Peter Gabriel
Around the time Peter Gabriel's So album was flying high, there was a push on all his earlier albums too, but his first four are problematic by virtue of being untitled. The campaign therefore created a sort of sentence: Car scratch melt security. Live Birdy. It was quite a clever idea and the names seem to have stuck. At the time of writing the sentence now goes. "Car scratch melt security. Live Birdy. So passion us ovo. Long walk home up, scratch my back new blood", so you start to suspect that it's almost intentional.
Anyway, I'll do the studio albums and soundtracks, so we're including Birdy, Passion (The Last Temptation Of Christ), OVO (Millennium Dome show soundtrack) and Long Walk Home (Rabbit Proof Fence). To date I've seen none of these movies so it may be an opportunity to do that too.
PETER GABRIEL 1 (CAR)
Released: 25th February 1977
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel seems confused. He's just come out of Genesis following The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind which way to go next. To give him some thinking time, he starts here with what could be a Lamb outtake 'Moribund The Burgermeister'. It even has a title that wouldn't look out of place on any album by his old band. It has sweeping scope, complex arrangements and funny voices.
But Gabriel, isn't sure. Maybe instead he wants to do some fairly straightforward commercial pop? So we get the excellent 'Solsbury Hill' next. A song which I'm convinced mega-bouffanted 80's pop keyboardist Howard Jones pillaged quite heavily for his 'New Song'. 'Solsbury Hill' is where Gabriel shows that he might have quite a lot more to offer than the restrictions of being in Genesis allowed him to do. Incidentally, I think you can say the same of Phil Collins, which suggests that Rutherford and Banks might have been keeping a stranglehold on the band's direction.
However, before we go too far down that path, shall we try some anthemic rock now? OK. Here's 'Modern Love', which Bruce himself could have produced. Or maybe a bit of vaudeville? 'Excuse Me' could be the soundtrack to a Bob Fosse routine. Quiet introspection? 'Humdrum'. Or Bowie-style glam rock-out? 'Slowburn'. He even tries going a bit Randy Newman on 'Waiting For The Big One'. Perhaps most surprising of all is 'Down The Dolce Vita' which is in full-on Survivor 'Eye Of The Tiger' territory.
The closing track is 'Here Comes The Flood'. Background reading suggests that Gabriel feels it is overproduced, but I thought it was uplifting for all that.
So it's a bit of a mess. But it's a brilliant, interesting and varied mess. There's no discernible theme and he really does seem to be just trying a few things out for size. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Moribund The Burgermeister
Solsbury Hill
Modern Love
Excuse Me
Humdrum
Slowburn
Waiting For The Big One
Down The Dolce Vita
Here Comes The Flood
PETER GABRIEL 2 (SCRATCH)
Released: 2nd June 1978
Peter Gabriel
Background reading has introduced a new (to me) term, 'Frippertronics'. I can't pretend that the explanation provided on Wikipedia was completely satisfactory, but it basically seems to be a tape looping technique involving some kind of Heath-Robinson arrangement of two reel-to-reel tape machines so that you end up with the sound overlaying itself, but with a delay, of length determined by the physical distance between the two machines (there's one tape, going from machine 1 to machine 2, you see). Anyway, Robert Fripp invented it and had used it in the past in collaboration with Eno and others, and, since he was producer on this album it gets used on the 'Exposure' track. In addition, Fripp sets the dedicated and thorough classic album blogger a further challenge by suggesting that Peter Gabriel 2 is part of a loose trilogy with Fripp's Exposure album (not available on Spotify, Fripp seems to be a resistor) and, in an unlikely twist, Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs album.
So what can I conclude about Frippertronics from 'Exposure' on this album? Well, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be listening out for. Gabriel's vocals are woozy and detached, there's lots of ambient swooshing going on and a kind of half-paced funk groove running through it. For comparison, the Daryl Hall track 'Urban Landscape' is supposedly the prime example on Sacred Songs, and it's easy to see the similarities although Hall's effort is even more abstract than Gabriel's. It's certainly not 'Maneater'.
For the rest, Gabriel starts strongly with a couple of good pop-rockers in 'On The Air', which has some shimmery Duran Duran style keyboard parts and the sole single 'D.I.Y.', which is easily the catchiest thing on here.
The E-Street Band's Roy Bittan is present for many of the songs and his piano is the lead instrument on 'Mother Of Violence' and 'Indigo'. He also drives along the most obvious all-out rock song that is 'Perspective'.
He attempts some light fuzzy electronic reggae on A Wonderful Day In A One-Way World, which is pretty successful, but it's disappointing that Johnny Morris giving voice to a grumpy orang-utan at Bristol Zoo does not feature on 'Animal Magic' (but it's a good song nevertheless).
In comparison to the Car album, Gabriel seems to be settling into something more consistent now, which is to say it's much harder to view this as a kind of PG tasting menu, where he gives you a sample of a number of different directions he might go in. This is much more a straightforward 'rock' album. I daresay Fripp's fingerprints are all over it, which might explain why it hangs together better than its predecessor. However, it wasn't really as commercially successful as the albums on either side of it, evidenced by the lack of any song you'd hear on the radio today.
