Peter Gabriel

I like Passion Sources even more.

His whole catalog is on Bandcamp now - and when I say his whole catalog, I mean it; you can even get the German-language versions of the third and fourth solo albums.

I saw someone mentioning Peter Gabriel just now, and I was reminded how much I enjoyed his tour with Sting. On paper it's a cash grab, but in practice it was something I wish more bands would do. There were Peter Gabriel sections and Sting sections, but what I remember most were the long stretches that fused both bands on stage and often featured Sting in a supporting role: playing bass, or lined up with the backing singers, or helping out Gabriel in the front. It was just a nice thing, and it was the most fun I think I've ever seen Sting have on stage. Here's a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjhLD8LZ-Hc

Well, Sting has made clear Peter Gabriel's one of the few artists of his generation he genuinely likes or disturbs his chronic self-regard.

(An aside and not for this thread, but Sting's tour with Paul Simon sounded the same way: combining bands, covering each other's songs.)

I remember this because of Brexit - I think right after the ill-fated vote, Sting trashed it while introducing an appropriate Gabriel-era Genesis song. (Forgot which, but I'm sure fans can probably guess.)

I *think* he sang a snippet of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight."

(Answer: yes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1voIdykzHk

Late 80s Peter Gabriel is kind of hilarious.

I just two-listened to Passion as a result of this thread and … with 2022 ears it sounds like every Hans Zimmer/Gladiator-style score I’ve ever heard. Lots of mysterious, Shankar violin drones, Nusrat banshee cries trailing into Real World’s cutting edge Lexicon reverbs, and so, so much tribal percussion.

Then you have “A Different Drum,” which sounds like he couldn’t help but add some of his own vocal stylings to the brew, which appears to employ some kind of Lyric Generator about rivers flowing and whatnot. IIRC, this is also the scene where Jesus is walking alone and one-by-one his disciples and followers appear next to him, as if he’s Steve Perry and Journey filming a music video on a shipping dock.

Also, I completely forgot that Shaking the Tree has a title track – which combined with the jaunty piano groove sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel and His Heavy African Friends.

I love Manu's playing on the title track.

I have to admit, Passion's become my favorite Gabriel, thanks to that combination of genuine respect for local sources + keyboard and percussive schlock + New Age quieter passages.

“Led Zeppelin? meh, just sounds like a cornier Greta Van Fleet amirite?”

also note PG invented tribal percussion in 1980 when he decreed that Phil Collins was not allowed to touch his cymbals

u rite abt “shaking the tree” tho. i play it once a year for my partner on International Women’s Day and she throws stuff at me.

xxxp yeah it's a great soundtrack. The Criterion DVD or Blu-ray has a nice bonus feature that was made in the late '80s or '90s where Gabriel goes over the whole creative process. I spend so much time watching films that I've stopped listening to soundtracks - it's probably best to hear most of them within the context of their respective films anyway - but Gabriel's was definitely one that held up well as its own album.

saw this the other day, peter gabriel with liz fraser and paul buchanan from the blue nile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-ZTr_e0LM

Is that from that Ovo thing? I forgot all about that!

it is, yes. they sing on two tracks of that - 'downside up' and 'make tomorrow'

Passion is phenomenal and I won't hear otherwise

Yeah what the hell Passion invented what would later become clichés. It had an amazing effect on 1989 me, may have been one of those formative listening experiences.

^^ this

My path for contemplating 80s Gabriel is comparing "I have the Touch" with "Come Talk to Me." I like both songs, and they have some lyrical themes and musical flourishes in common.

His approach was almost always agglutinative - building up thin layers of harmony that become orchestral in the aggregate.

You see the way he foregrounded of drums and percussion, and pushed guitars to become textural and atmospheric because they don't have to do as much song-shaping work.

So this track seems funky, spiky, listenable pop song that can still be plausibly called a little weird. The grainy underproduced making-of style video is retro-charming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0cYreDaYFg

A decade later, a similar sentiment is expressed inna mature stylee. It's more confident, more sweeping, less anxious. But the core is the same: a shy Englishman yearns for connection over a lush synth pad and a thuddy quasi-tribal drum line.

