FEATURE:
This Will Be My Testimony
IN THIS PHOTO: Peter Gabriel captured in 2012/PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Enoch
The Iconic Peter Gabriel at Seventy
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WHERE does one start with…
the iconic and legendary Peter Gabriel?! As it is his seventieth birthday on 13th February, I felt it would be wrong to ignore such an important occassion! I grew up listening to Gabriel’s music and, in terms of songs, I think Steam was the first track of his I heard (I also love those songs only the diehard fans know). Steam appears on his 1992 album, US, and I first heard it on Now That's What I Call Music! 24 in 1993. After hearing that track, I listened back to Gabriel’s catalogue and was mesmerised. I think, oddly, me and Gabriel have a distant connection. He has said in interviews how, when young, he would listen to albums in Record Corner in Godalming, Surrey. I spent many happy lunchtimes there when I attended college in Godalming between 1999-2001. Apart from that, me and Peter Gabriel are worlds apart! Before I go into more detail about his work – especially his solo career –, here is some pretty good overview/biography regarding Gabriel:
“In 1980 he founded WOMAD (World of Music Arts and Dance), which has presented 170 festivals in over 30 countries. The festival became the inspiration for Real World Records, which he launched in 1989 with the aim of providing talented artists from around the world with access to state-of-the-art recording facilities, and help get their music better known around the world. Artists released by the label such as Hukwe Zawose, Ayub Ogada, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Papa Wemba, Totó La Momposina, Sheila Chandra and more recently The Gloaming and Loney dear, have all helped establish the label’s eclectic credentials.
Since 1980, when Peter released the anti-apartheid single ‘Biko’ he has been actively involved in human rights campaigning. He has participated in many benefit concerts, notably Amnesty International’s 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour, which was the first benefit concert to tour globally with Youssou N’Dour, Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman and Sting. It was on this tour he saw first hand how video can transform a human rights activist’s chances of achieving justice and change, and in 1992 proposed the creation of an organization to pioneer the use of video in human rights work, Witness.org. Around 2000 he co-founded TheElders.org, with Richard Branson, to bring together a small group of highly respected global leaders, launched with Nelson Mandela in July 2007.
In 1999 Peter co-founded On Demand Distribution (OD2) with Charles Grimsdale and others, which quickly became Europe’s first successful Digital Music Download retailer (and pre-dated Apple’s iTunes launch in Europe by some four years). OD2 is now Nokia Music.
Still convinced in the need for easy digital access to music, he co-founded WE7, a streaming service, with John Taysom and Steve Purdham in 2006 (two years before Spotify). It was sold in 2013.
In 2008 Peter, along with Real World and British Hi-fi manufacturer Bowers and Wilkins, created the Society of Sound to record and release new music in high definition audio. The Society of Sound has recorded over 100 albums of previously unheard music (as well as many recordings from the archives of the LSO) in the highest possible quality.
PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Enoch
For his music, Peter has received several Grammy and MTV awards, an Oscar nomination, the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and various lifetime achievement awards including BT’s Digital Music Pioneer Award and The Polar Music Prize. He has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall. For his activism, The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates awarded him Man of Peace award in 2006 and TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Peter is now writing and recording, and working on a plan to create a streaming service for digital medicine and an Interspecies Internet”.
I will talk more about his activism and politics a bit later but, in terms of artists who should be considered geniuses, Peter Gabriel definitely needs to feature in the conversation! I am going to talk more about Gabriel’s solo work but, when looking back at his roots, one has to mention Genesis. Before Gabriel went solo, he was part of this incredible band. Some say that his departure changed the band and they were less credible without him. This article provides a perspective:
“At first sight there doesn’t seem to be much connection between the Genesis of the 70s fronted by Peter Gabriel and the Genesis of the 80s fronted by Phil Collins. The former is a rock legend; the latter is a rock phenomenon.
Fans of both bands tend to be mutually exclusive as well. The millions upon millions who picked up on Genesis in the 80s as a succession of world-wide hits dominated the airwaves had little idea of the band’s legendary progressive rock past. "In the later years there were people coming to our concerts who didn’t know that I drummed,” laughs Collins.
And the fervent cult following that nurtured Genesis as they became progressive rock legends in the 70s perversely drifted away as the band’s popularity increased. "I think that happens with every band that becomes successful,” reflects Mike Rutherford. "It’s just the way it goes.”
But both bands have the same core membership. Keyboard player Tony Banks and guitarist Mike Rutherford were ever-present from the first Genesis single in 1968 to the last in 1997. And Phil Collins can claim 26 years continuous service with the band from 1970 to 1996. Indeed from 1978 when they released the appropriately titled album …And Then There Were Three…, Genesis consisted of just Banks Collins and Rutherford for nearly 20 years.
For them of course, there is an obvious continuity between the two bands, summed up by Collins: "The spirit of the way we write songs has never really changed. A lot of the older fans think that Genesis should be a brand name for progressive rock or whatever, but actually Genesis is the name for a group of songwriters who have always done whatever they felt like doing under that banner.”
Banks is more specific: "We’ve always liked something to be distinctive about a song, even a simple song. There is usually an element of quirkiness about a Genesis song and that’s important to us”.
I am going to end with a Peter Gabriel playlist that charts his best tracks with Genesis and solo (and soundtracks). Before starting with his albums - I shall TRY and keep the timeline linear and sober! -, you need to follow Gabriel and experience this artist on social media. Follow the legend on Twitter; his brilliant official website contains all of the latest news and happenings. His Instagram account is pretty up to date and cool, and one can find a lot of information and photos on his official Facebook page. Look at all those epic and inventive videos - more, too, on that a bit later - on his YouTube channel, and understand why Gabriel is such a treasured and unique artist.
