Line #21 Music/So - TV Tropes


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/so.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''Without a noise, without my pride''\
3	''I reach out from the inside''\
4	[[labelnote:Click here for the standard cover with lettering]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/so_peter_gabriel.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]
5
6	->''The place where I come from is a small town\
7	They think so small, they use small words\
8	But not me; I'm smarter than that\
9	I've worked it out\
10	I'll be stretching my mouth to make those big words come right out''
11	-->--'''"Big Time"'''
12
13	''So'' is the fifth studio album recorded by singer/songwriter Music/PeterGabriel. It was released through Creator/CharismaRecords in the United Kingdom, and Creator/VirginRecords and Creator/GeffenRecords elsewhere in the world, on 19 May 1986.
14
15	His final album on Charisma Records, with whom he had been signed to since his days with Music/{{Genesis\|Band}}, the album marks a shift to a more accessible art pop direction compared to the more abstract style of his previous albums. Making greater use of radio-friendly song structures and instrumentation while still focusing on a WorldMusic sound (particularly traditional African and Brazilian music) and heavy use of digital sampling via the Fairlight CMI, it stands in stark contrast to the ProgressiveRock of his first two albums and the experimental PostPunk-meets-worldbeat sound of his third and fourth records, and would set the precedent for his following work even after he shifted back to a more obtuse direction. The album also sees a greater number of guest vocalists than previous albums, featuring backing parts by Music/KateBush, Youssou N'Dour, and Music/LaurieAnderson (Bush had previously appeared on Gabriel's [[Music/{{Melt}} "No Self Control" and "Games Without Frontiers"]] in 1980). Additionally, it is Gabriel's first album to not be a SelfTitledAlbum, owing to increasing pressure from both Charisma and his American label Creator/GeffenRecords, the latter of whom had previously forced Gabriel to retitle his fourth album ''Music/{{Security}}'' in the US and Canada.
16
17	The end result was a massive commercial success for Gabriel, topping the charts in the UK, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, and Norway, and peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, [[BreakthroughHit catapulting the cult favorite musician into a worldwide phenomenon]] as "Music/{{Sledgehammer\|1986}}" and "Big Time" became hits on Creator/{{MTV}}. To this day, it is still his highest-selling studio album, being certified quintuple-platinum in the US, triple-platinum in the UK, platinum in Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Belgium, France, Hong Kong, and Spain. ''So'' is significant in a broader perspective in that, along with ''Music/{{Graceland}}'' by Music/PaulSimon, it marked the peak of the western worldbeat boom that both Gabriel himself and Music/TalkingHeads had instigated in 1980 with Gabriel's third SelfTitledAlbum and ''Music/RemainInLight''.
18
19	On a more dubious note, the album's creation also marked the slowing-down of Gabriel's creative process as an artist. Unlike prior records, which took only a few months at most to record, Gabriel spent almost the entirety of 1985 putting together ''So'', with later studio albums only taking longer and longer to come out. Gabriel later admitted that this was the result of AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder, constantly taking on other commitments that end up stalling album production. Gabriel's next studio album after ''So'', ''Music/{{Us}}'', would take nearly three years to complete, and [[Music/UpPeterGabrielAlbum the album after that]] took seven. While the two albums after that, ''Scratch My Back'' and ''New Blood'', were both completed fairly quickly, those were a CoverAlbum and a series of re-recordings of old material, respectively; ''Scratch My Back'' also only started production seven years after its predecessor's release. His tenth studio album (and eighth of original studio material), ''[=I/O=]'', finally saw the light in 2023.
20
21	A documentary about the creative process behind the making of this album can be seen in the ''Series/ClassicAlbums'' TV documentary series.
22
23	''So'' was supported by five singles: "Music/{{Sledgehammer\|1986}}", "Don't Give Up", "In Your Eyes", "Big Time", and "Red Rain". "That Voice Again" was also given out to radio stations as a promotional single.
