In early-’80s Scotland, as frontman for Orange Juice, Collins helped invent that bright but rueful sound we now call indie pop. Losing Sleep, his seventh solo album, was written and recorded after he suffered a double brain hemorrhage in 2005, and it remarkably documents his rehabilitation. Members of Franz Ferdinand, Sex Pistols, the Smiths, the Magic Numbers, the Drums, the Cribs, and Aztec Camera contribute to the dogged hooks and dazzling surfaces, while Collins struggles to make sense of it all with simple but profound strokes. “I’m insecure about my life,” he sings, while the masterful musicianship buzzing around him argues to the contrary.