There are some great Peter Gabriel books, and last year’s Peter Gabriel: A Life in Vision by Alan Hewitt is a treasure chest of great images and information! I have ordered the book and am looking forward to it arriving. If you need a bit more information, here is what you can expect:
“As Gabriel is close to entering his seventh decade A Life In Vision is a chronological, visual biography of his extraordinary and colourful career. From the early days of Genesis through to the present day it is crammed full of glorious photography, much of which is previously unpublished, along with a timeline narrative by Genesis aficionado Alan Hewitt”.
One only needs to look at Peter Gabriel on the Grammys website to see what this pioneering musician has achieved. Peter Gabriel’s first eponymous album of 1977 is masterful. Gabriel announced to his Genesis bandmates, during The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour, that he was leaving the band. Gabriel stayed until the end of the tour, but it was clear he needed to embark on a different path. In terms of Peter Gabriel’s albums, his debut outing is overlooked in favour of Peter Gabriel 3 or Melt and So. I love Gabriel’s introductory solo album, and it is full of tremendous songs, innovative sounds and memorable moments.
The difficult pregnancy of his wife, Jill, and the birth of his first child meant that he was committed to stay at home and could not continue with Genesis. Gabriel would create more consistent and highly-regarded eponymous albums, but his first contains some magnificent music. Solsbury Hill was written about a spiritual experience he had atop Little Solsbury Hill in Somerset. The song is about letting go and making way for new beginnings. I did say how other Gabriel albums have scored bigger, but Peter Gabriel (also known as Peter Gabriel 1 or Car) is a terrific debut solo album. This is AllMusic’s review:
“Peter Gabriel tells why he left Genesis in "Solsbury Hill," the key track on his 1977 solo debut. Majestically opening with an acoustic guitar, the song finds Gabriel's talents gelling, as the words and music feed off each other, turning into true poetry. It stands out dramatically on this record, not because the music doesn't work, but because it brilliantly illustrates why Gabriel had to fly on his own. Though this is undeniably the work of the same man behind The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he's turned his artiness inward, making his music coiled, dense, vibrant. There is still some excess, naturally, yet it's the sound of a musician unleashed, finally able to bend the rules as he wishes. That means there are less atmospheric instrumental sections than there were on his last few records with Genesis, as the unhinged bizarreness in the arrangements, compositions, and productions, in tracks such as the opener "Moribund the Burgermeister" vividly illustrate.
He also has turned sleeker, sexier, capable of turning out a surging rocker like "Modern Love." If there is any problem with Peter Gabriel, it's that Gabriel is trying too hard to show the range of his talents, thereby stumbling occasionally with the doo wop-to-cabaret "Excuse Me" or the cocktail jazz of "Waiting for the Big One" (or, the lyric "you've got me cookin'/I'm a hard-boiled egg" on "Humdrum"). Still, much of the record teems with invigorating energy (as on "Slowburn," or the orchestral-disco pulse of "Down the Dolce Vita"), and the closer "Here Comes the Flood" burns with an anthemic intensity that would later become his signature in the '80s. Yes, it's an imperfect album, but that's a byproduct of Gabriel's welcome risk-taking -- the very thing that makes the album work, overall”.
D.I.Y. and Mother of Violence feature on Peter Gabriel’s second album, A.K.A. Peter Gabriel 2 or Scratch, and here is a step up from the incredible songwriter. Although his biggest hits were yet to come – although Solsbury Hill is a classic! -, his first couple of albums are full of invention and memorable moments. Gabriel is the person who introduced Kate Bush to the magic of the Fairlight CMI. Bush would use the Fairlight heavily from her 1980 album, Never for Ever, and the two worked together on several songs – more on that later. I want to bring in a review of Peter Gabriel’s second eponymous album.
“The pairing sounds ideal - the former front man of Genesis, as produced by the leading light of King Crimson. Unfortunately, Peter Gabriel's second album (like his first, eponymous) fails to meet those grandiose expectations, even though it seems to at first. "On the Air" and "D.I.Y." are stunning slices of modern rock circa 1978, bubbling with synths, insistent rhythms, and polished processed guitars, all enclosed in a streamlined production that nevertheless sounds as large as a stadium. Then, things begin to drift, at first in a pleasant way ("A Wonderful Day in a One-Way World" is surprisingly nimble), but by the end, it all seems a little formless.
It's not that the music is overly challenging - it's that the record is unfocused. There are great moments scattered throughout the record, yet it never captivates, either through intoxicating, messy creativity (as he did on his debut) or through cohesion (the way the third Peter Gabriel album, two years later, would). Certain songs work well on their own -- not just the opening numbers, but the mini-epic "White Shadow," the tight "Animal Magic," the tense yet catchy "Perspective," the reflective closer "Home Sweet Home" -- yet for all the tracks that work, they never work well together. Ironically, it holds together a bit better than its predecessor, yet it never reaches the brilliant heights of that record. In short, it's a transitional effort that's well worth the time of serious listeners, even it's still somewhat unsatisfying”.
I am not going to discuss and dissect each of his studio albums, but it is worth mentioning the first Peter Gabriel masterpiece: Peter Gabriel 3 or Melt. Not many albums can start with a better one-two than Intruder and No Self Control. Although the songs are experimental and eerie, they are strangely alluring and enticing! The album, produced by Gabriel and Steve Lillywhite, was Gabriel's first and only release for Mercury Records in the United States, after being rejected by Atlantic Records. Upon hearing mixes of session tapes in early-1980, Atlantic A&R executive John Kalodner deemed the album not commercial enough for release and he suggested Atlantic drop Gabriel from their roster.
