The World from the Side of the Moon is the debut album from American Idol season 11 winner, Phillip Phillips. The album was released on November 19, 2012, and includes Phillips' coronation song, "Home". The album was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 2013.
The World from the Side of the Moon spawned two hit singles "Home" and "Gone, Gone, Gone", both singles charted the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and hit number-one on the Adult Contemporary chart for more than three weeks. Both "Home" and "Gone, Gone, Gone" also received certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); "Home" received quadruple-platinum certification, while "Gone, Gone, Gone" received Platinum.
Background
Phillip Phillips began writing songs with collaborators and recording rough tracks for the album before the American Idol Tour began in July 2012. He collaborated with David Ryan Harris on "Tell Me a Story", which he described as his favorite song in the album and the one he is most proud of. Other songwriters he collaborated with include Greg Holden and Drew Pearson who wrote his coronation song "Home". After the success of this song, Phillips indicated that the album would have a couple of songs similar to "Home". He wrote with his brother-in-law Benjamin Neil "Drive Me", a song he had originally wanted to be his coronation song. His girlfriend Hanna Blackwell also contributed lines to the lyrics on the bonus track "Take Me Away". All but three of the tracks on the main album were written or co-written by him, with four of the songs he wrote himself. He cowrote "Get Up Get Down" with the producer Greg Wattenberg and Derek Fuhrmann in Wattenberg's New York studio. Songs selected by 19 were presented to him but some were discarded, amongst those he chose were "Gone, Gone, Gone".
The album title, The World from the Side of the Moon, came from the lyrics of the first song on the album, "Man on the Moon." Phillips described it as the experience of watching himself in a DVD of the whole Idol season someone gave him, "so I was kind of watching myself from a whole different world that no one else really knows. It's interesting to see how it happened and so fast. That's how I picked the title: I felt like I watched myself grow and this whole album is representing where I am."
The producer of the album was Gregg Wattenberg. The album was recorded in three weeks at the Quad Studios in New York after the Idol tour had finished. He had originally planned to release his album early 2013, but later the date of the album release was rescheduled to November 19, 2012.
On November 19, 2013, an expanded version of his "Moon" album was released. It included three live recordings, including "Gone, Gone, Gone," "Where We Came From," and "Man on the Moon." Those three tracks were also on "Phillip Phillips Live EP," also out on November 19.
Critical reception
The World from the Side of the Moon has received mixed to positive reviews from professional music critics, and has an overall Metacritic rating of 61 indicating "generally favorable reviews". Most critics noted influences from Dave Matthews Band and Mumford & Sons in the album. Glenn Gamboa of Newsday opined that Phillips "offers up Dave Matthews Band's jamming-blues-rock hybrid to a younger generation in "Get Up Get Down," while also giving the indie-leaning folk of current darlings Mumford & Sons an attractive American face in "Gone Gone Gone."" Gary Graff of Billboard noted that Phillips' song "Home", "aligned him with the Mumford & Sons nu-folk movement," but considered "the album actually plays out more like the year's second-best Dave Matthews Band release." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic thought the similarities to Dave Matthews Band to be "near farcical," and the similarities to other bands led Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone to wonder if Phillips is redundant "when we've already got Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz, why do we need another earnestly raspy balladeer with ace acoustic-guitar skills?" Rosen nevertheless thought that "he's far better in originals like "Gone, Gone, Gone" and his hit "Home," which build from folksy picking to hooting power-ballad choruses, a pleasantly popified take on Arcade Fire."