Category: Peter Gabriel

Culled from the open recording days held at Peter Gabriel’s RealWorld Studios in the early to mid 1990s, Big Blue Ball isn’t really necessarily a Peter Gabriel album. Considering how frustrated some of his fans are with the lengthy wait between albums (and I’ll admit that I probably belong in that impatient category), Big Blue Ball may, as such, come off as a disappointment to some listeners. Gabriel doesn’t even perform on every track, even as an instrumentalist – in fact, over 50% of the album is Gabriel-free. So what’s in it for you, the listener? Why bother with Big Blue Ball?

Because even if he doesn’t play on a given track, there’s sort of an unspoken, unwritten stamp of approval that goes with the fact that Gabriel let these folks into the studio, period. Now, I will admit to a certain bias here: the material on which Gabriel does play/sing is the best stuff on Big Blue Ball by a long shot. But this doesn’t make the seven out of eleven songs where he doesn’t appear instant skip material. Gabriel’s penchant for encouraging ethnic fusion artists and trying to break various styles of world music out into wide exposure means that there’s actually more cohesion among the tracks than you might think.

And some of the artists heard here are legends in their own parts of the world. One can hear, in the hypnotically relaxing “Altus Silva”, the genesis of a sound that some of its musicians would later make their own under the name of Afro-Celt Sound System. I was pleasantly surprised to see former World Party one-man-band Karl Wallinger all over this album. Long, long ago, I remember reading in Rolling Stone that Tim Finn – circa his “ALT” collaboration with Liam O’Maonlai and Andy White – had participated in some sessions with Gabriel, and when Tim’s name didn’t surface anywhere on Up, I guessed that whatever he had worked on had been buried. But one of those recordings is the first track on here, and it’s a winner. Other standouts – with out without Gabriel – include, at long last, a definitive (and somewhat tweaked) release of the single “Burn You Up, Burn You Down” (which dates back to Up‘s release and really should have not only been on that album, but should’ve also been its lead single), as well as a song called “Exit Through You” whose percussion toward the end completely fascinates me. “Forest” and “Habibe” are engrossing world music tracks. In fact, the only track I consistently skip is “Jijy” – there’s nothing wrong with the song, but I have to be in a certain mood for rap, let alone rap in another language. But it’s still pretty catchy.

So while some fans expecting a full-on Gabriel album might be disappointed, there’s plenty of music to enjoy on Big Blue Ball. I get cranky about the huge gaps between albums in Gabriel’s repertoire, but this whole thing – with or without his direct influence – feels authentically Peter Gabriel enough that I’m happy with this until the next one comes along (and if that’s not enough, he also has a couple of songs on the Wall-E soundtrack album that aren’t on Big Blue Ball.) It’s a solid collection that’ll tide fans of Gabriel and world music in general over for a while – if you give it time to grow on you.

1. Whole Thing (5:29)
   featuring Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Tim Finn, Peter Gabriel, Karl Walllinger, Andy White
2. Habibe (7:14)
   featuring Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparkes
3. Shadow (4:29)
   featuring Juan Cañizares, Papa Wemba
4. Altus Silva (6:09)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Ronan Browne, Deep Forest, James McNally, Iarla O’Lionáird, Vernon Reid
5. Exit Through You (5:54)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger
6. Everything Comes From You (4:44)
   featuring Richard Evans, Joji Hirota, Sevara Nazarkhan, Sinead O’Connor, Guo Yue
7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down (4:32)
   featuring Billy Cobham, Peter Gabriel, The Holmes Brothers, Wendy Melvoin, Arona N’Diaye, Jah Wobble
8. Forest (6:18)
   featuring Levon Minassian, Arona N Diaye, Vernon Reid, Hukwe Zawose
9. Rivers (5:46)
   featuring Vernon Reid, Marta Sebestyen, Karl Wallinger
10. Jijy (4:01)
    Arona N’Diaye, Rossy, Jah Wobble
11. Big Blue Ball (4:52)
    Peter Gabriel, Manu Katché, Karl Wallinger

Released by: RealWorld
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 59:28

Peter Gabriel is such a busy performer, what with his occasional soundtrack songs (for such movies as Philadelphia and City Of Angels and his occasional soundtrack scoring (Long Walk Home, Birdy, Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ, etc.) and other projects which don’t quite qualify as solo albums (OVO). And it’s easy to forget, with all of that activity, that here we have a man who hasn’t really released a solo album in a decade. Let’s put that in perspective, shall we?

