Good transitional or mediocre stand-alone album?

If one looks at Peter Gabriel's first three solo albums sequentially, it both is and isn't difficult to understand what he might be doing with this album. While it's more focused than his first solo effort, it's still lacking a sense of cohesion. Gabriel is still trying to find himself as a solo artist, while at the same time, noticing the trends in popular rock, and where it seemed to be heading at the end of the seventies. So it sounds like he's doing two things on this album. He's still exploring artistically, while at the same time incorporating more modern rock into his repertoire. He tests what it can do at both extremes: we have everything from bubbly, upbeat synth-pop (Wonderful Day in A One-Way World, Animal Magic) to darker, more disturbing rock (White Shadow, Exposure) and a balance of the two (On the Air, Perspective). And nestled here and there, we have a few more organic, artistic pieces such as Mother of Violence. Sadly, the contrasts aren't as dynamic as they are on the first album, and instead of enhancing the album's overall quality (as they did with "Car"), they make Gabriel seem confused as to just what he's really trying to do.



This isn't to say that there's not gold on this album. On the Air is a solid opening track that jumps out and engages the listener as well as any song on "Car" did, and the way it transitions into the cynical rocker of D.I.Y is perhaps one of the best transitions on the album. White Shadow is an edgy, yet graceful song with a morbid beauty to it. Indigo is also a very well-rounded song, and despite what most people seem to think, I enjoy the downright chilling quality of Exposure. In fact, I almost see Exposure as a prelude to the darker material that would color Gabriel's third album. Gabriel could also be seen as honing his skills with his newfound ethnic and modern rock sounds between the second and third albums, trends that were initiated on the second album. So seen in that light, one could see "Scratch" fitting comfortably into Gabriel's overall solo catalog. The album might not possess as many qualities that make the other two albums masterpieces, but it contains enough to hold its own.

Great material, but largely unfocused.

For Peter Gabriel's second album, Robert Fripp was called upon to produce, bizarrely enough, Fripp chose not to play on this one, deferring guitar duties to Sidney McGinnis. McGinnis brings a punk sensibility that helps shape the sound Gabriel and Fripp were going for-- this is the Peter Gabriel post-punk album, its got a much rawer sound than the previous record, and certainly moreso than Genesis ever had. Joining McGinnis in the band are Gabriel regulars Tony Levin, Larry Fast and Jerry Marrotta.



The album starts off aggressively, with a punk sensibility-- "On the Air" and "D.I.Y" are both raw and lacking any of the fluffy production that was present in the previous record.



Bizarrely enough, the record takes a total about face, sounding more like Genesis than the first two tracks or the last album. None of "Mother of Violence", "Indigo" (both pretty piano ballads, the former with great slide playing, the latter builds up during its development), "A Wonderful Day in a One-Way World" (a bizarre West Indian-tinged piece), or the prog rock gem "White Shadow" are bad songs, its just that after the opening two cuts, I think my expectations were away from this kind of sound.



In case that shift in direction wasn't enough, the rest of the album drifts around even further. While "Animal Magic", with its funky rhythms, the dark, repetitive "Exposure", and the delicate tenssion of "Floatsam and Jetsam" don't have the punky feel the record opens with, they seem to succeed much better than the last batch. This could be because Gabriel was pursuing new sounds and to me, feels less paint-by-numbers, or it could be monster basslines from Levin that pick the two (particularly "Exposure") up.



So as if the previous two shifts weren't enough, "Perspective" DOES return to the aggressive feel, although its not the strongest song. Album closer "Home Sweet Home", on the other hand, sounds like the middle section, belonging with "Mother of Violence" or "Indigo". It kind of pulls itself along with a total lack of urgency, but drifts occasionally into a plodding feel that prevents full enjoyment of its development.



This album's got some good stuff on it, but its really too stylistically varied to hold together well. Maybe a shuffled track order, or maybe viewing it as separate albums would encourage a higher rating from me, but 2 just doesn't work for me.

My Favorite Album of all Time

First, there's the voice. It's a scratchy tenor. Peter Gabriel was only 28 when he recorded his second solo album. I'm sure his voice never sounded darker or more naturally menacing before or after. His voice never sounded so confident, so triumphant, so full of sex and violence. Gabriel's second solo album (titled Peter Gabriel just like his 1977 debut and the two that followed in 1980 and 1982) was the first album I ever bought by the former Genesis lead vocalist.



