People have a very fixed perception of Peter Gabriel - 70s prog rocker, 80s pop-meister and MTV favourite, 90s champion of so-called 'world music', present-day eco-warrior. For me, he's a fearless embracer of diversity. Since his Genesis days, he's worn his middle-class background on his sleeve and made bold, potentially career-ending innovations. Most of all, he embraced production technology, (from being one of the pioneers of the Fairlight synthesizer to being a part owner of Solid State Logic) yet managed to sound utterly authentic.
I'm going to give you a very brief taste of his music. I've skipped his Genesis days (criminal move, I know) and gone straight to his brilliant solo offering - Games Without Frontiers (from '3' released in 1980). Check out that opening - why no self-respecting Kanye West type hip-hop producer hasn't stolen it yet, I don't know. Interestingly, Gabriel recently made the song available in a competition to remix the song. Such luminaries as Massive Attack took up the challenge. I'm trawling through some of the ones uploaded on Youtube, but haven't found one yet that truly puts that intro to use.
GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS
In the 80s, Gabriel embarked on his most commercially successful period with the massive hit album 'So'. Everyone from that time remembers 'Sledgehammer' and the brilliant animated video. Again, Gabriel spotted the possibilities and potential of music videos, something all commercial bands now take for granted. I prefer this hit off the album, 'Big Time', which still moves many a Balearic dance floor.
BIG TIME
After the commercial success of 'So', Gabriel created what is, for me, his masterpiece. Asked by Martin Scorsese to soundtrack his controversial film 'The Last Temptation of Christ', Gabriel delivered the goods. He recruited musicians from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia to create a truly mystical feel, yet combined it with synthesisers and sequencers in an authentic blend. Thanks partly to DJ Jose Padilla and Cafe del Mar, the album is rightly credited as a classic and an album which re-invigorated the ambient soundtrack genre.
Listen to 'Passion' (from the album of the same name) and you hear music which Hollywood has now ripped many times - whenever they want to soundtrack some footage of the Middle East or Africa (usually showing hooded terrorists driving off into the desert). Pick any Ridley or Tony Scott movie (e.g. Black Hawk Down) and somewhere in the film, you will hear a rip-off of this 'Passion' moment.
PASSION
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