People like the album version with Sinead, people like the Secret World version with Paula Cole. I am a corny-ass sentimentalist and sometimes gravitate toward the live one with Melanie Gabriel (for whom he wrote the song for in the first place).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyD04YMYUzk

That "I Have the Touch" has to be the best fan-made video I've seen yet. Excellent.

I Have the Touch is incredible. Jerry Marotta absolutely dominates.

Come Talk to Me is Divorcée Biko.

It's pretty wild how Marotta has played on so many of my favorite Peter Gabriel records, but he's also a big part of Hall & Oates. Less surprising now, but before I became familiar with their '70s-era experimentation (including Hall's work with Fripp), I only knew H&O through the big '80s hits.

Come Talk to Me is Divorcée Biko.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, January 22, 2022

you say that like it's a bad thing

Yeah, Marotta is an absolute stud and was supposed to be in the 90s Crimson before pulling out. He’s also epic on Songs from the Big Chair.

Re. Passion, I said it on another thread but even as I never quite give up on him there’s always been something missing for me about Gabriel that is hard to put my finger on. Yes, his voice is magic. Yes he has great melodic sense and a nose for electronic arrangements. But there’s something kind of facile lurking under the surface that I think Xgau may be trying to get at here in his typically inscrutable way:

If Gabriel can't resist orchestrating his rock and roll, better he should lay on third-world rhythms than simulate first-world themes. But self-conscious primitivism hasn't cured his grandiosity--lyrical protestations notwithstanding, the only time those rhythms are around him and inside him, in control and in his soul, is on "Shock the Monkey," which has a good old first-world hook. Only Gabriel probably doesn't want to be cured--bet he admires African music not because it flows like a stream but because it taps the divine, and while he may know in his head that animists can't have one without the other, he's not about to become a believer.

Althugh my first purchase, Security doesn't hold up well. These days it's Passion, So, and Melt, in that order.

Yeah, Marotta is an absolute stud and was supposed to be in the 90s Crimson before pulling out. He’s also epic on Songs from the Big Chair.

Trivia: his only Tears credit is on "The Working Hour," for "percussion and saxophone arrangement." Always sounded to me like Gabriel ghosted him c. "So" for some reason. Bits and pieces of Marotta are on that album, along with stuff from Copeland and programmed drums, but clearly Manu Katche caught his ear. I want to say only "Red Rain" is mostly all Marotta but the hi-hat.

Don't know if he pulled out of KC, per se. He plays drums on the Sylvian/Fripp "First Day" album (which Fripp hoped would segue into a Sylvian-fronted KC) but by the time they toured it Pat Mastelotto was playing drums and that was that. Clearly Jerry Marotta lost his prog mojo around that same time, since after losing the Fripp and Gabriel gigs he became the go-to guy for the Indigo Girls. Then again, he's played with tons of folks.

Great long Marotta interview here:

https://thehustle.podbean.com/e/episode-246-jerry-marotta/

He says he got his first touring gig when he was 16 or 17, his teachers let him take his high school exams with him on the road!

(He claims he played drums on "Head Over Heels," but he's not credited for it on the record.)

he became the go-to guy for the Indigo Girls. Then again, he's played with tons of folks.

IV, So, Birdy, Passion and Up, in roughly that order

Sorry sorry US not Up Jesus

III, IV, Birdy and Passion for me.

IV feels kind of hit-or-miss even though III and So are my favorites and it sounds like a logical and crucial link between the two. I do like "San Jacinto," "I Have the Touch" (though I prefer the single remix), "Shock the Monkey" and "Kiss of Life," but the rest don't really come together for me.

I always think of Marotta when I hear Songs from the Big Chair because it's his playing that clears up the whole mess about the stereo channels being incorrect for so long, even on the original vinyl release:

https://superdeluxeedition.com/feature/exclusive-remixing-tears-for-fears-and-the-stereo-channel-saga/

I asked Steven Wilson what he thought and his opinion was that most mixers would have mixed the metal chimes from left to right so he was dubious about the fact that right to left was correct. Thankfully, as he was liaising regularly with Roland Orzabal at that point, discussing the new stereo and 5.1 remix, we had an easy way to check with an authority. Roland told us that since Jerry Marotta is right handed, the toms on "The Working Hour" would have been mixed “low tom on the left and high tom on the right”. Lo and behold the original LP is the reverse of this. If there was any further doubt Steven Wilson also checked with the original producer Chris Hughes who confirmed categorically that the metal chimes should go from left to right. That information effectively proved that the original UK vinyl pressing is incorrect – the stereo image is the wrong way round which is why the master tape has the 1998 Jon Astley note (see above) stating that it should be reversed. That instruction was either not followed for the MFSL CD or as is more likely they used different tape sources. ("Head Over Heels" on the MFSL runs slightly longer than the standard album version which means that cannot have used the same tapes.)

