Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel

1977 was a very strange year indeed, so why not have Peter Gabriel, fresh from his years with Genesis, drop this synth rock bomb on the world.

That said, in the same breath, this was both a forward and backward looking album for Mr. Gabriel, one that I truly wished to love, though by this point in time, I had moved on, rather bored with Genesis and sincerely not feeling the atmosphere Gabriel was delivering here. While Peter forever seemed to be a man on the edge, I was entirely surprised as to why he embraced producer Bob Ezrin for this release, a man more known for his harder rock, featuring the likes of Kiss, Alice Cooper and even Aerosmith, where he incorporated dynamic ages that relied on elements of not merely orchestration and those lofty synths, but with the placement of emancipated strings and bass lines … leaving Gabriel to focus on the more subdued quieter parts of the record. This was one of the failings for me, where the record sounded disted, relying on too many elements that splintered off into far too many directions, sounding both old and new, though never romantically fresh and intoxicating.

The Peter Gabriel album, for the pleasant resounding numbers it delivered, also held listeners at arms length, never inviting them in the door, where Peter was more content with allowing listeners to peak through the windows, where the richness that shown though the windows was akin to a setting sun, though a sun that never warmed those upturned faces. There’s simply not a single song presented here that bears any resemblance to the other numbers, there are no unifying images, attitudes or flowering themes, it’s just a catch as catch can grab bag of material. That said, people so wanted this to be a smart intelligent album, all based on the perceptions of who Peter Gabriel was and his past influences.

Of course it’s entirely possible that the album felt disted because Gabriel wanted desperately to be done with anything that resembled Genesis and form his own identity. Another reason this album may have lacked an immediacy was that while in Genesis, Gabriel was fond of writing in allegory, relying on his band mates to arrange the musical ages and his visions, which of course left me keenly aware that he was shakily attempting to find a footing that felt sure, along with vocals and a musical voice that belonged to him alone.

Finally, what eventually seeped its way into my being was that Gabriel was not so much making music, as he was about creating art, totally devoid and uninterested in the radio (of the time), commercial applications or even what his listeners thought. Selfishness is by no means wrong, as long as one is not hurting another, where once I understood the path Gabriel was on, I matter of factly stepped aside, watching him turn into another David Byrne (Talking Heads), where he simply became musically irrelevant, relying on his music videos has much as the music and verse to carry his concepts to fruition.

It’s a rather uncomfortable forgettable album after all these years.

*** The Fun Facts: The photo on the cover is of Peter Gabriel sitting in the front enger seat of a Lancia Flavia, owned by Storm Thorgerson, co-founder of Hipgnosis and the cover's designer. For the shoot, which took place in Wandsworth, the car was sprayed with water from a hose. The black &white image was then hand-coloured, and reflections modified using a scalpel, by artist Richard Manning. An alternative proposal was to feature a photograph of Peter Gabriel wearing lenses intended to give his eyes the appearance of metallic ball bearings; this was relegated to the inner sleeve instead.

Review by Jenell Kesler