• When Us was released, I was still working part-time in radio.
• When Us was released, the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was still on the air, and it was still the only Star Trek series on TV. No one had ever heard of Babylon 5 or Xena.
• When Us was released, the Persian Gulf War had been over for a year – or so many of us thought.
• When Us was released, Britney Spears was still on the New Mickey Mouse Club, and Toad The Wet Sprocket was actually getting radio airplay.
• When Us was released, I was in my 20s, not my 30s.

Now, bearing in mind that Up has been “just around the corner” since 1998 or so, there’s a certain anticipation factor at work here as well. Given that Pete’s soundtrack work in the past decade or so has been exceptional, most of his fans were eager to hear what it would be like when the man would actually open his mouth and sing again.

Up was either going to be nothing short of a spiritual revelation, or a total disappointment.

Actually, it’s neither – it’s a good album, certainly, but in some ways Gabriel has yet to match the diversity and virtuosity of 1986’s So, the album which put him on the charts with “Big Time” and “Sledgehammer”. There’s a certain introspective murkiness that has dominated Gabriel’s work, both solo and theatrical, since 1989’s Passion, which was the project where he fell in love with Mediterranean soundscapes and instruments. There’s nothing wong with that, but sometimes that atmosphere just doesn’t lend itself to a great pop song like “Big Time”.

Up opens with “Darkness”, which smacks mightily of the first song on his third self-titled album. Almighty searing blasts of distorted guitar belie the song’s true nature, which gets much quieter as it goes on despite a paranoid lyric that made sense with the blasting intro of the song. Things get a little more lively with the outstanding “Growing Up”, which is a complex, jumpy tune in which two or three simultaneous lyrics occasionally overlap, especially in the last verse of the song.

“Sky Blue” is a quiet, ambient number (featuring guitars by none other than Peter Green) which had already been heard to a certain extent – a few tracks on Gabriel’s soundtrack project Long Walk Home previewed the awesomely atmospheric backing vocals of the Blind Boys Of Alabama, though here the power of those vocals is somewhat diminished. I can’t really explain, but on Long Walk Home, the Blind Boys came out of nowhere and made a quiet little cue a show-stopper; here, they’re just echoing a melody that Gabriel’s been singing throughout the song.

“No Way Out” is another quiet song with an alarming and arresting lyric – the simplest interpretation of which is that someone standing next to the person singing the song has been shot – featuring former Crowded House producer Mitchell Froom on piano and Gabriel himself on guitar (I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of Pete playing guitar). Froom’s presence is no surprise, as the entire album is mixed by Tchad Blake, who also lent a lot of atmosphere to the latter Crowded House albums.

The next track, however, makes “Sky Blue”‘s recycling of vocals pale in comparison: “I Grieve”, though a nice song (which almost feels like two wildly different songs glued together), was heard two or three years ago on the City Of Angels soundtrack. If anything, this is my biggest beef with Up – I was hoping to hear completely new material. “Sky Blue” I can handle – it was previewed on a soundtrack mere months before Up‘s release – but “I Grieve” is a few years older than that.

“The Barry Williams Show”, a slightly dated pop number whose lyrics address Jerry Springer/Maury Povich-esque talk shows, has already been widely heard as the album’s lead single. It’s probably the most radio-ready song on the album, but its subject matter has passed its sell-by date, and one wonders how long ago it was written. Maybe around the same time as “I Grieve”.

The next four songs may be the most interesting stuff on the entire album: “My Head Sounds Like That” (guest starring the uniquely spare brass sound of the Black Dyke Band, which made OVO‘s “Father, Son” the sentimental tear-jerker that it is), more of the Blind Boys of Alabama on the upbeat “More Than This” (not a remake of the Bryan Ferry song of the same name), the epic orchestral grandeur of “Signal To Noise”, and the brief and surprisingly quiet closing number, “The Drop”. The last of these four is quite a shocker compared to the rest of the album, as it primarily features Gabriel’s untreated voice accompanied by an untreated solo piano (there are some other ambient-ish sounds in the mix too, but they’re way down in the mix).

“Signal To Noise” features the wailing vocals of guest Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the strings of the London Session Orchestra, and the thundering wall of sound of the Dhol Foundation Drummers, but while the guest performers and the arrangement are very impressive, the basic melody itself and the sparse lyrics are almost like something out of Gabriel’s second or third album; it’s a simple song, nicely dressed up. And speaking of guest performers, I couldn’t help but notice that Jon Brion got a credit in “More Than This” – seems that even though he can’t get a major label to release that underrated (and finished) album of his, Brion’s getting plenty of attention from other musicians. That may be a higher compliment than record sales anyway.

