Come down, come talk to me

[entelein]

I am going to play Peter Gabriel's Us, out of sheer respect for the kick-ass-osity of it. I drown in that album; beautiful stuff. Lots of noise, textures. Plus from Us is a brilliant companion to this CD.

Mmmmm.

Sound on cool air, warm sun.

Comments

[doctorpepper.livejournal.com]

Have you heard the new single ("The Barry Williams Show")? I've only heard it once, so I don't know if I love it as much as I think or if it's the novelty of a new Peter Gabriel single.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

I have not! I am eager to, though. He's been a fun one to listen to over the years, hasn't he?

[doctorpepper.livejournal.com]

He really has. Even when he doesn't one hundred percent hit the mark for me, he comes close. I don't know how many other people I could take seriously when they go from doing "Sledgehammer" to the Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack :) But he pulled them both off.

[aldon.livejournal.com]

I have always loved Peter Gabriel. I don't think I've heard anything from his new CD, but I really want to.

Up

[(Anonymous)]

The new one, UP, is fantastic albeit DARK. Be forewarned, for fans of Peter, this one might come as a 180-degree turnaround from the poppy accessibility of SO or the more personal, nuanced textures of US. It is very electronic, highly dissonant at times, and more than anything else reminiscent of the creepier parts of his third self-titled album (which most people refer to as MELT because of the melting-face pic on the cover). Water, drowning, and birth metaphors abound, and most songs tip over the six and a half minute mark.

Repeated listening is necessary to appreciate, since "hooks" tend to be few and far between, but it's totally worth it. Next to the last Tool album, this is my favorite album to come out in quite some time. It's worth your $16.99 if only to hear Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's last known recorded vocal performance (recorded something like six years ago before his death) on the breathtaking, strings-laden second single, "Signal To Noise".

Ozy, in full-on Rolling Stone reviewer mode

Re: Up

[(Anonymous)]

oh and btw, K, if you wanna hear the definitive version of "Come Talk To Me", it's on SECRET WORLD LIVE. Manu Katche goes to TOWN all over the drum break in the bridge. Whoooo!

Oz

Re: Up

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Ozy, thanks so much for the review! Maybe you should just break down and beg for an access code so you can make your own journal, because I'd love to hear your daily rants and things (well, on stuff other than ARGs -- I know where to go for that!)

:>

[(Anonymous)]

Careful what you wish for, you just might get it. :)

O

[eeyorerin]

firesign3000 and I were just listening to Up in the car, having gotten it today. It's...music to fall apart to.

[minny.livejournal.com]

Hi, sorry to intrude on your journal. I just wanted to advertise a new LJ community dedicated to the band the Bluetones, who you have listed as an interest.

Feel free to join, the community can be found here:
http://www.livejournal.com/~bluetones

[entelein.livejournal.com]

What a happy interruption!

Thanks for the info. Yay Bluetones!

So, Us, et. al.

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

So, y'see, I thought So was a pretty lame effort. That awful duet with Kate Bush! That even more hideous duet with Laurie Anderson! The pap of "Sledgehammer"! At least it had "Red Rain" and "In Your Eyes", or it would have been a waste of time.

Little as I liked So, I was completely nonplussed by Us. Almost every single lyric rang false to me, and the songs seemed uninspired and astoundingly over-overdubbed. "Come Talk to Me" would have been a fair fourth or fifth song on Gabriel's earlier albums, and "Secret World" grew on me over time, but "Kiss that Frog"? "Steam"? "Digging in the Dirt"? Ugh. Messily arranged, lacking in hooks, this was prog rock gone horribly wrong.

So you see, I dread listening to Up, though I probably will, being a compulsive collector completist type.

Yes, I much prefer Gabriel's first four albums, especially his first, and Security. "Moribund the Burgermeister", "Solsbury Hill", "No Self Control"... this is Gabriel at his best. He seems to have lost track of his strengths since then, which is a crying shame.

Well, that's why there's more than one band in the world, I guess.

Re: So, Us, et. al.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

I do have to say, Mr. Rawdon, that it was reading about your reaction to said albums in your regular journal that prompted me to play Us at high volume and with much celebration.