On The Air
D.I.Y.
Mother Of Violence
A Wonderful Day In A One-Way World
White Shadow
Indigo
Animal Magic
Exposure
Flotsam and Jetsam
Perspective
Home Sweet Home
PETER GABRIEL 3 (MELT)
Released: 23rd May 1980
Peter Gabriel
"She's...so POP-u-lar" is not what he sings on 'Games Without Frontiers', although it's probably one of the classic misheard lyrics. I was always quite intrigued about whether people from outside the UK got the references in the song to "Jeux Sans Frontieres" and "It's A Knockout". To anyone growing up in Britain in the late seventies and early eighties the connection was obvious - and a bit puzzling. Anyway, in case you don't know, Jeux Sans Frontieres (i.e. Games Without Frontiers) was a TV programme in which teams from various European towns and cities represented their country in a serious of stupid events which often involved getting dressed up in oversized foam rubber costumes, running up liberally greased sloped surfaces, collecting buckets of water and filling up clear perspex containers with their buckets that magically made the water take on the team's colour. Gennaro, the Italian chief judge, would then come along with his dipstick and declare the winner of the game. I'm not making this up, think of it as a dada-ist take on Gladiators. Each country had it's own version and the winners of those shows went on to compete in the Euro series. In the UK, the show was called "It's A Knockout", and the presenters were Yewtree-disgraced news and sport presenter, Stuart Hall with no-nonsense Rugby League commentator Eddie 'Up-and-Under' Waring in the Gennaro role. 40 years on and we have Brexit. Talk about a warning from history.
All of this has little to do with the song, which is on this album. It's indicative of the direction that Gabriel is going now and the much more centred nature of the record. As a song it's political, catchy and not difficult to follow. None of which attributes you'd have easily given to any of his previous work. Anyway, I was going to look up all the name references in 'Games...', but you know, life is far too short. I can guess who Adolf is. It's a clever song I think, about the childishness of modern politics (although one blog I stumbled across was certain it was a satire on the Olympics) and it includes RockOdysseys-approved whistling, although probably from a synth. Backing vocals from the lovely Kate too, who can also be spotted on the excellent 'No Self Control'.
It's also paired up with 'Biko' which closes the album, which, formed part of the triumvirate of songs that gave voice to the anti-apartheid campaigns of the time, along with Special AKA's 'Free Nelson Mandela' and 'Sun City' by the snappily named 'Artists United Against Apartheid'. (No-one counts Eddy Grant and 'Give Me Hope Joanna'). There's something very pure and direct about his opening line "September '77, Port Elizabeth weather fine", which is innocuous and yet tells you that the song is factual. The next one sends a chill "It was business as usual in Police Room 619". It also heralds Gabriel's interest in what, in the western-centred eighties, we called 'World Music' - basically anything that didn't have it's roots in American blues. The African choir at the start and the chanting is compelling, and his closing "And the eyes of the world are watching now" was right on the money.
The thing is, everything else on this is pretty great too. I'd say he was out-Bowie-ing Bowie at this point in time. There's plenty of Scary Monsters style industro-funk on 'I Don't Remember' and 'Not One Of Us'. But he also taps into some of the styles that had served him well into the past. 'Family Snapshot' is a narrative song of the type he used to occasionally pull off with Genesis but it's more punchy and focused than any of that previous stuff. He jumps straight out of that into the driving 'And Through The Wire'. So I reckon that this could well be his Meisterwerk, although I know there is plenty more good stuff to come.
Intruder
No Self Control
Start
I Don't Remember
Family Snapshot
And Through The Wire
Games Without Frontiers
Not One Of Us
Lead A Normal Life
Biko
PETER GABRIEL 4 (SECURITY)
Released: 6th September 1982
Peter Gabriel
On the blog Facebook page, after I posted the 'Car' piece, the question was asked as to which was Gabriel's best song, suggesting that he'd peaked right at the start with 'Solsbury Hill'. Traffic on the page is light at best, in the grand scheme of things it's a barely maintained farm track, but the other suggestion which came in, with some support, was 'San Jacinto'. I can see the point, it's about as Gabrielly a song as you could hope for and it's begging out for a '(I Hold The Line)' bracketed suffix, so you can remember which one it is. It would be the standout track on another great album, if it were not for 'Shock The Monkey', which gets the edge for that award by virtue of simply being better known.
The best way I can describe the feel of it all is heavy electronica. Gabriel delivers in spades when it comes to the requirement for musical progression, and he takes it in an intriguing direction too, managing to up the 'World Music' content (it's a terrible term and I don't like using it but it serves in the context of the time) by merging it with the latest sound-making technology. Everything seems to have a tribal beat under the synths, while his vocals seem to be phasing in and out on most of the songs. 'Kiss Of Life' is a great example, it's all samba beats and really quite jolly, whilst still leaving you not quite sure if there's something darker going on. The exception to all this is 'Wallflower', a piano led slow-build ballad-anthem of defiance against, well, I'm not sure what. Doctors seem to be involved somehow.