Overall, Up is yet another intense Peter Gabriel listening experience, but in some places it’s curiously lacking the heart of his earlier works. And I’ll admit, Gabriel’s increasing tendency to borrow from his own back catalogue is becoming worrisome – this coming from someone who’d prefer to hear new material when he plunks money down on the counter for a supposedly new CD. Still, I recommend it – perhaps Up will be an instance of an album that finds new fans for Gabriel rather than living up to the wishes of his established listeners.

1. Darkness (6:51)
2. Growing Up (7:33)
3. Sky Blue (6:31)
4. No Way Out (7:53)
5. I Grieve (7:24)
6. The Barry Williams Show (7:16)
7. My Head Sounds Like That (6:29)
8. More Than This (6:02)
9. Signal To Noise (7:36)
10. The Drop (2:59)

Released by: Geffen
Release date: 2002
Total running time: 66:43

Peter Gabriel’s first solo effort is an eye-opener for this kid who’d heard little of the former Genesis frontman until 1986’s So. I’ve always been impressed and inspired by the vast expanses of Gabriel’s musical style, and his 1977 album is no exception. So much has been made of Gabriel as world music spokesman and human rights activist, I sometimes think we’ve forgotten the splendor of Peter Gabriel, rock musician. The straight-ahead pop of “Solsbury Hill”, the harmonies of “Excuse Me”, and the orchestral-rock anthem “Down The Dolce Vita” speak to that oft-overlooked ability that Gabriel has to synthesize different styles, and come up with tunes that cross genre lines without sounding like cheesy attempts at crossovers. The music is also boosted by Bob Ezrin’s crisp production – I really wish Ezrin had produced the second album as well (which was instead handled by Robert Fripp). While Fripp clearly had a seminal influence on Gabriel, there’s something clean and uncluttered about Ezrin’s presentation on the first album that I really liked. Rather than cloaking the vocals with layers of instrumentation – and, for the record, contrary to some reports, Peter Gabriel can sing – the vocals were crystal clear here. Come to think of it, so was everything else, and that’s something that I miss occasionally in Peter Gabriel’s thickly layered latter-day output.

1. Moribund the Burgermeister (4:19)
2. Solsbury Hill (4:20)
3. Modern Love (3:37)
4. Excuse Me (3:20)
5. Humdrum (3:23)
6. Slowburn (4:34)
7. Waiting For The Big One (7:26)
8. Down The Dolce Vita (4:43)
9. Here Comes The Flood (5:54)

Released by: Atco
Release date: 1977
Total running time: 42:25

Let’s get one thing straight, okay? There’s no such thing as a typical Peter Gabriel album. You can barely even compare one Gabriel album to another, as the style and emphasis shifts with each one of them. Hell, it’s even hard to put titles to them because the first three – technically, even the fourth (usually known as Security) as well – are simply titled Peter Gabriel. This is the album with the strange picture of Peter’s face melting. (Well, I’ll even grant you that most of his album covers are strange pictures of one sort or another…this is really getting us nowhere, isn’t it? Let’s talk about music, shall we?) Several of these tracks rank among my favorites, including the somewhat sinister “Intruder”, “I Don’t Remember”, “Not One Of Us”, and “And Through The Wire”. Also included are the slightly more familiar singles “Biko” and “Games Without Frontiers”. There’s also quite a slate of “guest stars” on the album, from Robert Fripp to Phil Collins to Kate Bush, but the end result remains distinctly Peter Gabriel. Highly recommended.

1. Intruder (4:53)
2. No Self Control (3:56)
3. Start (1:21)
4. I Don’t Remember (4:42)
5. Family Snapshot (4:29)
6. And Through the Wire (4:58)
7. Games Without Frontiers (4:07)
8. Not One Of Us (5:21)
9. Lead a Normal Life (4:15)
10. Biko (7:27)

Released by: Charisma
Release date: 1980
Total running time: 45:29

If for no other reason than “Rhythm Of The Heat”, I have to recommend this album right off the bat. I always love some exotic percussion, and while Peter Gabriel’s always very good about including that element in his music, this song uses all of its elements and elevates itself to something barely short of a spiritual experience. Boy…let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, there are seven other songs on this album too, including the single “Shock The Monkey”, and none of these other tracks are anything to sneeze at, but it’s hard to top “Rhythm Of The Heat”. I almost wonder if it shouldn’t have been the last song on the album instead of the first, because all that musical exhilaration always leaves me a little exhausted. Whew.

1. The Rhythm of the Heat (5:15)
2. San Jacinto (6:21)
3. I Have The Touch (4:30)
4. The Family and the Fishing Net (7:00)
5. Shock the Monkey (5:23)
6. Lay Your Hands On Me (6:03)
7. Wallflower (6:30)
8. Kiss of Life (4:17)

Released by: Geffen
Release date: 1982
Total running time: 45:19