PETER GABRIEL

Robert Fripp and Tony Levin join Peter Gabriel on his first solo album. What's missing here is other songwriters--while there are some excellent songs here, the song quality doesn't match most of his work with Genesis. It does match the weirdness--if not the quality--of his last album with Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway." There are some nice orchestral bits here that add a lot of depth to the album. This isn't a bad album, but overall it's not amazing either.

There are some skippable songs, but there are some real gems too. "Solsbury Hill" is the highlight, one of the best songs from Gabriel's solo career. "Down the Dolce Vita" and "Here Comes the Flood" are also excellent songs. "Humdrum," "Slowburn," and "Waiting for the Big One" are good. So, three great songs, three good ones, three fillers. Overall, 3.5 stars.

Title stamped GABRIEL, I immediately think of pieces of film such as 'Long Walk Home' for this line of piano on which Peter sings as before. it's pure, his voice can still rise high, a hunting horn and I'm waiting for the chorus of the title that doesn't come; it doesn't matter the bucolic, military orchestra does its job easily and magnificently before the starting break, a solemn rise where the sound tries to gain time to stop getting old.

So if it weren't for the Archangel, we would find it good or marvellous, a hymn of a war campaign, of proven retirement or a melancholic song with a smattering of violin flights? A bit of 'Here Comes The Flood', a bit of 'Family Snapshot', a lot of love from Peter GABRIEL who still wants to speak to us by composing his hymn to life.

The problem of a single is to captivate to try to listen to even more of it; the problem of a single is also to capture the atmosphere of an album through a single title, something impossible unless you put emotion on each title; here the emotion is there with a big E.

A new, innovative title from an old gentleman who spent his prime in progressive music, then in world music.

New title with used material too, Manu's percussions, Brian's always maddening and alluring synths, Tony's bass and David's synthetic, electronic, cutting guitar; a bit of flute like in the good old days, the voices of his daughter who is beginning to arise in the group, because yes Peter GABRIEL is above all a group for the follow-up of the musicians. A mouth-watering single, whether you want or have the money to go see it in concert, or whether you want to listen to it alone at home away from it all.

Peter GABRIEL still enchants 10 years after his last album.

The panopticon is a type of prison with a particular system of integrated control, proposed by the English philosopher Jeremy BENTHAM in the 18th century. Bentham's panopticon consists of a watchtower in its center and a round system of individual cells surrounding the tower, so that the prisoners cannot communicate with each other, so that a single jailer can manage a prison. For the title, I am surprised by his always identical voice; the sound is more melodic, in line with 'So' which is a plus. I was afraid of a pop sound, there is still and always this mystery of the archangel to make us dream a little more, to make us escape from this dystopian and necrotic world. A musical escape in fact.

Have to confess that, in the beginning of this song, I convinced myself of being listening to one of those Hollywood oriented title songs that for years Peter used to write for soundtracks. And it's not such a bad thing, as the man singing on piano lines really delivers a unique sound of great class and quality, but one maybe can be tempted to miss the sheer emotional charge and the sonic assault of milestones such as Family Snapshot, just to put an example taken from his glory days as a solo artist.

But here we have that, in the last possible minute, that Peter of yore we learn to know and love really delivers the goods: on the line "One by one the voices silenced ..." not only the voice scalates high in dynamics and register, but also the band and the orchestra (nice string arrangement!) leave their unforgettable mark in this song, as well as in our musical memory.

So, building on the reflective, brooding calm of the first piano-ladden part, the final charge achieves the impact that, we hope, Peter Gabriel will never cease to seek, and re-create always in a new form.

In the end, I think Playing For Time is a winning hand for him.

The panopticon is a type of prison with a particular system of control built-in, proposed by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. Bentham's Panopticon consists of a watch tower at its center and a round system of individual cells circling the tower, so that the prisoners cannot communicate to each other nor can they know if they are being watched. In this system only one guard can supervise many- or all the prisoners, and in fact even no guard, since the prisoners act on their own as if they are being watched.

Later on, in the 20th century, the French Michel Foucault, elaborating on this concept, came up with Panopticism, as part of his theory of how power works. In "Discipline and Punish" Foucault describes how, even in the so called "open" society, the simple fact of feeling watched disciplines individuals to act "on their own" within the interest of established power.

And now Peter Gabriel is resurrecting that old nightmare for our paranoid pleasure. What can I say? The man has something to say, and is singing about it with honesty, clarity, and a strong voice that doesn't reflect his age, sounding pretty much intact over the years. The overall sound seems really akin to So (1986). Are you disappointed of being carried back such a long ago? I'm not, to be honest, since, in a time when nobody knows for sure what's exactly the "sound of times" like, every move seems possible, even acceptable. And to my ears, Peter just came up with a nice one here.

