It was released on 14 January 1985 in the United Kingdom by Virgin Records as the lead single from his third solo studio album, No Jacket Required (1985).

The music video for the song was filmed at a pub owned at the time by Richard Branson (The Princess Victoria in Shepherd's Bush) in London.

[10] Collins does not deny the similarity between the two songs; he stated that he is a fan of Prince's work[11][12] and remembers listening to "1999" frequently while he was on tour with Genesis.

Even though this song isn't on the Flashdance soundtrack, it makes me want to put on some goofy legwarmers and kick out an aerobics routine.

Where the vast majority of artists from this era try out the synthesizer/keyboard/horn section soup and fail miserably, Collins seems to have the recipe down to a science," Hamilton adds.

David Fricke of Rolling Stone said that songs like "Sussudio", with the heavy use of a horn section, were "beginning to wear thin.

"[16] In 2001, the chief rock and pop critic of The Guardian, Alexis Petridis, called the song a "vapid funk workout".

[1] In 2013, Tom Service, also of The Guardian, wrote: "Sussudio brings me out in a cold sweat; the production, the drum machine, the inane sincerity of the lyrics; there's no colder or more superficial sound in popular music, precisely because it takes itself so seriously.