FEATURE:
Eponymously Yours
PHOTO CREDIT: York Tillyer
turns seventy on 13th February, I have been thinking about his music and have already written a feature. I think Gabriel is an artist who is very underrated, considering the brilliance he has put into the world! I am not sure whether there will be much celebration on Thursday, but I hope there are a few nods and songs of his played on the radio. To continue my salute of a musical pioneer, I have collected together Gabriel’s five finest albums; those that you definitely need to own. Whilst there are a couple in particular that stand out from the pack, I think all five of these albums provide great spread and representation of an artist through the years. I am including only solo albums in this feature because I am celebrating Perter Gabriel’s work, rather than that of his former band, Genesis. Have a look at the selection below and familiarise yourself with the work of…
IN THIS PHOTO: Peter Gabriel in Bath in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith
A true great.
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Peter Gabriel 1: Car
Release Date: 25th February, 1977
Labels: Charisma (U.K.)/Atco (North America)
Producer: Bob Ezrin
Key Cuts: Modern Love/Slowburn/Here Comes the Flood
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” – AllMusic
Standout Track: Solsbury Hill
Peter Gabriel 3: Melt
Release Date: 23rd May, 1980
Labels: Charisma (U.K.)/Geffen (North America)/Mercury (Original U.S. L.P. pressing)
Producer: Steve Lillywhite
Key Cuts: Intruder/Family Snapshot/Biko
Review:
“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.
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.)” – The Quietus
Standout Track: Games Without Frontiers
Peter Gabriel 4: Security
Release Date: 6th September, 1982
Labels: Charisma (U.K.)/Geffen (U.S.)
Producers: David Lord/Peter Gabriel
Key Cuts: The Rhythm of the Heat/I Have the Touch/Kiss of Life
Review:
“Album number four had a lot to live up to. Starting with two of Gabriel’s most ambitious pieces, The Rhythm Of The Heat and San Jacinto, from the off it was clear that PG4 was taking the promise and the core elements of Melt even further. Gabriel’s voice was full, throaty and emotional, and the music – sounding simultaneously ancient and ultra-modern – had more space to roam and a greater dynamic range.
“Lyrics about Jung’s experiences in Africa, US cultural imperialism and the ritualistic nature of the seemingly mundane, mingled with the claustrophobic and poignant prisoner of conscience narrative of hymnal highlight Wallflower.
“As on Melt, Gabriel’s use of revolutionary instruments (like the Fairlight CMI, the LinnDrum and the Stick) served to illuminate his song’s contents rather than swamp them with pointless novelty.
“Like the album’s opening pieces, deep cuts Lay Your Hands On Me and The Family And The Fishing Net were as epic as anything Gabriel had written with Genesis, yet shared almost nothing of his former band’s musical vocabulary (or anybody else’s for that matter).
“PG4 was (and remains) a shining example of a truly rare thing, genuinely innovative genuinely popular music” – Louder Sound
Standout Track: Shock the Monkey
So
Release Date: 19th May, 1986
Labels: Charisma/Virgin/Geffen
Producers: Peter Gabriel/Daniel Lanois
Key Cuts: Red Rain/Don’t Give Up/In Your Eyes
Review:
“Thanks to his deep engagement with Jung, Gabriel believed that dream interpretation was the most important key to personal emotional transformation. “I take dreams very seriously,” he told Spin in 1986. “I think everyone should.” Imagery drawn from the unconscious suffuses So from the first verse of the first song, the U2-sized “Red Rain”: “I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream/I cannot make a single sound as you scream.” Dreams are the subject of “Mercy Street,” as well, inspired by a posthumously published work by Pulitzer-winning poet Anne Sexton. Sexton started writing poetry while recovering from a breakdown, and her therapist encouraged her to pull subject matter from her dreams. Gabriel was drawn to her poem “45 Mercy Street,” where Sexton recounts wandering through a dreamscape, looking for the imaginary address through which she could access a fictional idyllic past. With misty synths muting Djalma Correa’s ululating percussion, Gabriel offers an exegesis of Sexton’s work and then expands her narrative universe, ending with the poet peacefully sailing on the ocean with her father.
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” - Pitchfork
Standout Track: Sledgehammer
Passion (Soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ)
Release Date: 5th June, 1989
Labels: Geffen (U.S. & Canada)/Virgin/Real World
Producer: Peter Gabriel
Key Cuts: Gethsemane/ Lazarus Raised/ With This Love
Review:
“Passion is the belated release of Peter Gabriel’s two-LP soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s riveting, controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ. It works as both amplification of Scorsese’s obsessively vivid rendering of the biblical tale as well as an opportunity for hitmaker Gabriel to hop off the rock-industry merry-go-round for a while and experiment with some different rhythms and styles. In this way, Gabriel’s journey is just as deeply felt as Scorsese’s.
As evocative as Passion‘s twenty-one tracks are for those who have seen Last Temptation, the collection also stands as a testament to the breadth of Gabriel’s interests, as well as his talents. Quite simply, Passion is that rare progressive-rock album that isn’t so enamored of its own cleverness that all it does is show off its own technical achievements. Working with his usual collaborators (among them guitarist David Rhodes and violinist Shankar, as well as occasional contributors David Sancious and Youssou N’Dour), Gabriel conjures up moods that seem at once period specific (many of the tunes are expansions of centuries-old Armenian, Egyptian and Kurdish motifs) and up-to-date.
Cuts like “Gethsemane” and “Of These, Hope” successfully accommodate third-world melodies and cross-rhythms in a Western pop context. Passion is stirring, stunning stuff: You won’t hear it on the radio like you heard “Sledgehammer” or “Big Time,” but if you do search it out, you’ll find a piece of work by an artist who remains idiosyncratic without being obtuse” – Rolling Stone
Standout Track: Stigmata