PG3 is an album that has amazed and fascinated critics since its release in 1980. This is what The Quietus had to say in 2010:
“PG3 is where Gabriel ascends, where he hits the perfect point on the curve between artistic ambition and accessibility, between dark and light, between floridness and reticence. Songs, themes, sonics and presence come together to create a cohesive yet many-limbed piece which pitches up somewhere between Lodger and Scary Monsters. Challenged by the NME at the time about Bowie comparisons, he replied defensively, “I get the feeling he’s more calculating. There’s not too much coincidence emanating. With me there is still quite a large functioning of randomness, accident and mistakes.” Going on to praise Bowie’s willingness to keep moving, he added, “You must let go of what you’ve got, cause if you try and clutch on to something which you think is yours, it withers and dies.” It would be facile to pin this album as an anti-Genesis statement though: much of it is every bit as self-important. It’s just leaner, sharper, quicker to make its points. It’s speed (with all the nervous glances over the shoulder), not dope, not comfortable or relaxing.
While this will not turn into a detailed discussion of drum sounds, it has to be mentioned that the outstanding, ominous opener 'Intruder' is where the “gated drums” technique which so dominated and ultimately defiled the subsequent decade was invented.
IN THIS PHOTO: Peter Gabriel at his home in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Noble/Redferns/Getty
Gabriel and (the then very fashionable) co-producer Steve Lillywhite banned cymbals, asked Collins and Jerry Marotta to adopt a less-is-more approach, and found the results to be sinister, dramatic and arresting. (Freeing up the higher frequencies thus allowed room for exploration that few artists had realised was possible. They used the spaces for creaks, screeches, whistles, sirens and found sounds that are just as important to the record’s feel as the conventional keyboards, guitars, etc. This subsequently became common practice for a while, then it wasn’t, and now – in a period where music has a chronic lack of drama - it would be good if it was again.)
'And Through The Wire' is relatively straight-ahead rock, but after the repeated teaser of “I want you”, that’s one doozey of a chorus, and he sings the title line like he’s gargling emeralds. You’ll know 'Games Without Frontiers' (with a barely audible Kate Bush on backing vocals). As an anti-war lyric it’s facile; as a pop song it’s a peach. 'Not One Of Us' is a prescient piss-take of the NIMBY anti-immigration lobby. “A foreign body... and a foreign mind... never welcome in the land of the blind.” Then comes the track which grabs you last but, after many listens, grabs you hardest. 'Lead A Normal Life' is barely there, a whisper, a rivulet. It can be interpreted as an asylum inmate’s murmurings as he glimpses the trees. It haunts, in your peripheral vision.
You keep returning to it, like a flicker of a memory, willing it to catch flame. Grand finale 'Biko' signals where Gabriel was next to travel, becoming pop music’s patron saint of all things worthy and earnest.
That said, his story of the murder of the apartheid activist, even with its big singalong coda, is lyrically extremely restrained and pointed, eschewing see-how-clever-I-am imagery: “The man is dead, the man is dead”. And again, one must recall that the first people to champion good causes should not be blamed for those who later jump the bandwagon to further their own careers. This is not Geri Halliwell posing with Nelson Mandela. This is a guy singing about something few people in the Western world had then heard of.
There are great podcasts that dissect the album and underline why it is such a staggering achievement. It has received impassioned reviews through the years and, nearly forty years after its release (it turns forty on 23rd May), a lot of the songs and themes seem more relevant now more than ever. I want to bring in a couple of reviews concerning Peter Gabriel’s third, and most successful, eponymous album. Here is what AllMusic had to say:
“Generally regarded as Peter Gabriel's finest record, his third eponymous album finds him coming into his own, crafting an album that's artier, stronger, more song-oriented than before. Consider its ominous opener, the controlled menace of "Intruder." He's never found such a scary sound, yet it's a sexy scare, one that is undeniably alluring, and he keeps this going throughout the record. For an album so popular, it's remarkably bleak, chilly, and dark -- even radio favorites like "I Don't Remember" and "Games Without Frontiers" are hardly cheerful, spiked with paranoia and suspicion, insulated in introspection.
For the first time, Gabriel has found the sound to match his themes, plus the songs to articulate his themes. Each aspect of the album works, feeding off each other, creating a romantically gloomy, appealingly arty masterpiece. It's the kind of record where you remember the details in the production as much as the hooks or the songs, which isn't to say that it's all surface -- it's just that the surface means as much as the songs, since it articulates the emotions as well as Gabriel's cubist lyrics and impassioned voice. He wound up having albums that sold more, or generated bigger hits, but this third Peter Gabriel album remains his masterpiece”.
When I mention So later, I want to explore why it was so different to Gabriel’s earlier works. There are fans who prefer Gabriel’s more commercial So, and those who think Gabriel was at his insanely-brilliant-best in 1980. This is The A.V. Club’s take on a work of genius:
“The greatness: Genesis was all about bombastic excess, and Gabriel's later solo work struck a balance between mainstream pop and world music. But Melt and its follow-up, Security, share more with the contemporaneous Talking Heads albums Remain In Light and Fear Of Music, by exploring themes of paranoia and violence with densely layered, aggressive post-punk production. Gabriel opens the album with the palpably menacing "Intruder," a disturbing first-person account that a night-stalking creep directs at the listener, whose house he's breaking into for purposes best left unspoken. "Family Snapshot," based on the autobiography of the would-be assassin of presidential candidate George Wallace, even engenders some sympathy for its lonely, deluded gunman protagonist, who waits patiently with his rifle for the motorcade to come into range, dreaming of the day he'll be famous. But Gabriel shows his true colors on the album-closing "Biko," an elegy for murdered South African activist Stephen Biko. It begins as a dirge, then slowly evolves into a thundering cry for justice: "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire / Once the flame begins to catch, the wind will blow it higher." Melt is still influential, too, with echoes showing up in songs like TV On The Radio's "Wash The Day," which shares the distinctive drumbeat of "Intruder".
