FEATURE:
In Your Eyes
Peter Gabriel’s So at Thirty-Five
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BEFORE getting to a couple of reviews…
PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn
I want to bring together articles that look back at the incredible So. Released on 19th May, 1986, it was Gabriel’s fifth solo studio album. I think So was a more commercial move from Gabriel. Quite a sonic shift. His fourth eponymous album was put out in 1982. It completed a run of these quite experimental albums. On So, we can still hear some of that - though I think the fact he collaborates with artists (including Youssou N'Dour and Kate Bush) opened his music to a new audience. Producing alongside Daniel Lanois, I feel So is one of Gabriel’s finest albums. So turned Peter Gabriel from a cult artist to someone who was a mainstream star. It is his best-selling album, having been certified fivefold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). It is an album that is absolutely packed with songwriting genius. I don’t think the album has really dated at all. I want to first bring in an article from Ultimate Classic Rock. In the article (among other things) they look at Gabriel’s life pre-solo career and what So did for his career and status:
“Between his years as the freaky frontman for Genesis and his early solo outings, Peter Gabriel was already a rock star before making So. But the 1986 album transformed him into something entirely different and completely unexpected — a full-fledged pop star.
After leaving Genesis in 1975, Gabriel reinvented his art-rock approach in a new context, incorporating influences from the burgeoning New Wave and world music scenes over the course of four self-titled albums between 1977 and 1982. But while the funky single “Shock the Monkey” from his fourth album had made the Top 40, it still didn’t prepare him for the heights he would reach next time around.
So was the first album to which Gabriel had ever given an official title. But he gave people a lot more than that to hang onto. Gabriel’s fifth solo record turned out to be his most accessible and radio-friendly without sacrificing an ounce of the artistry he’d displayed on his earlier outings. It earned not only the admiration of the masses and the critics alike, but also four hit singles.
Gabriel had been a soul fan since his youth, but this was the first time he really brought an R&B influence to bear in his music in an overt way. “Sledgehammer,” the first single from So, is a sassy, soulful strut that finds Gabriel with tongue firmly in cheek delivering a series of not-so-subtle sexual metaphors. Heavily informed by his love of Otis Redding, Gabriel drafted erstwhile Redding trumpeter Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns to add some old-school soul cred to the track, which still managed to sound completely contemporary. Besides becoming an enormous hit, the song had a distinct Claymation video that became one of the most-played music clips on MTV.
“Big Time,” another ironic hit single, deals with the materialistic, acquisitive more-is-more philosophy so prevalent in the mid-‘80s. It’s less retro-minded than “Sledgehammer,” having more in common with Prince or Robert Palmer than anybody from the Stax stable. The churning, funky groove is driven by bassist Tony Levin’s unconventional “drumstick bass” (a bass struck with sticks rather than plucked).
Though Gabriel would never reproduce the phenomenal success of So on any of his subsequent albums, the record turned him from a rather cultish thinking-man’s rock star into a bona fide celebrity. In addition to occupying the pages of music magazines, he started turning up in celeb gossip rags that dished out details about his romance with actress Rosanna Arquette. The media suddenly noticed that when he wasn’t hiding behind weird makeup and creepy album covers, Gabriel was quite the photogenic character”.
I love Gabriel’s eponymous albums, though there is something both accessible and experimental regarding So that makes it a more satisfying and enduring listen. I don’t think Gabriel consciously set out to make a record to crack America or one that was overly-mainstream. As we can see from his official website, some people assume that, as So is his most successful album, that was his attention when putting it together:
“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.
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.
‘Red Rain’ is one of my favourite tracks from that record. It’s a good example of a band playing together with a lot of energy and again, I think from Daniel Lanois’ input, there’s a respect for the moment. So many times in studios you see people desperately trying to get the best possible sound, but they let the moment go because they want to get something right or fixed, or they know that this bit can be improved, but the moment is something instinctively that you feel and if you get that great performance everything else will bow to it. And you can fix a lot of things afterwards. But, if you get the best sound but you don’t get the great performance, you have nothing. And it’s so easy to forget that in the studio”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Key
I am going to wrap up in a bit. I have written about So before and its recording/legacy. Rather than tread over that ground, I thought it was important to nod to the album ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary on 19th May, in addition to coming at it from a slightly different angle. Before finishing up, a couple of positive reviews are required. This is what AllMusic observed in their review:
“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”.
Everyone is going to have different highlights from So. I love all the tracks, though I think Sledgehammer and Don’t Give Up, as obvious as it might seem, are the best tracks. There is not a weak moment on the album! It is testament to Gabriel’s consistency and talent that he was producing music of this quality nine years after his solo debut. Pitchfork were very positive in their review:
“In Your Eyes” is the moment where Gabriel fully fuses the personal, spiritual, and global impulses in his music. “On two recent trips to Senegal,” he told Spin, “it was explained to me that many of their love songs are left ambiguous so that they could refer to the love between man and woman or the love between man and God.” But on a platinum-selling album circulating through a global, billion-dollar pop industry, the primary reference of any song is always the star, and “In Your Eyes” is, at root, about Gabriel’s global voyage of self-discovery.
In 1986, N’Dour was already a living legend in his own country. A decade earlier, he was a primary force driving the creation of Mbalax, of the first truly Senegalese pop music. More recently, he’d shown his own willingness to engage in a trans-Atlantic dialogue, adapting the Spinners’ “Rubberband Man” into his own voice. But outside of West African music aficionados, N’Dour was still unknown. After So, that changed: Gabriel saw himself as not just N’Dour’s musical collaborator, but his promoter. He took N’Dour on tour with him and they collaborated several more times. There is no question that Gabriel made N’Dour a bigger star. The thornier question is what did N’Dour do for Gabriel? Was their relationship another example of pop and rock’s long legacy of colonialist absorption? An instance of music business market expansion exemplified by Gabriel starting his Virgin-distributed Real World label/studio in 1989? A simple act of earnest musical dialogue between kindred spirits? Yes. “I’m pleased to see that in most record stores…you see an African section now,” Gabriel said in 1986. “Maybe in another decade there’ll be a world-music section.”
In the mid-1980s, the intertwined forces of rapidly advancing communication technologies and the ever-expanding interests of capital had ushered in the era of “globalization.” To optimists like Gabriel and his pop peers Byrne, Sting, and Paul Simon, it was the dawn of a borderless, utopian era of cultural creativity and fluid identity. To critics, world music forwarded a notion of increased cultural diversity as a garish cover for the increasing centralization of Western economic power and expansion of global economic inequality. Like any popular music form that seeks to make a political statement, world music was founded on a contradiction. It was at once a marketing category designed to sell non-Western music to Western audiences, that also, at its best, could function as a form of cross-cultural diplomacy.
Gabriel fully understood his limits he was working within. “I don’t think we can change the world as directly as many people thought was once possible,” he told Spin. “What we can do is provide information and then let people make up their minds.” Gabriel’s focus on the individual’s role in global change reflected So’s twin fixations: psychological transformation and global communication. So became a blueprint for pop music do-goodery, a political statement executed through self-reflection, collaboration, and the best audio-visual experience money can buy”.
To honour one of the best albums ever turning thirty-five, I was keen to give a bit more information and some context. I wonder whether Gabriel will release another studio. 2011’s New Blood consists of orchestral re-recordings of various tracks from his career. I am sure he is keeping busy, though there are many who would love to hear another album from him (including me). It only leaves me to wish a happy thirty-fifth anniversary to…
A sensational and genius album.