The year I bought it from a Record Bar in the mall near my house must have been 1984. I climbed aboard the Gabriel bandwagon kind of late. (But before the mega platinum success of 1986's So.) Since Peter Gabriel was my first taste of the man's music, that might partly explain why it remains my favorite of all his stuff. But that fact does not explain why Peter Gabriel is still my favorite album of all time. But Gabriel's voice does. And his songwriting. And his choice of musicians and producer. And that cover.



Second, there's that album cover. Like Gabriel's voice, it's scratchy. It's a black and white photograph featuring a semi-preppy looking Gabriel (in a golf shirt covered by a London Fog/Lacoste-style windbreaker) bending his fingers and scratching jagged edges of white from the top of the cover to the bottom. Gabriel's hair is long but short. It's a thick buster brown -- just short enough to look right with the windbreaker and the golf shirt but long enough to show people that it's still 1978. You can barley see his eyebrows. But you can see his dark eyes. And you can see a day or so's growth of hair on his face too. I think the cover represents sex. The back of the album represents violence. It must represent violence because it still scares me when I look at today almost 20 years later. Gabriel, dressed in faded jeans, rain boots, and a dark pea or raincoat, is hunched over. He's on an urban street somewhere -- a street lined with fences, puddles of water and mounds of snow. Gabriel has his back to the camera and he's hunched over. I don't know why. He's hunched over, and he's stepping forward with his left foot and dragging his right one. I can't see his face but it looks like his body's contortion stems from some sort of attack. He looks like he may be in pain. If the back of the album doesn't represent violence, it must represent pain.



Third, there's the songs. They are all boiled down versions of white noise, red heat, purple funk, and colorless loss. "On the Air" blows up with Who-like guitar from Sid McGinnis while glistening synth bells from Larry Fast tinkle in the background. Gabriel is playing the part of Mozo, a pirate radio DJ broadcasting from his amateur radio in a cabin by the river. Mozo is lost and lonely and he's screaming out via his microphone. He wants everyone to know "that Mozo is here". Gabriel's Mozo sounds like Ted Kaczynski to me minus the bombs and carnage. "DIY" is Gabriel's very unpunk sounding tribute to the punk ethos that prevailed in the late '70s. How unpunk sounding? Listen to Bruce Springsteen pianist Roy Bittan's playing. But you can hear punk in Gabriel's voice. Even when he just screams "Hey!" just before the song's chorus, you can feel Gabriel's rage and enthusiasm. "Mother of Violence" has some of the most achingly moving singing and melodies on the album. Mostly just piano, acoustic guitar and McGinnis's steel guitar, this ballad cries. "A Wonderful Day in a One-Way World" is pop reggae while "White Shadow" is one of two show-off pieces for the album's producer and co-guitarist, Robert Fripp. Fripp's solo at the end of "White Shadow" blisters. One of his best on any record he's appeared on, it's underrated at worst and masterful at best. There are five other great songs on Peter Gabriel but there's no real use in describing every one of them because there is a small part on the album's finale that is, as they say, "worth the price of admission." The lyrics on "Home Sweet Home" are nothing special. The words were taken almost straight from a newspaper story Gabriel read about a woman who jumped out of her window with her baby in her arms. The widower used the insurance money he got to gamble at a casino. He won big. So the story has a bitter/bittersweet ending. But it's Gabriel's voice that makes the song and makes the album. Near the very end of the song, Gabriel wails. He's not singing any words, he's just wailing and I've never heard any music before or since that makes my hair stand up like that. Chills. You get chills when you hear it and it's just wailing. I think that's the pain again. The pain of loss and the pain of having everything you ever dreamed of at the same time.



And fourth and last, maybe it's just because it's Gabriel's last rock album. Starting in 1980, Gabriel started mixing the ethic world music influences of Africa into his music. Don't get me wrong. I love all of those albums. The tribal drums with no cymbals. The singers from Senegal. It's all great. But maybe that has become a musical crutch for Gabriel. Maybe it's what people now expect of him. Maybe that's his signature. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. But I loved it when Gabriel just had to rely on the old-fashioned instruments and musical conventions of rock and roll. Guitars, drums, pianos, and the odd synthesizer here and there. Peter Gabriel is rock. Peter Gabriel is pop. Peter Gabriel is raw. Peter Gabriel is creepy. Peter Gabriel is scary. Scary with acoustic guitars, pedal steel guitars, and a piano. That was it for me. Nothing will ever come close.