1982’s Peter Gabriel 4 or Security was not as packed with hits and his finest work but, that said, I think it is an amazing album that warrants a lot of acclaim. The Rhythm of the Heat is about Carl Jung’s experiences whilst observing a group of African drummers; San Jacinto is the fear of a Native American man who sees his culture and world overrun by the white man; Shock the Monkey – one of Gabriel’s very finest efforts – is about insecurities and infidelities. Maybe Peter Gabriel’s fourth eponymous album was a bridge between his first huge revelation and peak and the more commercial and equally brilliant So of 1986 – where he would ditch the eponymous titles and opened his musical palette up. Although Peter Gabriel’s fourth solo album opened the door for the commercial breakthrough of So in 1986, the recording process had its ups and downs:
“Peter Gabriel's long-awaited fourth self-titled album – later retitled Security before its September 1982 U.S. release – began with the rhythm. Always fascinated by textures, Gabriel had been digging deeply into folk drumming from Africa. He'd also become intrigued by early sampling technology.
"I think the rhythm is like the spine of the piece," Gabriel told the South Bank Show in 1982. "If you change that, then the body that forms around it is changed as well. So, the style of writing which I was then attracted to put with it was very different from what I would have done with a normal rock rhythm."
Once he got the cadences down, Gabriel worked for a long period of time improvising over these basic skeletons of song. At one point, he and David Lord – the fourth new Gabriel producer in as many albums – were dealing with a stack of 100 demos.
Gabriel's decision to record at home on rented equipment proved to be a boon, as it encouraged this free-form sense of discovery, but it also meant that there was no natural time frame to govern things. Ultimately, Gabriel would go nearly two and a half years between solo albums, an eternity in that era.
"Initially, we had a mobile outside the farm building and then gradually built a studio as we went along," Gabriel explained on his website. "I was working with David Lord, who I’d known a bit in Bath. He had studio there. He'd come really more from a classical background, but was very good with textures and sounds. A lot of time, as always, I had been noodling away, and he was quite good at helping forge through that."
This tactile focus on both ageless sounds and modern technology would become the hallmark of Gabriel's solo career. The lengthy experiments on Security led directly to his belated post-Genesis mainstream breakthrough on 1986's So. For the time being, however, Security was a mess.
At one point, Gabriel was still juggling 18 songs, and several of those rough drafts were more than 10 minutes long. "He's a slow worker," Lord told the South Bank Show. "And the main problem is, he likes to keep every possible option open as long as he can." When things got particularly tense, Gabriel would break for a game of croquet.
"I'm trying to enlarge what I do with my voice, not through technique but just through the sounds," Gabriel told the South Bank Show. "I think we all make noises and, particularly when we get involved or emotional about something, the colors and the tones of those noises change."
No matter how far afield he got, the songs coalesced around world music influences that had first popped up on Gabriel's 1980 album, which ended with a rousing tribute to slain South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. This balance of old and new still intrigued him. As he delved ever deeper into these clashing cultural touchstones, the theme worked its way into Gabriel's songs”.
Whatever it was called, the gold-selling Security held together better than any previous Gabriel solo album. As the door to stardom cracked open for Gabriel, it was clear the work had paid off. "Shock the Monkey," a song not about animal rights but raging jealousy, became his first Billboard Top 40 hit, reaching No. 29 on the strength of a heavy-rotation MTV video. Security also notched Gabriel's fourth straight Top 10 finish in the U.K.
Despite the lengthy gestation period, he had set the stage for a commercial breakthrough. "It worries me sometimes that I'm taking too long over these things," Gabriel admitted in his talk with the South Bank Show, "and then I think, it really doesn't matter a damn if the end product works".
I was born in 1983, but I remember songs from So being played on the radio. Gabriel continued to use the Fairlight CMI in new ways; although songs on this album were less experimental than previous efforts, I think that So is, perhaps, Gabriel’s best album. Although So is less experimental than his earlier work, Gabriel brings in elements of World music; fusing different cultures and sounds together wonderfully. Sledgehammer, with its eye-opening and spectacular video, is a song that bursts from the trap! It is MTV’s most-played video ever and still seems awe-inspiring to this day. I look at the video today and, well, it just moves me so much! Gabriel helped bring the music video to the mainstream and his visual flair has been evident throughout his career. I will look at the rest of the album soon but, as it is such a popular song, here is some information about the mighty Sledgehammer:
“Sledgehammer was the first single to be taken from Peter’s fifth solo studio album So, and was released on 21 April 1986.
‘Sledgehammer’ was obviously a big track from that record and that was, in part, homage to the music that I grew up with. I loved soul music, blues music and that was a chance to work with some of the brass players that had worked with Otis Redding, who’s my all time favourite singer. It was a fun thing to do, but again that was built around a great groove and a good feel.
Written by Peter Gabriel, the song was produced by Daniel Lanois and Peter and engineered by Kevin Killen and Lanois.
The single first charted in the UK on 26 April 1986, peaked at 4 and stayed in the UK Top75 for 18 weeks.
The accompanying video for Sledgehammer was directed by Stephen R Johnson, produced by Adam Whitaker, with animation by Nick Park, The Brothers Quay, Peter Lord and Richard Goleszowski. The video won a record nine awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year as well as Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards. In 2018 a remastered 4K version of the video was premiered on Apple Music, after extensive restoration work was completed by the team at Aardman”.
