original album. It features a slightly different track listing: the original version of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" replaces the 1986 recording at track 5; the '86 version appears at track 13. A 'New Classic Rock Mix' of "Message in a Bottle" is included as track 14. The Digital Theater System (2000) and hybrid Super Audio CD (2003) versions of the album include a previously unreleased version of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da".

In the DTS version, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" features a different intro. Also, The Singles featured a shortened version of "Can't Stand Losing You" which featured an early fade out which ends the song before the final chorus concludes; The Classics replaces this with the full-length version.