Alternatively you could say that it's like a series of preliminary studies for what would all come together into the So album. The style of the songs are similar, but they feel like the bare bones of something that he would flesh out later. 'Lay Your Hands On Me' is the best example of what I'm struggling to describe.
I couldn't figure out the cover art, so I looked it up. It's Pete's face but distorted with mirrors and lenses by artist Malcolm Poynter. He looks a bit like Darth Vader sans-helmet in Jedi, but I guess the idea is that it resembles a tribal mask.
The Rhythm Of The Heat
San Jacinto
I Have The Touch
The Family And The Fishing Net
Shock The Monkey
Lay Your Hands On Me
Wallflower
Kiss Of Life
BIRDY
Released: 18th March 1985
Peter Gabriel
The rule is, studio albums only and soundtracks are usually ignored. There have been some exceptions, Bowie's Labyrinth was irresistible and Give My Regards To Broad Street felt necessary and I've also done a couple of concert movies. However, Gabriel's soundtracks seem to be viewed as much more a part of his overall canon, so in addition to this I'll do Passion and Long Walk Home. But, the problem with soundtracks is that they are of necessity, mainly instrumental, and I like some lyrics to get my teeth into. So what I'm doing is watching the movies to get some context, and also some additional material to work off. So it's Film Studies Amateur Hour!
I've never seen the movie before and knew little of it. In fact, the main thing I did know was that I'd heard it discussed as a candidate for the most jarring ending ever. It's an Alan Parker film, the two others of which spring to my mind are Bugsy Malone and Pink Floyd's The Wall, so I think it was a fair assumption that it might fit somewhere between those extremes. The album is indeed, very much Gabriel-ish soundscapes, plenty of tribal drumming and a moderately oriental feel, which, since I knew Birdy was about the experience of two young friends in Vietnam, probably led me to believe that much more of it would be set there than is actually the case.
The plot: Al (Nic Cage - having a good acting day in this particular case) and Birdy (Matthew Modine - looking so young it's hard to reconcile him with his silver-haired sinistro from Stranger Things), become friends in South Philly after Al keeps knocking his baseballs into Birdy's mum's garden where they are instantly confiscated. Birdy is so-called because, well, he dreams of being a bird. I think we must assume he's autistic in an age where no-one used the word. Al is a much more straightforward proposition. Good with the girls, checking himself out in scooter wing-mirrors and generally being Nicolas Cage circa 1984.
All this is intercut with them in an army psychiatric hospital after both have been wounded. Al has burned his face and so spends these scenes in a Phantom of the Opera bandage arrangement, Birdy is now the full-gone avian, perched naked on the end of his bed, cocking his head and dreaming of flight from his cage. Al's been brought in to try and snap him out of it. In the end he manages it, with the help of a case of confiscated baseballs.
Gabriel's music is used pretty sparingly. There are some set pieces in the film, a beautifully shot mental flight by Birdy across his South Philly neighbourhood has the track 'Birdy's Flight' presumably specially written for it, but more often there are snatches of the various tracks that are used to create mood in the reflective moments. But, of course, that's the purpose of incidental film music right? Gabriel has not really provided anything for the jollier, comic moments, so when Al cycles across a waste tip with Birdy on his handlebars and wearing a pair of wings in an attempt to fly, or when they assist the dog catcher in rounding up a posse of local mutts, Ritchie Valens' 'La Bamba' has to be drafted in.
The ending? It's abrupt, rather than awful. Birdy has just started talking to Al in the hospital, but Al, who is beginning to fall apart himself, attacks the military doctor and staff. They both escape Birdy's cell and ascend to the roof, pursued by the hospital staff. Al blocks up the door to the roof but while he is doing so, Birdy has climbed to the edge, spreads his arms and jumps. Distraught, Al runs to the edge screaming "Birdy!", but Birdy is just standing a few feet below on a second roof, turns and says "What?". Roll credits.
The animals in the movie get full credits too. 84 pigeons are credited, but not by name. Birdy's female pet canary Perta is just a number, but the male is apparently playing himself. Meanwhile a 'stunt canary' is employed and has a full named credit. I can only assume that Queepers is the pour thing that spends time in Hobbie's mouth. One can imagine the contractual wrangles that led to this particular section of the credits.
The soundtrack in isolation is worth listening to in it's own right. It's recognizably Gabriel and although there's no lyrical content, it's still rewarding.