I mentioned how there was this clash between those who prefer Gabriel at his experimental and political best and those who love the more accessible and commercial sounds on So. There are some great interviews around 1986, where Gabriel talked about So. Whilst I adore Peter Gabriel’s early period, So remains a magnificent album:
“The first of Peter’s studio albums to have a proper title So was a watershed release in his career. Its marriage of the artistic and the commercial made for an indisputable success, with the album quickly sitting atop the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Aside from some intriguing collaborations – with Laurie Anderson on This Is The Picture, Kate Bush on Don’t Give Up and Youssou N’Dour on In Your Eyes – it was the unity of singer, band and producer that made So such a crucial record in the Gabriel canon.
“There is always wisdom from hindsight. And because ‘So’ was my most successful record, I think that a lot of people, particularly in America, think that it was designed to be that.
From the other end of it, you never really know which records are going to do well. You know that some things are going to be so obscure and difficult for a mainstream audience that they’re no-hopers but generally, with what I do, it’s hard to predict which albums are going to do well.
You know certain songs have a better chance of getting on the radio when you do them, for sure, but I think part of the reason that ‘So’ works so well was that the band was really firing off each other and we had a great sound and production team. It was compact in the process and the way it was put together.
One of the things I learned with Daniel Lanois is a total respect for the magic of the moment. When you have some spine-tingling event musically, you’ve got to capture it. I remember talking to Brian Eno about the Talking Heads record ‘Remain In Light’ and ‘The Great Curve’, I believe, is a track which was recorded on cassette from a band rehearsal because the band were really cooking at that point. They tried it again and again in the studio and never got it to feel as good. I think all musicians know that process, and you never really know when it’s hitting and when it isn’t, and I think one of the things that makes Dan’s records very strong is that there’s a real consciousness of when the performance is good. It’s quite difficult to spot because, you sort of hear what’s good in any particular thing and you forget whether the one before was actually a lot better or a lot worse. Holding all that emotional memory is quite hard.
PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn
‘In Your Eyes’ was the first thing that I’d recorded, I think, with Youssou and it was very important for that reason. It was around the time I was going to Africa and really getting inspired by a lot of the music I was hearing there, particularly rhythmically and vocally. I’ve described Youssou’s voice as “liquid gold” and I think when he comes in singing on that track it’s just a fantastic moment. We’ve since gone on to do a lot of other things, but that was one of the most exciting”.
What I love about So is that the energetic tracks such as Sledgehammer and Big Time balance seamlessly against the emotional, rawer numbers like In Your Eyes, Red Rain and Don’t Give Up – Kate Bush providing empyrean joint-lead vocals this time; a stunning and moving performance with Gabriel (the video is another work of genius that brings tears to the eyes!). I will bring in an interview with Gabriel reflected on So but, first, a couple of reviews. Here is what AllMusic have to say about So:
“Peter Gabriel introduced his fifth studio album, So, with "Sledgehammer," an Otis Redding-inspired soul-pop raver that was easily his catchiest, happiest single to date. Needless to say, it was also his most accessible, and, in that sense it was a good introduction to So, the catchiest, happiest record he ever cut. "Sledgehammer" propelled the record toward blockbuster status, and Gabriel had enough songs with single potential to keep it there. There was "Big Time," another colorful dance number; "Don't Give Up," a moving duet with Kate Bush; "Red Rain," a stately anthem popular on album rock radio; and "In Your Eyes," Gabriel's greatest love song, which achieved genuine classic status after being featured in Cameron Crowe's classic Say Anything.
These all illustrated the strengths of the album: Gabriel's increased melodicism and ability to blend African music, jangly pop, and soul into his moody art rock. Apart from these singles, plus the urgent "That Voice Again," the rest of the record is as quiet as the album tracks of Security. The difference is, the singles on that record were part of the overall fabric; here, the singles are the fabric, which can make the album seem top-heavy (a fault of many blockbuster albums, particularly those of the mid-'80s). Even so, those songs are so strong, finding Gabriel in a newfound confidence and accessibility, that it's hard not to be won over by them, even if So doesn't develop the unity of its two predecessors”.
Although I will not include everything from Pitchfork’s review, here are a few key exerts/observations:
“The first 20 seconds of So’s first single “Sledgehammer”—a trilling, echo-laden bamboo flute created by an E-mu Emulator II synthesizer—is just a feint before the song explodes into a sharp left turn: a ’60s soul rave-up. Gabriel’s latest revelation wasn’t rooted in geopolitics, but his own libido (“I wanna be your sledgehammer” is a classic R&B double-entendre). And though he could have easily programmed the song’s brassy trumpet hook into his synthesizer, Gabriel was an R&B aficionado who valued cultural authenticity, so he flew in Otis Redding’s 1960s sideman Wayne Jackson to play the chart. In Gabriel’s global mindset, Jackson was every bit the bearer of a distinct musical tradition as Katché. He called the duo’s participation “a commanding blend of parallel heritages.”
Gabriel tackled the opposite side of ballooning Western capitalism on “Don’t Give Up,” an emotional response to the growing sense of working-class British despair under the stifling austerity of the Margaret Thatcher era. Like Reagan in the U.S., Thatcher preached the gospel of free-market individual resilience in the face of the skyrocketing unemployment. While Gabriel sketches a despondent scenario about a man on the verge of losing everything, Kate Bush alights on the chorus, her empyrean voice offering sincere comfort: “Don’t give up/’Cause you have friends/Don’t give up/You’re not beaten yet.” Bush and Gabriel had collaborated before (she provided the eerie vocal counterpoint on “Games Without Frontiers”), and she had zoomed past him in his absence to the vanguard of experimental UK art-pop. Now, they held one another in a deep embrace for the length of the “Don’t Give Up” video, the perfect visualization of such a simple, compassionate sentiment, cradled by the gossamer chords of the CS-80 synthesizer. Though rooted in a very 1980s political reality, three-and-a-half decades later it is perhaps Gabriel’s most affecting song.