I wish he'd done more producing.

I think he does a lot of producing, I just wish he would *produce* it. Like, Bryan Ferry works much the same way, assembling tons of talented musicians than piecing together songs from various takes. But he's downright prolific compared to Gabriel. Wiki brings things up to date, more or less:

Since 2002, Gabriel has been continually working on what he has given the tentative title of I/O, his tenth studio album. It was originally set to be released 18 months after Up, but touring pushed the release far away...He did an interview with Rolling Stone in 2005 stating that he had 150 songs in various stages...From 2013 to 2016, he posted regularly on social media about recording the new album...In 2019, he spoke on BBC Radio 6 about how he had taken a hiatus from making music due to his wife being sick, but he had begun to return to it now that she had recovered... In 2021, he was interviewed multiple times about his new album, and revealed that he had been recording with Manu Katche, Tony Levin and David Rhodes on 17 new songs... He posted multiple photos to his Facebook and Instagram of these sessions...As of 2021, the album remains unreleased.

On his Instagram there are pictures posted in the studio as recently as October, so probably an album soon. Like, 10 years or so.

sylvian didn't get along with marotta so he was fired from the first day sessions early on, so when it came time to tour they held auditions and chose mastelotto. shortly after the first day, fripp did put together a kc lineup of fripp/belew/levin/gunn/marotta but wasn't happy at all with how it worked in rehearsals, and ended up replacing marotta with bruford and mastelotto.

both iii and iv are close to greatness but just aren't quite consistent enough. i prefer iv of the two

"The Family and the Fishing Net" is a slog tho

III always seemed rock solid to me. It's easily my favorite PG album.

'Plays Live' has fantastic versions of the songs from Security, even Family... sounds taut and weird.

III, IV, Passion, So, Us for me. But heck, I even like Up!

Am I the only one who thinks his first album is the best? Kind of a mess, sure, but I love hearing musicians going off in every direction at once, even if they don't always land gently.

I don’t think it’s his best but I am surprised that nobody has put I or II in their lists.

Each of his albums up to and including Passion are wonderful. Us was okay but the middle-age stuff started to lose me.

Am I the only one who thinks his first album is the best? Kind of a mess, sure, but I love hearing musicians going off in every direction at once, even if they don't always land gently.

― hey mac, see you down the dulce domum (Matt #2),

I'd include his debut on the list of first albums that charm because they present several possible futures.

I don't have a problem with any of his albums, I don't think. Or at least the problems are slight, and not significant enough to derail the rest. In fact, I think there's a lot of his later stuff that sort of slid under the radar, like a lot of "Up" (which is weird and scary) or "Rabbit Proof Fence." Or "Ovo," which I forgot existed.

II and Up are my favourites.

II - 'White Shadow' may be my all-time fave PG song.

I think Up deserves to be held in higher general regard than I'm getting the impression that it does. Darkness, Sky Blue, No Way Out, I Grieve, Signal To Noise and The Drop are all amazing songs.
In particular, I think 'I Grieve' is an extremely strong piece where lyrics and music go together to create more than the sum of their parts. How he sings "They say life carries on" in the first half, as if that is what people tell him but he can't believe it... But then there is the positive shift in music and tone in the final verse, as his grief actually progressed and he starts to see life in everything himself and finds acceptance, relief. So beautiful.

There's a lot of what someone on the Meatloaf thread called "broadway rock" on PG I & II, like he thought he'd be Bruce Springsteen before he discovered Fela Kuti. Even on III — Family Snapshot sounds like a Bat Out of Hell castoff.

But there’s something kind of facile lurking under the surface

I still love his voice and the sinister atmospheres (I love The Family & The Fishing Net!), but this is right: there's always some schlock in the mix, which has gotten worse over the years.