At Night
Floating Dogs
Quiet And Alone
Close Up
Slow Water
Dressing The Wound
Birdy's Flight
Slow Marimbas
The Heat
Sketchpad With Trumpet And Voice
Under Lock And Key
SO
Released: 19th May 1986
Peter Gabriel
I touched on the cult of the mid-eighties uber-producers during the Solo Beatles odyssey in relation to McCartney releasing Press To Play, co-produced with Hugh Padgham a few months after this. Well Gabriel goes with the godfather of them all, Daniel Lanois, and it does lead to a similar effect of making the album something of a Lanois project as well as a Gabriel one. Lanois' style is to give everything an open, airy sound, so the lack of intensity that Gabriel was known for was noticeable and it's tempting to see So as a sell-out attempt to break into the mainstream. He did too, but I reckon he did it on his own terms with great songs underpinning it all, so the Lanois touch is complementary rather than smothering. 'That Voice Again' and 'In Your Eyes' in particular have Lanois' fingerprints all over them. Very much of their time. Any hint of 'World Music' is relegated to the outro of 'In Your Eyes'
.
As I've gone through so far, I can guarantee that once each album-proper has completed on Spotify, the next track it selects, which is always a Gabriel one, will be 'Sledgehammer'. I have mixed feelings. I'm not sure it's as interesting as any of his other well known songs and it's success must owe quite a lot to the video. It really has the feel of a 'lead single', possibly pushed for by the record company. But I might be wrong, I have no evidence to support the idea.
The other singles are a different story, he followed it with my nomination for best Gabriel song, 'Don't Give Up', dueting with the lovely Kate and standing on a hilltop in a close embrace with here while she comforts him in the video. I love the ending to the song, that kind of low key beat just fading off into the distance once everything that needs to be said, has been said.
There's a sort of absent-mindedness about 'Don't Give Up' and some of the other songs too. 'Mercy Street' and 'Red Rain' feel like Pete's rather detached from it all, even when he's presumably having a breakdown, but that contributes to making the record great, he doesn't seem to feel the need to over-emote in order to present the songs. He'd get nowhere on the X-Factor.
Maybe 'Big Time' is the exception, and a much better upbeat offering than 'Sledgehammer' with it's pokey-bassline and urgent vocal. It owes something to David Byrne and Talking Heads (latterly of this parish). Surely that's a collaboration that is long overdue?
He throws in 'We Do What We're Told (Miligram's 37), effectively an instrumental, and a reminder to any newcomers that might have been lured in by the singles that he can be a little odd at times. The cassette and CD has the Laurie Anderson collaboration 'This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)' just to drive the point home.
For the cover art, Pete has decided it's finally time to join the human race. And one last thing, did anyone ever consider offering him a throat lozenge?
Red Rain
Sledgehammer
Don't Give Up
That Voice Again
In Your Eyes
Mercy Street
Big Time
We Do What We're Told
This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)
PASSION: MUSIC FOR THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
Released: 5th June 1989
Peter Gabriel
I do this for relaxation, to expose me to music that is new to me and to try to keep the creative side of my brain in some sort of working order. However, I do sometimes find myself wondering if this whole blogging thing is actually driving me slightly bonkers and I'm ending up doing things that no-one would really choose to do if they stopped and thought about it for more than 5 seconds. Thus I have subjected myself to 2 hours 45 minutes of latter day biblical epic, in order to simply write 500 words or so about a soundtrack album that I've never heard before and, in all likelihood, will never listen to again. Now, that's not to say it's no good. I think it is actually very good indeed, and it would be a shame if I never went back to it at some point. On the matter of the movie, once is enough. I'm glad I ticked it off the list, but I doubt it has a treasured place on many people's DVD shelf.
Tackling the film first. It was controversial at the time because it positioned Jesus as a conflicted man subject to the temptations of the flesh, although, all the really juicy business comes in the last half hour when he's already dying on the cross. The idea that he was more of a mentally ill insurgent freedom fighter who seemed to suddenly gain magical powers after a somewhat trippy sojourn in the desert is quite interesting, but it never really takes off and eventually he's just a full-blown Messiah biffing about Judea and healing the sick with little more than spit and dirt. His rather trite Circle of Life goes from cross-builder-in-chief to the Roman occupiers to cross-occupier-in-chief to the downtrodden Judeans.
It's a Martin Scorsese effort, but it doesn't half clunk along, it must have been a thin year for Best Director nominations if he got one for this. Filmed in Morocco, you could well believe that they just took over the sets and costumes from Life Of Brian, sort of like a Carry On Cleo/Cleopatra arrangement, but in reverse. Harvey Keitel, with thick red beard is Judas Iscariot and all of the dialogue is delivered as if Jerusalem is the sixth division of New York City. Bowie turns up for three minutes as Pontius Pilate and rather distractedly decides quite quickly that there's not much he can do with this confounded nuisance Jesus Christ so packs him off to Golgotha with six-foot beam across his shoulders. It's Willem Dafoe in the title role. Sharp of tooth and desperate of mien, he at least knows how to suffer in a role. However, this is less than 30 years old. Sure we've come a long way, but casting a fair-haired, blue eyed white guy as a first-century Palestinian makes it look incredibly dated. They couldn't do it now.
The controversy comes while he's dying on the cross. Suddenly we are subjected to a 30 minute dream sequence in which his 'Guardian Angel' comes along, gets him down off the crucifix and leads him away to a life of domestic bliss, first with Mary Magdalene as his wife, with whom we see some mild nookie, and then, rather more daringly in my view, in what appears to be a bigamous relationship with Mary and Martha, sisters of the now-he's-dead, now-he's-alive, now-he's-dead-again Lazarus. But, of course, it's all a trick! He didn't get a last minute reprieve, it's just Old Nick having one last throw of the dice. He realizes eventually and submits to dying for all our sins. Whataguy.
Is it blasphemous, which is the only reason anyone remembers it? Well who am I to say? It seems mild and the context of the rumpy-pumpy is well explained. Although there's a disclaimer at the start that it is not based on the scriptures but on the book of the same name, once we get into the inevitable sequence of events, it's pretty conventional and respectful.
That's enough about the film. Gabriel is presumably employed for his 'ethnic' connections, but the problem to my mind is that the music is not really of the region it's supposed to be representing. The actual North African location seems to have been more of an inspiration. In this day and age it might well be called out as culturally insensitive, but at the fag-end of the eighties, if it had lots of drumming and wailing, then it was probably good enough to fit anything set from Casablanca to Delhi. If you ignore that, it's good stuff and it's used well in the film. There are some more urgent pieces that are deployed for the more pivotal moments, such as the Palm Sunday procession into Jerusalem (with Dafoe daintily perched side-saddle on a tiny donkey). He's got he cream of his WOMAD cronies in as well, Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal are all present and correct. I'm tempted to claim that Gabriel's soundtrack is the best thing about the whole endeavor. It adds a level of interest and modernity to what is actually a pretty conventional Hollywood epic.
It makes you wonder about the running order decisions for something like this. The music is scattered across the film, but placing 'Gethsemane' second tells you that the album is not really arranged in any 'story order'. I guess it's just done how it seemed to fit best.
The Feeling Begins
Gethsemane
Of These, Hope
Lazarus Raised
Of These, Hope - Reprise
In Doubt
A Different Drum
Zaar
Troubled
Open
Before Night Falls
With This Love
Sandstorm
Stigmata
Passion
With This Love - Choir
Wall Of Breath
The Promise Of Shadows
Disturbed
It Is Accomplished
Bread And Wine
US
Released: 27th September 1992
Peter Gabriel
I'd forgotten about 'Steam' and yet it was a reasonable hit back in 1992, reaching number 10 in the UK. It feels like he's trying the Tubular Bells II trick (also known as the Force Awakens gambit) on this album, basically recreating So all over again. 'Steam' is the most obvious pointer in that it seems to be another 'Sledgehammer'. I had it in my mind that the video was pretty similar too, and in some ways it is, although having now watched it, I didn't really have much recollection of what went on in it. I daresay it's satirical. At least I hope so because otherwise it's Gabriel straying rather too close to Benny Hill territory in his treatment of women. MTV was still king around the time of release though, so getting put on the heavy rotation playlist might have been a driver for having lots of attractive young ladies in your video. Also, Gabriel manages to look uncomfortable, even when he just has to stand there and smile while the producers smear the latest video graphics technology all over his phizog. His purple suit and white platforms are a triumph however and, if it is just an up-tempo loss-leader for a more introspective album, then it does the trick.
Steam is quite different from the rest though. 'Come Talk To Me' has an opening skirl of bagpipes but in places becomes indistinguishable musically to 'Biko' through the African drum beats and general rise-and-fall of the melody. Meanwhile 'Blood Of Eden' might be intended as the new 'Don't Give Up' since it seems to be about self-doubt again and pulls in Sinead O'Connor to provide the Bushy accompanying vocals. Do I sound like I didn't really rate them? Not true. They're both good songs, but Gabriel is not showing much sign of having moved on from So. Lanois is producing again, and his grip on the overall sound has tightened over the intervening 6 years. This really does sound like a Daniel Lanois album and the vague airy-fairyness does spill over a tad too much in 'Only Us'. 'Fourteen Black Paintings' is inspired by the work of Mark Rothko. If he was aiming for bleak, existential angst, then you can't fault his artistic ability.
Surprisingly, 'Steam' wasn't actually the lead single off the album. That was 'Digging In The Dirt' which is an odd choice as it's a bit of a dirge which doesn't really go anywhere. It certainly wouldn't have troubled the number 1 single in the UK at the time of it's release, 'Ebeneezer Goode' by The Shamen. Pete absolutely missed the boat when it came to Acid House and rave culture. The other single was the rather more fun 'Kiss That Frog', which came with another video overloaded with visual effects and toothsome young women.
I'm tempted to say that if So and Us had been released in reverse order, this might be viewed as the better album, but as it stands, it feels like too much of a re-tread, especially after a 6-year gap.
And still, no-one has pointed out to Pete that Strepsils are inexpensive and readily available from all good pharmacists.