The heady emotional state of So was further complicated by the fact that Gabriel’s 15-year marriage was on the verge of collapse. His side-relationship with Rosanna Arquette was an open secret, and the album’s lyric sheet is rife with references to fledgling attempts at personal communication. Though “That Voice Again” has the album’s most appealing non-“Sledgehammer” chorus, it also contains the album’s most biting lyric, which could have been drawn straight from a counseling session: “I want you close I want you near/I can’t help but listen/But I don't want to hear/Hear that voice again.” In this context, the album’s inclusion of longtime concert staple “We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)”—named for the notorious psychological experiment that claimed to prove humans were innately predisposed to harm others—gains an added layer of resonance”.
In 2012, Gabriel spoke to Rolling Stone, as he was playing So on tour:
“Why do you think So managed to reach a much broader audience than your previous albums?
There was less sort of esoteric songwriting. I think they were simpler songs in some ways, but I think we caught a wave. They were done with passion and we had a really good team working on them. Then, of course, we had things like the “Sledgehammer” video, which helped enormously. It got us a wider audience. Also, the one concession I agreed to was to place an actual photo of myself on the cover rather than the usual obscured stuff I had been doing.
When you made So, did you try and make it more accessible, or that was just sort of a natural development?
I think that was a bunch of songs that were there at the time. With “Sledgehammer,” everyone thinks, “Oh, he must have created that to get a hit.” And it wasn’t done that way. In fact, [bassist] Tony Levin reminded me that he was packing his bags to go home, and I called him back into the studio, saying “I’ve got this one idea that maybe we can fool around with for the next record – but I like the feel.” That was “Sledgehammer.” It was late in the day and we just fell into the groove, landed a beautiful drum track on it, a great bass line and it all came together.
I think the video really helped get it to a different audience. I’ve not had many intersections with mass culture, so that was one occasion where that happened.
You didn’t release a follow-up to So for six years. Do you think that was a mistake? You sort of lost some momentum there.
I’m sure commercially it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I’ve never really worried about that. And to be honest, I think one of the reasons I’m still lucky enough to put out records and have audiences come to shows is cause I haven’t played that game very well. I think that consumer culture tends to be very hungry. It can’t get enough of you for a very short time and then your taste gets boring and they spit you out and take the next new thrill. And so, while it was never a predetermined strategy, I would probably recommend it to artists now if they want a long career. If you got something worth saying, if you’ve got something to put out, don’t worry about what the record company tells you. Take your time”.
I am going to merely mention Up (2002), the intriguing Scratch My Back (2010) and New Blood (2011) – and include songs from each album in the playlist at the end -, but 1992’s US is the first Gabriel album I came across. Steam – despite the fact it is very similar to Sledgehammer – boasts another majestic video, and it is one of Gabriel’s best songs I think. Although the album has some weaker moments, it does boast Digging in the Dirt and Blood of Eden (with Sinéad O'Connor). I will move on and wrap up soon but, before I do, a little information about US:
“US, which was released six years after the phenomenally successful So, was, at that time, arguably Peter’s most personal record yet as he stepped into the confessional to explore and dissect many of the relationship issues he was then experiencing. But US is far from just being bleakly introspective featuring several songs that have gone on to be amongst the most cherished in the Gabriel songbook.
The album also continued the now well-established Gabriel motif of mixing high technology with decidedly analogue contributions from musicians from West Africa, Egypt and Armenia. Reunited with Daniel Lanois as co-producer, Peter extends the hand of collaboration to Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Brian Eno, Peter Hammill and Sinead O’Connor.
“Although US was not nearly as big a seller as So, I’m pleased that it is now getting better regarded, with hindsight, and I think it has some of my best songs on it.
Part of the idea of using US, other than the fact that it was another two-letter title which doesn’t give me huge room for variation, was the sense that there is a dividing line between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The further back you can push the dividing line, the less problems the world is going to have. The more people you feel compassion, sympathy and understanding for the better. It’s very easy to fall into a state of mind where you just put blame and responsibility on other people and you don’t connect with them. I know that my life works much better when I don’t do that”.
Whilst US gained some mixed reviews, I think it contains some of Gabriel’s most interesting material - including Digging in the Dirt and Secret World. Here is what The Los Angeles Times said in 1992 when US was released:
“Temporarily setting aside his social conscience, Gabriel is using the title pronoun not in the we-are-the-world sense, but as an umbrella for writing about couples and about his own failed relationships. He explores his lack of self-esteem and sees as much division as unity in love, more than once going back to the Garden of Eden for imagery to describe a split between the sexes that seems all but unmendable.
The album’s thematic cohesion in this regard puts it in marked contrast to 1986’s “So,” which had such variance it was like a greatest-hits album. There are a couple of attempts here to update the horn-driven fun(k) of “Sledgehammer” (most notably the near-sound-alike “Steam”) that provide a lively break in the sonorous soul-searching. But it’s the dominant consistency of Gabriel’s more quietly revelatory material that is the album’s artistic strength, and potentially its commercial weakness.
