Peter Gabriel's work doesn't lend itself easily to compilations -- not because he didn't cut singles, since he made many terrific stand-alone singles, but because his body of work is so idiosyncratic, even contradictory, that it's possible to have perfectly valid differing perspectives on his catalog. This results in differing opinions among fans, so it's perfectly logical that Gabriel and his associates would have a unique view of his own work, as captured on Hit. Billed on its slipcase as "The Definitive Two CD Collection," Hit spans 29 tracks culled from his entire solo career, from 1977's Peter Gabriel to 2002's Up, plus the previously unreleased "Burn You Up, Burn You Down." It certainly is a generous compilation, and it does contain the basics: "Solsbury Hill," "Shock the Monkey," "Sledgehammer," "Don't Give Up," "Games Without Frontiers," "Biko," "Red Rain," "Big Time," and "In Your Eyes." But the devil is in the details, and in this particular case, the details push Hit away from the broad-based appeal of So and closer to the dense, subtle territory of Us and Up. This is achieved, of course, through the track selection, which is heavy on recent material (note: none of the edit details are present on the back cover, hence their presence here): from Up, there's "Growing Up [Tom Lord-Alge Mix]," "More Than This [Radio Edit]," "The Drop," "I Grieve," and "Signal to Noise," which amounts to half the entire album; the previously unreleased 2003 live track "Downside Up"; "Cloudless" from the soundtrack to the 2002 Rabbit-Proof Fence and "Lovetown" from the 1994 Philadelphia soundtrack; "The Tower That Ate People [Steve Osborne Mix]" and "Father, Son" from OVO; the 1990 Shaking the Tree remake of "Here Comes the Flood"; from Us, the album track "Love to Be Loved," plus the singles "Digging in the Dirt," "Blood of Eden [Radio Edit]," and "Steam [Radio Edit]."
That's a grand total of 16 tracks dating after the career high watermark of So -- 16 tracks covering two full albums, plus a lot of odds and ends. There's unquestionably good material here -- not just the Us singles, but much of Up was quite excellent, even if it requires several listens to appreciate -- but the heavy emphasis on this post-So work skews too much to the new (nine of the 14 tracks on disc two are of relatively recent vintage), at least if the yardstick is either an evenhanded appreciation of Gabriel's entire solo work or a portrait of his best-known, best-loved work. After all, there are many singles missing -- "I Have the Touch," "I Go Swimming," "Come Talk to Me," "Kiss That Frog," and "Secret World" among them -- plus other worthy uncollected rarities (his deliriously paranoid "Out Out" from the 1984 Gremlins soundtrack needs to finally get a CD issue) and many, many terrific album tracks that would have had given this compilation greater breadth and depth, including "Moribund the Burgermeister," "Mercy Street," "Intruder," "Family Snapshot," and the tremendous pair of "On the Air" and "D.I.Y.," the two best cuts on the underrated Peter Gabriel 2 (which is once again consciously ignored by Gabriel, with this exhaustive collection featuring nothing from the record). If some of these 12 songs had managed to get on Hit, it truly would have been definitive, capturing the entire scope of his solo career. As it stands, it's a very good collection, one that delivers most of what is expected, even as it presents a relatively up-to-date self-portrait of the artist.
In case you didn't know, these are the big boys who, for the most part, try to tell you what to listen to. Although independents account for 28 per cent of the market, the music industry today is still dominated by 'the Big Four' record companies.Universal Music GroupChairman and CEO Doug Morris presides over the largest record company in the world. Taken together, its labels such as Island, Po...
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So I saw a picture of a bald girl and it made me realize that I probably need to tell you this one secret about fame- at least as far as music-makers are concerned. Ready? OK, here it goes: performing for crowds of 1,000+ is a mind-numbingly unsatisfying experience. Yep, it's a depressing fucking thing. Even when you kill it- even when you give it everything, looking out for a second and se...
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You ever have those days where you just NEEEEED to hear a song 50 times in a row?lala.com FINALLY sent me Peter Gabriel's So which had experienced a tragic accident in my collection many months ago and not being able to impulsively listen to "Red Rain" or "In Your Eyes" was killing me... I don't even want to look at my iTunes to see how many times I have played it in the last 12 hours... for so...
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As a musician, a lot of my friends ask me to play at their wedding. I love doing it because it's one way I can really contribute what I do best to an important event for a best friend. I don't do the wedding band thing, I just play a song in the ceremony, or provide prelude music, etc. For a friend's wedding coming up in May, I've been asked to play "It's Your Love" (Tim McGraw & Faith Hill)...
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Peter Gabriel has launched a new website dedicated to helping users find music and movies to fit their taste."The Filter":http://www.thefilter.com/ is described as a discovery service: tell it the movies, music and web videos that you enjoy, and it will make daily recommendations of new material you might like. The site will not go public until next month, but users can register with the site r...
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In case you didn't know, these are the big boys who, for the most part, try to tell you what to listen to. Although independents account for 28 per cent of the market, the music industry today is still dominated by 'the Big Four' record companies.Universal Music GroupChairman and CEO Doug Morris presides over the largest record company in the world. Taken together, its labels such as Island, Po...
More >
While I'm as jazzed over the new iPod Nanos as anyone, I'm more interested in the updated iTunes 8. New iPods have become a yearly "fashion show" that always gets lots of press, but the venerable iTunes often gets overlooked. This time, however, there's more here than meets the eye.While Steve Jobs was upfront in describing the new iTunes Genius function that creates playlists based on your l...
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Peter Gabriel is cool for two reasons.#1 = Sledgehammer:#2 = WITNESSWITNESS was founded in 1992 by musician and activist Peter Gabriel and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation as a project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). In 1988, Peter was part of Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! Tour. He was struck by the stories he heard from survivors of human right...
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Even for Peter Gabriel, So was a breakthrough album, due in large part to his willingness to incorporate a variety of musical styles through collaboration with other artists.The most popular song from that album In Your Eyes, has become a concert staple for Gabriel. It features Youssou N'Dour, and the video below, shot in Geneva in 2005, is a reprise of that collaboration.Peter Gabriel is well...
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So I saw a picture of a bald girl and it made me realize that I probably need to tell you this one secret about fame- at least as far as music-makers are concerned. Ready? OK, here it goes: performing for crowds of 1,000+ is a mind-numbingly unsatisfying experience. Yep, it's a depressing fucking thing. Even when you kill it- even when you give it everything, looking out for a second and se...
More >
Originally posted on September 22, 2006One of the first cassette tapes I remember owning was Peter Gabriel’s “So”. My grandmother bought that tape and Genesis “Invisible Touch” for me. I had no clue about the connection between Peter Gabriel and Genesis at the time. They were both fairly popular at the time, and I loved their songs when I heard them on the radio.Besides being a great son
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As a musician, a lot of my friends ask me to play at their wedding. I love doing it because it's one way I can really contribute what I do best to an important event for a best friend. I don't do the wedding band thing, I just play a song in the ceremony, or provide prelude music, etc. For a friend's wedding coming up in May, I've been asked to play "It's Your Love" (Tim McGraw & Faith Hill)...
More >
If we're going by strictly a video resume, no one did it better than Peter Gabriel.Example is "Big Time". Not only a great song, from a great album, but also an excellent music video.
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in regards to my last post... heres a clip from Say Anything...
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i watched the Cameron Crowe classic, 'Say Anything' the other night... you know the movie, the famous picture of John Cusack holding up the boombox? (probably one of my favorite poster shots of all time) well the song he was playing was Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes"i was negative 2 years old when it came out, so bare with me as im a new fan... but yeh ever since i heard that song, its turned m...
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