Come Talk To Me
Love To Be Loved
Blood Of Eden
Steam
Only Us
Washing Of The Water
Digging In The Dirt
Fourteen Black Paintings
Kiss That Frog
Secret World
OVO
Released: 12th June 2000
Peter Gabriel
Problems problems. I was in two minds about this one anyway. I've already gone above and beyond in including movie soundtracks and this is the soundtrack to what is effectively a stage show. What's more, while I guess the show that ran throughout 2000 at the Millennium Dome in London is not necessarily viewed as a flop, the whole venture is not really the subject of misty-eyed nostalgia either. However, the completist in me won over, so I've committed to including it.
Next issue. Not on Spotify. So this is going to be a YouTube jobbie, which means it gets perfunctory attention. It probably also needs the visuals, but that's a step too far, and anyway, Gabriel is a genius right? So it's gonna stand on its own without difficulty.
It starts with what I guess is a kind of overture - 'The Story Of OVO'. It's got Neneh Cherry on it, definitely, and it lays out the story. A kind of doomed romance in the Romeo and Juliet vein between Sophia of the earth people and an unnamed "Sky-boy", from , you guessed it, the sky people. It's quite engaging really. It's obviously one half of an artistic whole and the presumable accompanying interpretive dance probably added a lot to the sense of it.
Once we get into the album proper, there are some nice moments. 'The Time Of The Turning' features a great vocal by Richie Havens, supported by Alison Goldfrapp doing a pretty good Kate Bush (in fact, it's hard to avoid the suspicion that he'd prefer Kate was doing all the female vocals, Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins also provides a credible stand-in on 'Downside Up'). It's reprised after
'The Man
Who Loved The Earth/The Hand That Sold Shadows' and morphs into a very jolly 'Weaver's Reel' which quite cleverly weaves (d'you see?) a kind of middle-eastern sound into it toward the end.
There's proper Gabriel songs too. 'Father, Son', evokes the similarly titled Cat Stevens song and 'The Tower That Ate People' revisits his more upbeat stuff like 'Sledgehammer' and 'Steam'.
So, rather like Passion, this succeeds as a PG album without the need to reference the visual accompaniment.
The Story Of OVO
Low Light
The Time Of The Turning
The Man Who Loved The Earth/The Hand That Sold Shadows
The Time Of The Turning (reprise)/The Weaver's Reel
Father, Son
The Tower That Ate People
Revenge
White Ashes
Downside Up
The Nest That Sailed The Sky
Make Tomorrow
LONG WALK HOME (MUSIC FROM THE RABBIT PROOF FENCE)
Released: 17th June 2002
Peter Gabriel
It's funny where doing this can take you. I've already got around to The Last Temptation Of Christ, which is a movie I would probably have never made time for otherwise, and now I've compelled myself to watch 2002 Phil Noyce offering Rabbit Proof Fence. I was only vaguely aware of it beforehand, knowing that it was considered awards-worthy when it was released and therefore probably just worthy full-stop. It's obvious why Gabriel would be considered for the soundtrack. The story is of the suffering of a native people under oppressive colonial power, so his World Music credentials are a good fit. However capturing the feel of Australian aboriginal music must have been a challenge, especially for someone grounded in the rhythm of western popular music. There is some traditional singing in the film and it's about as far away from anything you might hear on Top Of The Pops as you are likely to get.
The movie itself centres on three half-white, half aboriginal girls who are removed from their families by old no-lips himself, Sir Kenneth Branagh. The policy in 1930's Australia was that such children were under the protection of state. It's all quite sinister, the agenda seems to be to get them away from the native population in order to breed the aborigine out of them. Branagh actually walks a fine line between misguided but well-meaning bureaucrat and cold-hearted fascist - you do get a sense that his character really believes he's working in the best interests of the children. The girls escape from the camp where they are being held and attempt to walk back to their families. The Rabbit Proof Fence of the title runs the length of Australia and the girls know it passes their home, so once they find it, they follow it. Meanwhile they're tracked by a native man, Moodoo, who may not be quite so keen to find them and bring them back as his masters would like to believe. Two of the girls make it back to their mothers in the end, one being recaptured along the way.
It's a compelling narrative and an extraordinary story which would appear to be true, which means you have to believe that the girls survived in the Western Australian bush for several months and walked thousands of miles with nothing but the clothes they were standing up in.
Gabriel's soundtrack, like the ones for Last Temptation and Birdy, is quite sparse. It does make you wonder about the process for creating one. Does he see the scenes after they are filmed and create appropriate music around them? If so you would imagine that Pete, with his reputation for procrastination, would struggle with the inevitable deadlines. Or does he instead simply get some pointers - there will be a scene where the girls are captured after a short chase, so we need something to go with it. Or does he just create music that fits the overall setting? He's learned enough, and we've all moved on enough culturally too, to know that any old tribal beat simply will not do, but he doesn't go overboard on the didgeridoos either. It's recognizably aligned to the story, but not attempting to create new traditional music. There are some sung songs. 'Ngankarrparni - Sky Blue Reprise' which nicely uses aboriginal singers and plays over the end credits. The closing 'Cloudless' is the one track that you would probably recognize as a Gabriel piece if heard in isolation.