Though most of his musical tricks no longer come as surprises to anyone familiar with “So” and the instrumental album “Passion,” you do have to marvel more than ever at how seamlessly and unshowily he integrates the plethora of world-beat guest players into his ethereal post-art-rock sound. Just as you have to admire the former pop philanthropist of the year for making a melancholy chorus out of the refrain “I love to be loved”.
Not only has Gabriel recorded solo studio albums, he has also written several soundtrack albums: Birdy (1985), Passion (1989); the underrated OVO (2000), and the excellent Long Walk Home of 2002. Peter Gabriel’s genius and importance extends beyond music. Gabriel has been a champion of World music for much of his career. He co-founded the WOMAD festival in 1982. He has continued to focus on producing and promoting World music through his Real World Records label. Gabriel has also been involved in numerous humanitarian efforts. In 1980, he released the anti-apartheid single, Biko. He has participated in several human rights benefit concerts, including Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour in 1988, and co-founded the Witness human rights organisation in 1992. Gabriel developed The Elders with Richard Branson, which was launched by Nelson Mandela in 2007 (information taken from his Wikipedia page). In 2013, Gabriel spoke with The Telegraph about his music and the album, I’ll Scratch Yours – where a range of brilliant artists covered some of Gabriel’s best-known songs:
“Although Gabriel’s photograph may not be hanging there in reception, and it is decades since his Sledgehammer heyday, you sense the industry might quietly have a lot to thank the former Genesis singer for. It was him after all who, while most record companies were burying their head in the sand about digital music and downloading, invested in services that allowed people to buy music online easily and later on to listen to records via streaming.
In 2003 he warned that “the music industry is the canary down the coal mine and, unless we do something about it, will be the first to be extinguished by the gases of file sharing.” Is he surprised it’s still here then, I ask him? He laughs: “I’m pleasantly surprised to find there is more than a receptionist, a computer and a boss, because that is what I was expecting the record industry to end up as.”
If anything, the sheer variety of styles reveals new depths to Gabriel’s own songwriting. Arcade Fire’s take on Games Without Frontiers makes it sound like a Clash song, reminding you that Gabriel was one of the few prog rockers who withstood the ire of the punk movement.
Perhaps the hardest challenge was presented to Feist and Timber Timbre who took on Don’t Give Up, Gabriel’s duet with Kate Bush. To avoid direct comparison, Gabriel suggested they switch gender on the words, and Feist’s delicate, folk-tinged delivery has hints of Dolly Parton, the singer Gabriel first had in mind when he wrote the song, influenced by the Great Depression.
Bush, he says, hasn’t heard the new version. “I should send it to Kate because that song is very much hers as well. I was very lucky that she did it. It has some extraordinary stories attached to it, people who say it stopped them committing suicide. It is that loving tenderness that come out of her voice that nails it”.
There are articles dedicated to Gabriel’s role as a digital innovator; he has talked about reworking his back catalogue and, as we prepare to celebrate the seventieth birthday of a brilliant artist, activist, and pioneer, many are asking whether we will see any new material from Gabriel. You can check his official website and over on his Twitter account for all the latest news and happenings. I would suggest people look back at classic interviews and deeper conversations; videos where he talks about his past, and great interviews like this. I know Gabriel is keeping busy, and we might be lucky enough to hear some new music soon enough. (He has inspired so many artists).
Gabriel is a prolific talent, but 2010’s excellent Scratch My Back was his first studio album since 2002’s Up. Despite the fact Gabriel did not release a lot after Up, there was always that fascination and interest - not just from his fans but from the media as well. Gabriel was interviewed and featured by The Arts Desk in 2011 ahead of the release of his album, New Blood (it consists orchestral re-recordings of various tracks from throughout Gabriel's career). It is a fantastic and underrated album, and one that a lot of people pass over when they talk about Gabriel’s work. In the interview, he was quizzed about the gaps between albums:
“The last three studio albums with new material have been So in 1986, Us in 1992 and Up in 2002, while last year saw a project in which he did cover versions of songs he liked called Scratch My Back (the idea was that the covered artists would then do a cover of a Gabriel song in return).
PHOTO CREDIT: York Tillyer
Perhaps one of the problems is that he has his own studio, so there are no time limits. The Beatles, after all, used to record an album in one day in the early years. “I’m a master of distraction, that’s true. But on the other hand, I have an interesting life, and in the long run that is what nourishes you. If I’d been on a commercial trek of doing album-tour-album I would have got tired very quickly of it.”
If he absolutely had to do an album in 10 days he probably would, I suggest. “I did think of doing a song a day, and if I had to I think I could do it. There would, of course, be a ton of crap but some good stuff as well.”
In fact, he just wrote a song in a day, dedicated to Archbishop Desmond Tutu for his 80th birthday. Tutu is the Chair of The Elders, an idea by Gabriel and Richard Branson for an informal group which they developed when they met Nelson Mandela. As leader, Mandela brought in Mary Robinson, Jimmy Carter and others. As Gabriel said of rationale of The Elders "In traditional societies, the elders always had a role in conflict resolution, long-term thinking and applying wisdom wherever it was needed. We are moving to this global village and yet we don't have our global elders." The likes of Tutu and Carter are able as he says "to speak truth to power." and cites Tutu outspokenly criticising the ANC this month for denying the Dalai Lama a visa to visit South Africa. Their website mentions numerous collective and individual interjections on questions like child marriage and the situation in Zimbabwe. How effective it is remains to be seen, but the slightly lunatic ambition of of it all is pure Gabriel.
The good news on the music front for Gabriel fans is that, “there is a quite a lot in the can. If I can clear the time and hold it…” he pauses. “The problem is more the lyrics - generating the initial idea is not a problem but finishing lyrics I am happy with is”.