24	----
25	!!Tracklist:
26	[[AC: Side One]]
27	# "Red Rain" (5:39)
28	# "Music/{{Sledgehammer\|1986}}" (5:12)
29	# "Don't Give Up" (feat. Music/KateBush) (6:33)
30	# "That Voice Again" (4:53)
31
32	[[AC: Side Two]]
33	# "Mercy Street" (6:22)
34	# "Big Time" (4:28)
35	# "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" (3:22)
36	# "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" (feat. Music/LaurieAnderson) (4:25)[[note]]Initially exclusive to CD and cassette copies until 2002; Gabriel had this added in at the last minute per his own request.[[/note]]
37	# "In Your Eyes" (feat. Youssou N'Dour) (5:27)[[note]]Prior to 2002, this song was placed as the first track of side two (fifth overall track); Gabriel always planned for this song to be the last one on the album, but he decided to move it to the start of side two to allow the bass to sound more prominent on LP copies (as the velocity of a point on a spinning disc increases the further one moves from the center).[[/note]]
38	----
39	!!''I've been troping the rhythm'':
40	* AlliterativeTitle: "'''R'''ed '''R'''ain."
41	* AndStarring: Music/KateBush sings along during "Don't Give Up". Unlike her prior appearances on Gabriel's [[Music/{{Melt}} "No Self Control" and "Games Without Frontiers"]], Bush was given co-billing alongside Gabriel on the song's single release, and consequently the single is generally considered a part of both artists' back-catalogs.
42	* AnimatedMusicVideo: The videos for "Music/{{Sledgehammer\|1986}}" and "Big Time", both directed by Stephen R. Johnson, make heavy use of stop-motion animation techniques. Gabriel selected Johnson specifically because he had also directed Music/TalkingHeads' [[Music/LittleCreatures "Road to Nowhere"]], which also used stop-motion animation the year before this album came out.
43	* BlasphemousBoast: "Big Time":
44	-->''And my Heaven will be a big Heaven''\
45	''And I will walk through the front door''
46	* BookEnds: The video for "Big Time" both begins and ends with Gabriel, with a FakeAmerican accent, saying "Hi there!" The song itself just has that part in the intro.
47	* BrokenRecord: "Big Time" has the word "big" repeated ad infinitum near the end.
48	* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: "Don't Give Up" has notes of this between Gabriel's character and Kate Bush's character.
49	* CelebrityIsOverrated: The ironic IWantSong lyricism of "Big Time" was written as Gabriel's means of examining his fame as both the former frontman of Music/{{Genesis\|Band}} and a solo artist, questioning whether or not he'd wanted it in the first place.
50	* ContinuityNod: The Japanese release gives the album the subtitle ''Peter Gabriel V'', referencing the fact that the four albums before it were all [[SelfTitledAlbum eponymous]].
51	* DoubleEntendre: "Sledgehammer" is packed to the rafters with these; the very first line has the narrator promising his love interest a "steam train" if she'll just lay down her tracks (and it doesn't let up from there).
52	** "Big Time" refers to "the bulge in my big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, BIG." (The previous line is "Look at my circumstance", so it's pretty easy to guess what the [[SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion implied rhyme]] is.)
53	* DownerEnding:
54	** The original LP release ends with "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)", a melancholic mood piece about Stanley Milgram's controversial shock experiments with an overarching tone of hopelessness. On CD & cassette releases and later LP reissues, the track is instead simply an UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode, being followed up by the offbeat "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" and, from the 2002 remaster onwards, "In Your Eyes".
55	** In a more meta example, "In Your Eyes" was written to win back a woman Peter lost -- it didn't work ([[Film/SayAnything at least it worked for Lloyd Dobler]]). The fallout of this would later serve as one of many tribulations that informed the much darker direction of [[Music/{{Us}} Gabriel's next album]].
56	* EarnYourHappyEnding: "Don't Give Up" qualifies both lyrically and musically.