The other moderately interesting difference from the other two soundtracks is that this one seems to be in story order, so the pieces and their titles relate to how the film unfolds. Previously the track listing has seemed much more random.
Just one more question. That 'Rabbit Proof' Fence? It's basically a 1m high chainlink. Unless it's buried pretty deep I think it's unlikely that it was fit for purpose.
Jigalong
Stealing The Children
Unlocking The Door
The Tracker
Running To The Rain
On The Map
A Sense Of Home
Go Away Mr Evans
Moodoo's Secret
Gracie's Recapture
Crossing The Salt Pan
The Return - Pt 1, 2 and 3
Ngankarrparni - Sky Blue Reprise
The Rabbit Proof Fence
Cloudless
UP
Released: 23rd September 2002
Peter Gabriel
Sometimes, especially with these grand old men of contemporary rock, I find myself thinking that their efforts are just too dense and intricate to even justify an attempt at a short few paragraphs describing what I thought about it when I listened to it. It really starts to become a problem at the more recent ends of their careers. And so, with Up, which is considered his last fully original studio album, I'm again struggling to gain purchase on the material. But I liked it, and I'd say it's likely to be the kind of direction he'd have been driving Genesis if he'd stuck with them 25 years previously.
When confronted with this kind of problem, the best I can do is refer to the written material on the internet. The inclusion of his soundtracks has camouflaged for me that he had a 10-year lay off from straight studio albums between Us and Up. There is some continuation between Long Walk Home and Up in 'Sky Blue Reprise' and 'Sky Blue' from the two respective albums. They're actually fairly contemporaneous, with release dates only a couple of months apart, although this album was apparently crafted and honed over several years anyway. However in a musical time-traveling trick, he did manage to make it so the reprise predated the primary song. When I finally made the connection it was quite some mental itch that I finally managed to scratch, as I was feeling that Gabriel must have actually ripped off something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It's a great song too, and stood out on this along with the lengthy 'Signal To Noise' and 'The Barry Williams Show'.
This latter song certainly got the reviewer on AllMusic's goat, dismissed as a sore thumb of a record company-demanded single in the centre of the record. I didn't mind it, as a satire on daytime Jerry Springer-style shows it's fine, and the record doesn't suffer for something a bit more accessible cropping up in the middle.
The consensus on what it's all about is that old chestnut, death, but Gabriel's songs and lyrics are now so impenetrable, and presented in such a challenging way, that you really have to plug yourself in, turn off the lights and concentrate. I've listened to this over and over, and I still have little idea what it's really all about, but I'd still say it's worth sticking with it, if only to remind yourself that not all art these days is to be binged upon.
Darkness
Growing Up
Sky Blue
No Way Out
I Grieve
The Barry Williams Show
My Head Sounds Like That
More Than This
Signal To Noise
The Drop
SCRATCH MY BACK
Released: 12th February 2010
Peter Gabriel
I really enjoyed this, and it was a relief to listen to something much more accessible than Up, good as that was. The slight wrinkle is that Pete came up with an interesting concept, which relied on lots of other artists to take some time out of their busy schedules, and then couldn't quite pull it off. The idea is that Gabriel covers songs from a group of artists and puts them on an album, then his subjects pick one of his songs and reciprocate for a second album called I'll Scratch Yours. In the end some just didn't come through. It also poses a slight problem for me. I could be drawn into effectively listening to 4 albums here, The Gabriel Scratch My Back; The Original Songs of Scratch My Back, The Gabriel Versions of I'll Scratch Yours and the cover versions of I'll Scratch Yours. Well, bollocks to that. I'll stick to Gabriel's cover versions and give And I'll Scratch Yours a run-through, referring back to the originals if I need to.
The songs are spare throughout and it's a really effective approach, using just Gabriel's vocal and an orchestra. It's like all the colour has been drained away and they're in monochrome, but not in a bad way, more like they've been cut back to their lyrical essence. So Talking Heads' 'Listening Wind' acquires a clarity that is missing from the original, Bowie's 'Heroes' takes on an air of regret and Paul Simon's 'The Boy In The Bubble' loses all that jauntiness and reveals its dark heart. These are all songs where Gabriel transforms them into something completely new. He's a bit less successful with Elbow's 'Mirrorball' because it still sounds essentially like an Elbow song.
A song I didn't know, but which I think might be the best on the album is Lou Reed's 'The Power Of The Heart', if it wasn't gentle and tender when Lou did it then it is here and there's also Neil Young's 'Philadelphia' which seems to place the city of brotherly love somewhere in the South Yorkshire coalfields with it's mournful brass band accompaniment.