I haven’t talked a lot about Peter Gabriel’s film work but, last year, he released PG. It is a stunning collection of songs that shows how evocative his music is on the screen:
“Rated PG is a collection of Peter Gabriel songs from the movies.
Having always loved the combination of film and music (aged 17 he gave up a place at film school to pursue a career in music) Peter Gabriel’s first opportunity to really marry these twin interests came when he was asked to create the music for Alan Parker’s film Birdy in 1985. Further film work, including his music for Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (that became the album Passion) and the soundtrack to Philip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence (released as the album Long Walk Home), has continued to feed that interest.
“I have always loved film and any chance I have been offered to work with good film projects and good directors I have jumped at. This is a mixture of songs that have been written for specific films, and existing songs that found an appropriate place in a story. Consequently, there is a mix of different styles and moods.” – Peter Gabriel
Alongside those longer soundtrack commissions Peter Gabriel has also regularly contributed songs to a diverse range of movies and Rated PG explores this other connection forged by Peter between his music and film.
Rated PG is an opportunity to bring together in one place, for the first time, a selection of songs written especially for, or used to notable effect in, movies and includes new and previously unreleased versions, otherwise unavailable songs and a brand new track.
Originally released for Records Store Day in April 2019, where the album was a single LP picture disc in a die-cut sleeve. Numbered and limited edition. Due to the nature of the picture disc manufacturing process the sound quality may not be comparable to our recent black vinyl releases, though every effort has been made to make this LP sound as good as possible within the limitations of the picture disc format. For the audiophiles amongst you a hi-res download code is included”.
Peter Gabriel spoke to the brilliant Matt Everitt of BBC Radio 6 Music last year (I shall mention Everitt again in a second), and he discussed why there have been long recording gaps in recent times:
“To promote his new film song LP Rated PG (see here), Peter Gabriel was interviewed on BBC Radio 6, which was aired yesterday.
Peter said about taking a longer break in recent years: "...my wife was ill for a while, so I'd slowed down and being a carer a good while, but now I'm very happy to say she's doing very well, so I'm getting back into music making and really loving it."
About the kind of stuff he is currently working on: "...and there's is about 50 ideas I'm working on - working in my usual snails pace – but there will be something coming out soon and all this time I had been working on new stuff so there should be ... I mean there is stuff that comes through for films, like the Snowden song and then you have Down To Earth, and there was a film about religion etc."
About a new record: "... I'm hoping to get the songs nailed by the end of this year and then open it up to the band and get a record out."
About the style and atmosphere of the new material: "Well I think that hose two songs, Show Yourself and the Snowden one, are slightly over direction but there's a wide bunch in there, so it depends on what makes the final cut. And I'm also trying to do some simple piano versions of things which I don't know being enough to make a whole record or not, but that's something I'm looking at".
I am going to end this feature in a second, but there are some truly great podcasts like Peter Gabriel: Genesis of a Rock Star and this fantastic installment from All Songs Considered; Gabriel chats about his career, and his music tastes are put in the spotlight. This year, WOMAD starts on 21st February in Chile, and it is a festival Gabriel is passionate about.
If you have not purchased Matt Everitt’s excellent book, The First Time: Stories & Songs from Music Icons, then make sure you grab a copy! I wanted to end with a couple of snippets from it because, when it comes to Peter Gabriel interview, one learns something new from each one. Everitt mentions, in the introduction to the interview in the book, how Gabriel does not recall when he met him (Everitt the first time). Everitt’s band, Menswear, were recording at Real World studios near Bath (for Nuisance, I assume), and they had made a mess of Gabriel’s recording facility; behaving “like total idiots” and “inviting local kids over for parties”. Gabriel was cool about it and, throughout the introduction, one thing is clear: Peter Gabriel is a Very. Cool. Guy. It turns out, when Everitt mentioned their first encounter in 1995, Gabriel was fine about it - “It was much worse when The Libertines, and Shaun Ryder and Black Grape visited”, as it happens! It is worth getting Everitt’s book to read this interview (and all the others), but it is his first question that I wanted to quote:
“Matt Everitt: The first thing we always ask everybody is when were they first aware of music as a kid.
My mum’s family were all musical, so Christmases were full of songs and different people playing piano, particularly. My mum still plays ‘Buttons and Bows’.(Dinah Shore, 1948) - that was probably the first melody.
I grew up around music, and church music had a significant impact.
I loved some hymns - not all of them, but when they were good, they were fantastic. And I remember at school we used to scream our hearts out with the right hymns. I would come into the chapel with my bells hidden under my trousers. That was my musical-accompaniment skill”.
I am not sure whether Gabriel is planning any original material this year but, with WOMAD upcoming and his seventieth birthday on Thursday (13th), I am not sure. There are plenty of years ahead for Gabriel, and I am sure we will see some more brilliance from an iconic musician. Gabriel has come an awful long way since his young days at school where he would scream his heart out along to hymns. From his time with Genesis in 1967 until 1975, through his remarkable and varied career, Peter Gabriel has influenced so many artists and released some of the finest albums ever. I first encountered the magic of Gabriel as a child, and I have been beguiled, moved, and motivated by his music ever since. I think Gabriel is one of the most underrated artists ever, and I hope this feature - or parts of it - have highlighted his range and brilliance. Peter Gabriel deserves a lot of love, fresh inspection and affection on his seventieth birthday. His incredible back catalogue is among music’s best! Peter Gabriel, let there be no doubt about it, is an…
Thanks again, Peter. This artefact shall never leave the building. Its too heavy: https://t.co/HlTGHK1o9A
— Shaun Keaveny (@shaunwkeaveny) April 11, 2019
ABSOLUTE legend.