Peter Gabriel
Picture this: circa 1977, I am around 12 and am playing D&D with my brother and his friends. (Aside - big thanks to brother and company for letting the kid brother in their world since they were actual teenagers at the time.) The DM is a big time music guy - I can still picture his massive record collection - and keeps an amazing soundtrack going in the background. He puts on a record by a band I had never heard of - Genesis - called, unlikely enough, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. While I certainly had no idea at the time why it blew my mind, it most definitely did. What I also didn't know was that while I was getting my first dose of Prog Rock, more importantly, I was getting my first dose of Peter Gabriel. (Not for nothing, that day was also the first time I heard Dark Side of the Moon. Jeez.)
Jump to probably 1981. I am into making mix tapes - one of the many reasons I love "High Fidelity" so much - and am raiding my brother's music collection. In the intervening years I have still not developed my musical tastes very much, and have only very cursorily examined Gabriel's music. But then I discover "Family Snapshot" and it is a revelation. The idea that lyrics and music could link in such a powerful way and tell such a story had largely gone over my head until that song knocked open the doors to that world. But I still hadn't clued in to the bigger Gabriel picture.
I was aware, like we all were, that he was out there doing wild stuff - mostly thanks to "Shock the Monkey" on MTV - but wasn't actively following or examining his music. Flash forward to 1986 and the "Sledgehammer" video taking MTV by storm (more on that in a minute). I was as amazed by the video as everyone else, but I still didn't get it. But I do remember when I finally did. It was beautiful SoCal day, I was tooling around Santa Monica with my girlfriend of the time and we stopped by MusicPlus at the corner of 14th and Wilshire so she could pick up So. We popped it in the cassette (!) player of her Range Rover and headed for Malibu. It took us a bit to get it going because she wanted to fast-forward to "Sledgehammer" but I had a thing about listening to records in order out of respect for the artist and producer (I was learning) so by the time we got it sorted and playing we were turning on to PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). That was when "Red Rain" broke on to my consciousness like one of the waves we were watching break on the beach. The rattling high-hat riff, the tumble of the bass and rumble of the drums, all swelling to that waterfall of the first chorus - it felt like a new world of music. I dug into his music with a vengeance and played my copy of So until it broke and then bought a new one. Even then, though, my appreciation for Peter Gabriel had not truly blossomed.
He was not a prolific touring guy, at least not during this period, and for one reason or another I had never gotten to see him live until, jump again, 1993 when my then wife-to-be took me to see WOMAD (again, more later) and I learned about his power as a performer. His set was at the very end of a long, hot day and there were FAR too many people packed in front of the stage where he was to perform. The standing crowd was flowing and surging and I actually began to fear for all of our safety, to the point of working our way to the light tower to have a place to hold on when the crowd finally broke. The tension was very high, the crowd was grumbling and I though we might be in trouble. And then Peter came out. He spoke a few words, the band broke into "Steam", and tension and fear was forgotten. And it was more than just the relief and joy that he was playing. His presence was simply awesome. The only front man I have ever seen that compares - and I have seen Jagger, Daltrey, Elton, Vedder and Bono - is Freddie Mercury, and he is the greatest of all time. (It didn't hurt that Kate Bush was also there that night and she joined in on a version on "In Your Eyes" that squeezed your heart.)
I relate this chain of vignettes about how Peter Gabriel became a Titan to try and convey a sense of how much impact he and his music have. But I have to also try to flesh out his greatness in more objective ways.
The bulk and scope of his music is staggering. Even if you leave his Genesis work out of it - which is no small achievement unto itself - it is hard to measure what he has done and how far he has come. The arc of his eight solo studio albums is enough to merit Titan status, but that doesn't consider his award-winning film scoring and soundtrack work, his collaborations (Scratch My Back is only the most visible of his astonishing list of partners) and things that defy categorization like OVO, the music he did for London's "Millennium Dome Show". And then there is, one of my favorites, New Blood, some of his earlier music reinterpreted for orchestra. But even his massive music canon only scratches the surface of his creative output.
He has always been heavily into visual media, and while his music videos are ground- and record-breaking (it put Aardman on the map and "Sledgehammer" is still the most played video in MTV history), he has also pioneered new kinds of album art, dabbled in avant-garde film making and even delved into video game production and interactive music. And to know he is into visual production you have only to see him on tour. We got to see him in 2003 and it stands as one of the best - if not the best - shows of my life, with a dizzying array and variety of effects, some stark and simple and others wildly over the top and innovative. It must say something about the scope and range of both his music and performance that the gamut of emotions I experienced during that show ran from unbridled joy through aching sadness with stops at wonder, melancholy and hilarity along the way. I cried at least twice. Not your average concert.
Peter Gabriel is acutely aware of the connections between different creative avenues and processes, and how those connections can break down boundaries. He combined that with his love of world music by founding The World of Music, Art and Dance (WOMAD). It is sad that America can't seem to get it's head around WOMAD, so it hasn't done well here, but I was lucky enough to attend one of their festivals and had a literally life-changing experience there. He also had a reported project in the works (which I'm sorry to say I think must be defunct) to create a creative theme park for adults that sounded just remarkable - would love to have seen that!
And if all that isn't enough for you, he is a dedicated and passionate human rights activist. He has been heavily involved with Amnesty International, founded WITNESS, and helped found and heavily funds The Elders. He has done so much and is so active it is hard to keep track of it all, but he has received numerous humanitarian awards including the "Man of Peace" from the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. And in an age when good causes are sometimes hard to distinguish from good publicity, he is wonderfully humble about his success in the field.
Is all the stuff not related to his music a pre-requisite for Titan status? No, but it sure does go a long way. And besides, he would be a Titan for me if all he ever did was make his particular style of amazing, joyous, moving, original, wondrous, beautiful music.
Titans so far: Gabriel, Townshend and Young.
Coming up - last but not least! - X.
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