As is the case with Sting’s tunery, Peter Gabriel’s music has always struck me as a rather untidy synthesis of pop, prog, and world. At his best, Gabriel is a poppy git; you can dance to his slick evocations of sex (“Shock the Monkey”; “Sledgehammer”; “Digging in the Dirt”; “Steam”). At his worst, he’s a pretentious twit. No matter where you turn, the distinct musk of arty self-importance permeates the man’s catalog. You can smell it a mile away. His vocals, though, are the sticking point. On this, the third and best of his eponymous albums, he bolsters the song-craft, tightening the rhythms and making the lyrics more prosaic than he had done before. Propped by the canned and airless feel of the production, there’s even a kind of motif, that of a man losing, or grappling with, his identity as the world around him burns. (When I bought the CD in my teens, I was reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a book which seemed to tie nicely into the music.)
Rating: A-