I am not a proghead by any stretch of the imagination, but part of the attraction for me is finding prog artists that can and will change the arc of their music over time. This is why it amuses me endlessly when I mention that I am listening to a Marillion album, and have someone suspiciously ask me, "pre- or post-Fish?" As if that mattered! I mean, does it really, in the grand scheme of things? If it's not Fish Marillion, does this make me a Bad Person? To many people it does, and to those people's faces I laugh. Besides, the non-Fish guy is HOT.

While I wasn't really surprised to see such an offhanded dismissal of Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush, I do disagree with the relative merits of the tracks they appear on. Let's just say we fundamentally differ on how much those songs rock. :)

People change and grow. Gabriel's influences and inspirations with world music (and his involvement with a label specially created to promote said world music) are a pleasure to see, as I am not quite content to hear yet another album full of bleep bloop bleep prog rock angst music, as brilliant as it may be. His pushing of the envelope has been invigorating and energizing to me as an artist. To deny the schlock or fluff in this world is to put yourself into a lonely Utopia where your standards become so high nothing will ever satisfy any more - which is why I often listened to Ace of Base when I cleaned my apartment in college, which is why I am probably one of A-ha's biggest American fans. It's all about balance and experimentation - and you know, I wonder what his thoughts are on prog rock, anyhow? How he would feel if someone was literally paralyzed into being unable to appreciate the growth or risks he was taking with new sounds? Because of some definition of 'prog rock' somewhere that says something like, "Thou Shalt Not Deviate From Prog Rock-ness, Whatever That May Be?"

Take a look at Plus From Us sometime, and also, listen to Passion Sources after listening to Passion. If you're a completist, as you say, you probably already have them and have listened to them, of course. But those really amplify the accompanying two PG albums for me.

That said, I fully understand that we just disagree on this matter.

Re: So, Us, et. al.

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

Back in my APAhacking days I remember having an exchange with superiorstudio about "new" vs. "more" when it came to music (or any other sort of art). He was definitely more on the "try new stuff often" side, whereas I was pretty happy listening to artists who produced music in the vein I was already happy to listen to. Since then (13 years later), my attitude has modulated somewhat; sometimes I want to hear something different, sometimes I want to hear variations on a familiar theme. What really matters to me is that I like it.

And that's where Gabriel's later work fails for me; for the most part, I don't like it. What I liked about his earlier work isn't there, but it hasn't been replaced by anything that interests me. It's not that I don't appreciate that he is taking risks, it's that I don't think the risks he's taken have "worked", but since he continues to forge off in the direction he set for himself on So, he apparently does. I'm disappointed that he didn't head off in a direction that I found interesting.

Marillion is an interesting case-in-point. On the one hand, Clutching at Straws is one of my absolute favorite albums. On the other hand, I love This Strange Engine, too, although it's a rather different work; "Man of a Thousand Faces" might be my favorite single Marillion track. Both line-ups produced pretty dodgy material, too (Script for a Jester's Tear is, uh, erratic, to put it mildly. Holidays in Eden and Brave are both quite bland).

I admit that my standards are quite "high" (though "strict" might be a better term for it). I don't think this is a bad thing, because there is a lot of very high quality art out there. I do find that tracking down good music is harder than tracking down good books, though some of that is because I am mostly uninterested in lyrics in music, whereas our culture tends to place a fairly high value on the quality of lyrics in pop music. (This must be why I loathe Bob Dylan's music.) Still, given the shelves of laser-engraved plastic in my living room, I'm doing okay.

(Not to say that I don't enjoy certain schlock or fluff, though beauty is in the eye of etc. I don't find Men Without Hats to fit either category, but I'm sure most people would disagree.)

I'm not entirely sure why I keep tilting at windmills such as Us (or Star Trek: The Next Generation), especially ten years after the fact. Partly frustration because I know he's capable of something better. Partly because I like arguing about stuff like this (and always have). Partly because I think it's popular and well-received art such as this which most needs to have the occasional firebrand raised in opposition.

Or maybe it's just because I'm a contrary bastard who loves a good flamewar!