Reviewed by Scott Arciniegas
Released: September 6 1982 Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel (AKA Peter Gabriel 4, AKA Security) Genre: Peter Gabriel Allen's Rating: 4 out of 5 Scott's Rating: 4.75 out of 5 Highlights: The Rhythm Of The Heat I Have The Touch The Family And The Fishing Net Lay Your Hands On Me Wallflower I, like Peter Gabriel, can make things entirely too complicated. I have been sitting on this review for like 2 months: starting it, stopping; abandoning it and starting over; listening and re-listening to the album, as if it has ever gone out of my heavy rotation since I first bought it on vinyl in 1983 (I can listen to it note-for-note in my head and, for the final write-up of this review, actually did); doing research and dredging my memory for conversations between myself and my prog-rock-obsessed older brother (who was more of a Rush fan than a Genesis/Peter Gabriel guy, but still, much love and respect, Dave)… This ain’t that hard. This album was Peter Gabriel’s fourth solo album, and the fourth to be titled “Peter Gabriel”. Geffen Records didn’t like that, so they changed it to Security in the US. Peter Gabriel didn’t like being on Geffen, so once he broke free and started his own label, Real World Records, which he used to shine a spotlight on a whole slew of artists from around the world, hopefully putting some money in their pockets (and his) in the process. On his first four albums, Gabriel evolved, from too-theatrical-to-be-really-listenable prog-rock wunderkind and front man, to a rock artist with a penchant for stories, but also possessed of pop chops that produced the occasional “Salisbury Hill” or “Games Without Frontiers”; he still had a flair for the theatrical, sure, and would dabble in orchestral interludes or almost jazzy pieces, but at his heart he was an English guy who made artsy rock music with a literary and sometimes political bent. With Peter Gabriel [4: Security] (as it’s known I certain circles), he takes a great evolutionary leap forward. The theatrical flourishes become fully cinematic, both in narrative and arrangement, telling stories that paint vivid celluloid scenes in the viewer’s minds’ eyes. There is the opening track, “The Rhythm of the Heat,” apparently an exploration of Jungian something or other. My psychology studies went particularly neuro-based, so if I’m honest I don’t much go in for that Jungian junk. But this song, a journey to the center of the listener’s mind, I can get into: Smash the radio (no outside voices here) Smash the watch (cannot tear the day to shreds) Smash the camera (cannot steal away the spirits) The rhythm has his soul, maaaaan, and when the Ekome Dance company comes in with a pounding Ghanaian rhythm that drives the song into a frenzy and comes crashing down into the stillness before the second track—well, if it didn’t also stir something in you, you might wanna just cleanse your palette with a Power Pop record and do something else with the next 40 minutes. About that second track, “San Jacinto”: it’s a story told by Gabriel of a Native American man going back to the Res and observing the co-opting of his culture by the ever-encroaching White Man and by Capitalism. Is that ironic? Only kinda, as Peter Gabriel is English, not America. So yeah, sure, it is. Is this cultural appropriation? Probably. Is it a good song? Kinda, yeah; paints a really vivid picture and points the listener’s sympathies in the right direction. Would it be okay for a White Man who isn’t Peter Gabriel to release this song today? Probably not. Luckily—or not, depending on your perspective—Peter Gabriel released this song in 1982. Welcome to The Listening Post. “I Have the Touch” is about as close to a regular rock song as you’re going to find on this record, but thanks to this album’s top-notch prog rhythm section of Tony Levin on stick bass—he next-levls every record he appears on—and Jerry Marotta on drum kit, along with the call-and-response between Gabriel’s lead vocals and the backup: it’s a banger. “The Family and the Fishing Net”: at first listen this closer to Side 1 seems another piece of ethnographic exoticism, a recounting of the strange matrimonial rites of some alien tribe. The music, and especially the ever-building and eventually straight-up wailing backup vocals reiterate this sense of the strange and exotic. A close analysis of the lyrics reveals the strange tribe to be us, the curious wedding rituals the same ones we’ve attended many times. We were the strange tribe all along! It’s a little Twilight Zone, sure, but hell, I like the Twilight Zone. Side 2 opens with “Shock the Monkey.” Nobody doesn’t know this track. My only criticism is that I’ve heard it too many times, but one can hardly blame Peter Gabriel for rock radio’s unwillingness to dig deep. I always thought the song was about vivisection, based on the last shot of the music video, I suppose, but a little reading informs me that it’s about jealousy. Huh. That works too. “Lay Your Hands On Me”: Gabriel talks his way through the verses (albeit in a rhythmic talking that is doesn’t feel like he’s trying to rap, thankfully), and sings the refrain; and then, again, there’s that call-and-response chorus that Gabriel does so well. The song structure is an ancestor of the “loud quiet loud” thing that the Pixies would later make famous, and the drama it imparts makes this track feel like the soundtrack to a nonexistent short film, no doubt the winner of an imaginary BAFTA award). On “Wallflower” Gabriel continues the work he began with “Biko” (1980), and that he would continue until he became one of the world’s most famous activists for political prisoners and Amnesty International: Though you may disappear You’re not forgotten here And I will say to you I will do what I can do Well, you gotta hand it to him. He totally did. And made a moving track in the process. The album closer is “Kiss of Life”: it’s a big, rousing rack about … a big woman? Dancing? Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Yes, all three. It’s got banging drums, huge synth flourishes (that I’m sure some of this group’s synth haters will take exception to), Tony Levin Tony Levin-ing it up like crazy. When the final note strikes and reverberates and fades to nothing, you’re left wanting for nothing. Does this album take itself seriously? It does. It’s a Peter Gabriel album. Serious is kind of his thing. But it brings serious musicians together, making complex songs, telling vivid tales through visual language that lets the listener see the whole thing in their mind’s and a feel in in their hearts and/or their feet. It is a great record. And that, Listening Post listeners, is the simple version of my album review.
No comments:
Post a Comment