And I'll Scratch Yours is a corker of an album. All the reinterpretations are interesting and the song choices are great. No pandering to the obscurist here. Arcade Fire's 'Games Without Frontiers' is the most faithful to the original, almost sounding like a mash-up with Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill'. Some of the songs might really have been written for, or even by, the artist taking them on. Elbow's 'Mercy Street' is one, and the lyrics of 'Big Town' are revealed to be pure Randy Newman. Eno and Byrne do their stuff on 'Mother Of Violence' and 'I Don't Remember' respectively. On 'Don't Give Up', Feist appears to be being comforted by HAL 9000, in the form of Canadian band Timber Timbre, and it ends up feeling even more delicate than the original. That jolly old rom-com staple of 'Solsbury Hill' gets the Lou Reed treatment, and suddenly it seems to be about finding a quiet, remote place to shoot up. Paul Simon did 'Biko', which might be the only one that didn't really seem worth the rework. Gabriel's original drumbeats take some, well, beating.
They're both great albums. Even the slight imperfections where there was no song back from the covered artist adds a skewedness that is quite pleasing, although I'm sure we'd all like to have heard Bowie's 'Sledgehammer'
I've listed the tracks with their 'reciprocals' next to them. If there is no song title, there was no equivalent song on And I'll Scratch Yours.
Heroes (David Bowie)
The Boy In The Bubble (Paul Simon - Biko)
Mirrorball (Elbow - Mercy Street)
Flume (Bon Iver - Come Talk To Me)
Listening Wind (Talking Heads [David Byrne] - I Don't Remember)
The Power Of The Heart (Lou Reed - Solsbury Hill)
My Body Is A Cage (Arcade Fire - Games Without Frontiers)
The Book Of Love (Stephin Merritt - Not One Of Us)
I Think It's Going To Rain Today (Randy Newman - Big Time)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor - Blood Of Eden)
Philadelphia (Neil Young)
Street Spirit (Fade Out) (Radiohead)
And I'll Scratch Yours also has 'Shock The Monkey' by Joseph Arthur, 'Mother Of Violence' by Brian Eno and 'Don't Give Up' by Feist and Timber Timbre
NEW BLOOD
Released: 10th October 2011
Peter Gabriel
When you look at it in the cold light of day, Peter Gabriel hasn't produced any new studio material under his own brand for 17 years now. If you also consider that Up is hardly the most accessible piece of contemporary art to be unleashed on the world, you pretty much have to go back to Us in 1992 for any kind of public consciousness-troubling presence. This sort of continues his scratch my back project, being reinterpretations of a selection of his back catalogue with orchestral accompaniment and some new collaborations. So is there just nothing left in the tank? Or does he feel he's proved his point and the only thing left for him to do is try and improve on what he did before?
Whatever the reason, his songs are so strong, that this is still a superb, beautiful album. Just like on 'And I'll Scratch Yours' where the 'guest' artists didn't bother with stuff you weren't likely to know, Gabriel shows no shame in his more commercial efforts, although Wikipedia does suggest that he was reluctant to pull too much from So. When discussing Peter Gabriel 4 (Security), I mentioned that knowledgeable friends rated 'San Jacinto' as his best song. I reckoned 'Shock The Monkey' edged it on that album, but Gabriel pulls off a similar trick to what he achieved with 'Scratch My Back' and elevates it to a higher level with the orchestral backing here. It's the standout track on this album, but nearly everything else runs it a close second. He even breathes new life into some of the OVO stuff ('Downside Up' and 'The Nest That Sailed The Sky').
My least favourite part? Well apparently even Pete was a bit hesitant about doing 'Don't Give Up' without Kate, and I'm afraid I found her stand in, Ane Brun, really rather annoying. She does the cracked, delicate, Scandi-girl voice to the max. If it was me I'd still want the lovely Ms Bush's soothing tones telling me it was all going to work out in the end (although she probably went too far in sympathizing recently with the hapless British PM Theresa May). He was also seemingly reluctant to give 'Solsbury Hill' another turn and was going to separate it from the rest of the album by a Philip Glass style 3 minutes of silence. In the end he inserted a 'new track' 'A Quiet Moment' which is effectively 3 minutes of birdsong and, if you're listening on earbuds on a noisy London street, might as well be silence. It's a good version of 'Solsbury Hill' though, a little lighter in the voice, but the string accompaniment is nice. Spotify throws in the bonus download track 'Signal To Noise' from Up which kind of ruins the idea anyway.
So although he's done a lot of recycling for the last two albums, from my point of view it's worked quite well, like a reworked digest of his best bits from the previous solo albums. It also highlights his sheer consistency, even in the sense that New Blood feels like a perfectly coherent and meaningful album in its own right.
Will he ever do a new solo album of completely original material? Or will he simply continue riding around his estate on a Segway in his pac-a-mac? Maybe he get back together with Thotch?...I mean Genesis.
The Rhythm Of The Heat
Downside Up
San Jacinto
Intruder
Wallflower
In Your Eyes
Mercy Street
Red Rain
Darkness
Don't Give Up
Digging In The Dirt
The Nest That Sailed The Sky
A Quiet Moment
Solsbury Hill
Signal To Noise (Bonus Download)