The allure of the solo album is undeniable and the stellar catalogue of Peter Gabriel is beyond exciting, at least for the ones willing to explore his unusual sonic world; After fronting Genesis in the first half of the 70s and leading his band successfully through their most glorious years [musically, certainly], he left after 'The Lamb' and went on to release a string of severely engaging and innovative art rock albums, where he shifted styles and crossed boundaries, never disposing of that precious progressive aura that is, of course, bound to 'haunt' him, regardless of what he puts out to the listeners to embrace. And his very first studio album as a solo artist provides some strong evidence to back all of this up - the self-titled 1977 album, also known as 'Car', after the famous Hipgnosis cover artwork, is a bold collection of nine completely unrelated songs that seem to go from one extreme to another, stylistically, providing a fine glimpse into Gabriel's musical vocabulary. To make it all even more exciting, one has to mention the presence of Robert Fripp and Tony Levin (who would later go on to play together in King Crimson in the 80s), as the main contributors to the music on 'Peter Gabriel 1'.

Significant and rich are certainly the words that best describe this record, the elegance that accompanies each composition is also valuable, as well as the fact that the album is completely different from everything one might expect from Peter Gabriel, given his previous releases with Genesis. The opening track 'Moribund the Burgermeister' is arguably the weirdest song on the album, and this one resembles some of the material on 'The Lamb' just remotely, making it the only plausible Genesis comparison one could make; Then there are the two fantastic and successful singles 'Solsbury Hill', a song that needs no introduction, and 'Modern Love', with its artsy, wacky music video. The softer 'Humdrum' has to be another highlight, and so is the 7-minute Americana 'Waiting for the Big One'. We have producer Bob Ezrin's influence on these more American-sounding tracks, while Gabriel has been credited for the more 'European sounds' on the record. The rest of the album is also excellent in the face of 'Down the Dolce Vita' and the emotional rollercoaster that is 'Here Comes the Flood'. It is interesting how Peter Gabriel's very first solo album is simultaneously so diverse, so warm, and so hard to predict, yet it is far from perfect, while there are no weak moments on it. His progressive leanings are evident, though not so strongly, as he incorporates a more approachable way of composing songs, in comparison to all releases behind his back up until 1977. All in all, this is a great album that needs to be given some time, in order to be fully appreciated, as the subtlety of it reveals itself gently and gradually before the patient listener.

Random happenstance that I'm giving this single a chance, as the music video for the A-side, "Don't Give Up", unsurprisingly showed up in my YouTube feed. Being a fan of Kate Bush since my college years, and certainly forever significantly more than her one protégé of sorts, Mr. Gabriel here, I've been digging into her back catalog, listening to non-album B-sides and their respective singles and watching any remaining music videos of hers that I had missed (there are many). Speaking of music videos, the one for this song is as sweet as the song and lyrical content therein: simply a hilltop embrace by Peter and Kate lasting the entirety of the video. This song is very soulful, almost a duet gospel track. An expectedly humanist gospel tune, sung in gratitude to friendship. Kate takes the chorus and what I would consider the first bridge, the second so-called bridge sung by Gabriel. Pretty song. Very not progressive haha. That is, perhaps, until the very end. The beat picks up and shifts in a very peculiar way. The bass, for one thing, is phenomenal.

The B-side is the classic "In Your Eyes". Beautiful vocal performance by Peter here. He is, of course, one of the figureheads of what is now considered Post-Progressive music (the other most major figure being Japan's David Sylvian). As the A-side guest Kate Bush is always apt and willing, so too does Peter explore textures and sonic choices that may be somewhat unusual in the world of Western Pop. In the case of this track, as we might expect from him, specifically from this time, these sonic explorations result in a "World Music", equally popularized by another Post- Progressive voice, David Byrne. Lovely track. Expectedly lovely music video, featuring some old-school '50s(?) clips of a woman dancing, and with wonderful imagery, of course using Peter's and others' eyes blown up on various surfaces. Great stuff.

This album have everything you are looking for in pop music: great choruses, cool bass lines, non-typical structures, not too much repetitive, strong voice, groove, an awesome use of keyboards and a totally correct (and non-plastic) production. Peter Gabriel's Up is without a doubt one of his best albums along with his first 6 albums and his epic soundtracks. A great and perfect album, and, why do I mean by perfect? Every song and the listen itself it's just good, excellent or perfect; the order, the connections among songs surgically worked. It's laughable that some prog purist (nothing but closed-minded people that thinks Prog must be pretentiously complex and easy to listen) argue that prog and pop can't be mixed, at first they hate on 80s Genesis and claim Peter Gabriel as a god, then they realize Peter Gabriel put strong and awesome pop albums and probably put some hate on them when there's nothing to do with. Prog purist can say anything they want, nobody cares that they can't adapt to the modern music or its evolve. This Peter Gabriel effort it's totally a 10/10 because of creativity, musically powerful, with great presence and memorable.

Listening diary 2nd January, 2022: Peter Gabriel - So (art pop, 1986)

It's a pity that this album has such a run of dud sections, because the best parts of this are amongst the best that pop music has been, ever. The opening pair get most of the talk, quite rightfully, as two sides of the 80's prog pop coin - the emotional synth ballad juxtaposed with the upbeat funk-influenced megahit. But I'll also give strong mention to "Big Time", which I don't think gets as much credit, for its absolutely obnoxious levels of 80s synth cheese, but done with enough hooks to make it work both ironically and unironically.

7.8 (13th listen)

Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog - www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction