{"id":70783,"date":"2023-11-30T18:53:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T18:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geels.net\/?p=70783"},"modified":"2023-11-30T18:53:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T18:53:43","slug":"subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-a-pop-icon-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geels.net\/beauty\/subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-a-pop-icon-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"Subtle as a sledgehammer, a pop icon returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Save articles for later<\/h3>\n<p>Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.<\/p>\n<h3><b><em><i>I\/O<\/i>,<\/em> Peter Gabriel<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>For a guy who spent much of the \u201970s at the forefront of prog-rock as the singer for Genesis, creating sprawling concept albums, wearing a series of increasingly bizarre stage outfits that suggested he had ingested a truckload of acid on the way to a Halloween party, and being one of the main reasons punk had to happen, Peter Gabriel sure did go on to personify big, shiny \u201980s pop.<\/p>\n<p>The most played video on MTV? That would be <i>Sledgehammer,<\/i> his body slam of a hit from 1986 that did just what it said on the tin. The song blaring from that boombox John Cusack held aloft under Ione Skye\u2019s window in the iconic scene from 1989\u2019s <i>Say Anything<\/i>? That would be Gabriel\u2019s <i>In Your Eyes.<\/i> And, somewhat bizarrely, you can barely watch an old episode of <i>Miami Vice<\/i> without hearing a Gabriel song in the background.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.505%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_169\/t_crop_custom\/q_86%2Cf_auto\/caa362ac5a84536314ced01c601ab971453eda6b\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\"><\/p>\n<p><span>After two decades, Peter Gabriel returns \u2013 overcooked and overlong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>From popularising the massive, heavily gated drum sound that dominated the era to becoming one of world music\u2019s greatest champions by co-founding the WOMAD festival, for a while there Gabriel was seemingly everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>And then\u2026 he wasn\u2019t. In fact, <i>I\/O<\/i> is his first solo album of new original material in over two decades. Some wags are calling it his <i>Chinese Democracy<\/i>, but the rarely punctual Axl Rose only took a comparatively brisk 18 years to finally release the follow-up to <i>Use Your Illusion.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Some things haven\u2019t changed. From the get-go, on opening track <i>Panopticom,<\/i> there\u2019s <i>that<\/i> gunshots-in-an-echo-chamber drum sound and the instantly recognisable fat, slithering tones of long-time bassist Tony Levin. And the subject matter is the familiar, big-world thinking we\u2019ve come to expect, too \u2013 in this case, Gabriel\u2019s utopian idea of an infinitely expandable and accessible world database, but, you know, one that doesn\u2019t peddle untruths.<\/p>\n<p>The title track could almost come from Coldplay, with its singalong chorus designed for arena crowds waving lit-up smartphones, while Gabriel sings \u201cstuff coming out, stuff going in, I\u2019m just a part of everything\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In the late \u201990s, Gabriel collaborated with Randy Newman on <i>That\u2019ll Do<\/i> from the <i>Babe<\/i> soundtrack. Should Newman be indisposed for the next Pixar film soundtrack, Gabriel\u2019s <i>Playing For Time <\/i>could easily slot in for that reflective, tear-inducing, life-affirming ballad Newman routinely provides for the end of the second act.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, there\u2019s a palpable sense of mortality on <i>I\/O. <\/i>Gabriel is 73, and he\u2019s mining a seam of material here about taking stock, feeling at one with the world and the (admittedly, not exactly original) realisation that love is all we need. This reaches its most intense moment in <i>And Still,<\/i> a song he wrote to deal with the death of his mother in 2016. It\u2019s a fragile, delicate thing that has an almost Nick Drake transparency to it, as he remembers leaning his head against her skin and the feeling of her brushing his hair as a young boy.<\/p>\n<p>But with all that time spent cooking up these songs, some have been left in the oven too long, stretching to five, six, seven minutes, and in need of an edit or at least a change in tempo. <i>Olive Tree <\/i>and <i>Live and Let Live<\/i> overload the \u201cone with the world\u201d barrow he\u2019s pushing \u2013 the former, a Sting-like concoction that seems to be two different songs bolted together; the latter, coming from a fine place (inspired by Nelson Mandela and <i>The Elders<\/i> project) but littered with cliches such as \u201cWhen we can forgive, we can move on\u201d and \u201cAn eye for an eye, again and again, until the whole world is blind\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>On top of all this, there are two mixes of the album, one a \u201cbright-side mix\u201d by Mark \u201cSpike\u201d Stent, and the other a \u201cdark-side mix\u201d by Tchad Blake. Yes, it\u2019s a lot to take in. But then, it\u2019s been a while in the making. And who knows when, or if, we\u2019ll get a follow-up?<\/p>\n<p><b>To read more from<\/b><b><i> Spectrum<\/i><\/b><b>, visit our page here.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><i>The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. <\/i><\/b><b><i>Get it delivered every Friday<\/i><\/b><b><i>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>Most Viewed in Culture<\/h2>\n<h3>From our partners<\/h3>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/culture\/music\/new-music-to-listen-to-in-december-20231128-p5ene9.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. I\/O, Peter Gabriel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>US Entertainment News. Celebrity News &amp; Gossip - geels<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Get the latest celebrity news and hot celeb gossip with exclusive stories and pictures from Us. Celebrity gossip and the latest showbiz news. 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