Peter Gabriel - III

Peter Gabriel made excellent albums long before he became a sort of world music ambassador and started to spend just as much time taking supermodels on yachting trips as recording in the studio. Once freed from the prog-rock excesses of his career with Genesis in 1975, he embarked in an adventurous solo career which produced a string of records merging inventive music with intelligent lyrics - which touched the personal and the political, often merging them. From these, his third eponymous album recorded in 1980 is my favourite. Those vaguely familiar with Peter Gabriel's albums remember it for "Biko" the protest song about South African political activist Stephen Biko who was arrested and killed by the Apartheid regime's police. Or for "Games Without Frontiers", a satire on the then hugely popular entertainment program which Gabriel describes in the song as "war without tears". But no matter how brilliant these two songs are ("Biko" being an obvious stand-out) the album has more to offer. The opening songs "Intruder" and "No Self Control" are first-person examinations on the dark alleys of the mind which suggest a psychic landscape of loneliness and paranoia. Later, in "Family Snapshot", the first-person subject becomes identifiable at times: could it be Lee Oswald and could this be about the killing of John Kennedy as seen from the eyes and mind of his murderer? Whatever Gabriel's intentions, he portrays the character and his acts with a sense of humanity which wasn't to be seen that often in popular songs (well, maybe in Johnny Cash songs but in a far more removed way). Listened to with lyrics in sight, it stands as one of the most emotionally complex and accomplished songs in popular music.
Though not the most memorable of tracks, "And Through the Wire" is a metaphor for the illusion of communication across borders at a time when there were so many physical barriers within Britain and in continental Europe. It anticipates the more overtly political tone to the album's second side. This has "Not One of Us" a political statement on exclusion: "You may look like we do/ Talk like we do/ But you know how it is/ You're not one of us".
The music in the album is rich in details and becomes a perfect medium for Gabriel's obsessions rather than an exercise in style. Thunderous percussion, avant-garde electronica of the time, razor-sharp guitar power chords and sparse but effective piano and marimbas all add to the tension within the songs making the whole album as inspiring lyrically as musically. As coherent and engaging the album feels as a whole, my favourite song happens to be the one which perhaps less easily fits next to the others. "Lead a Normal Life" is a largely instrumental piece comprising marimbas, piano and processed electronic noises. The short lyrics suggests life from an hospice room: "It's nice here with a view of the trees/ Eating with a spoon?/ They don't give you knives?/ "Spect you watch those trees blowing in the breeze/ We want to see you lead a normal life" before the song dissolves in the haze of a noise loop.
Peter Gabriel's third album is an excellent mainstream rock album which proves more daring with each listen and which pushed the boundaries between the mainstream and the artistically innovative.

And, by the way, he has just refused a reunion tour with Genesis so he hasn't lost it completely yet!