57	* EpicRocking: "Don't Give Up" (6:35) and "Mercy Street" (6:18), with "Red Rain" (5:41) just missing the mark.
58	** Well over half of the bonus tracks from the 2012 remaster are examples. From ''Live in Athens 1987'' we have "San Jacinto" (7:27), "Shock the Monkey" (6:44), "Mercy Street" (9:15), "The Family and the Fishing Net" (7:09), "Don't Give Up" (8:17), "Lay Your Hands on Me" (6:15), "In Your Eyes" (10:38), and "Biko" (9:38). From ''So DNA'' (demo versions of the whole album) we have "Red Rain" (6:15), "Sledgehammer" (6:31), "Don't Give Up" (6:11), "That Voice Again" (6:39), "Mercy Street" (7:51), "Big Time" (6:54), and "In Your Eyes" (10:15). That means seven of nine tracks from the demo disc and eight of sixteen from the live discs top the six-minute mark (and the live version of "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" just barely misses at 5:57).
59	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: Bassist Tony Levin stuck a diaper below the strings of his instrument in order to dampen the bass part's sound in the second half of "Don't Give Up".
60	* FaceOnTheCover: Gabriel's face in close-up. As a deliberate artistic decision, the image lacks any of the effects seen on Gabriel's prior album covers. Gabriel stated that this was done after being informed that his previous covers alienated female audiences, while designer Peter Saville claimed that it was meant to tie in with the emotional and accessible tone of the music.
61	* {{Foreshadowing}}: "That Voice Again" was based on discussions Gabriel had with Creator/MartinScorsese about scoring ''Film/TheLastTemptationOfChrist'', which was in pre-production during ''So''[='s=] own production; consequently, the song acts as a rough prelude to Gabriel's full soundtrack album for the film, 1989's ''Music/{{Passion}}''. By pure coincidence, ''So'' was the last album Gabriel released on Charisma Records (which was absorbed into Creator/VirginRecords shortly after the latter's buyout by Creator/{{EMI}}), and ''Passion'' was the first album Gabriel released on his new vanity label, Real World Records (though his first proper studio album on the label was ''Music/{{Us}}'' in 1992).
62	* GodIsLoveSongs: "In Your Eyes" is sometimes mentioned by Peter as being this; he deliberately wrote the lyrics so that it could be interpreted either as one of these songs or as a romantic song.
63	* HeroicBSOD: "Don't Give Up" is about a man driven to suicidal depression after becoming unemployed. He seems to get better towards the end of the song.
64	* IntercourseWithYou: "Sledgehammer", a song consisting entirely of sexually-driven double entendres.
65	-->''Oh let me be your sledgehammer''\
66	''This will be my testimony''\
67	''Show me 'round your fruitcage''\
68	''Cause I will be your honey bee''\
69	''Open up your fruitcage''\
70	''Where the fruit is as sweet as can be.''
71	* IWantSong: Done satirically with "Big Time".
72	* LighterAndSofter: Compared to Gabriel's prior works, ''So'' is much more upbeat (for the most part), with much of the songs sounding very much anthemic compared to the more atmospheric direction of both his earlier and later works. This even extends to the album cover, which is simply a straightforward headshot of Gabriel, far-removed from his otherwise consistent tendency to distort his own image in some way on his cover art.
73	* LimitedLyricsSong: "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)".
74	* LoudnessWar: While not the worst modern example, the 2012 remaster is louder than the original, at the expense of dynamic range, clocking in at [=DR8=]. Oddly, the demos on the fourth CD are mostly unaffected. The earlier 2002 remaster, meanwhile, is much more favorable, at an average of [=DR11=] (only a slight step down from the [=DR12=] of the original 1986 release; in fact, the entire 2002 remaster campaign for Gabriel's 20th century discography is pretty well-done).
75	* LyricalColdOpen: "Big Time" opens with Gabriel in a FakeAmerican accent shouting "hi there!" just before the instrumental kicks in.
76	* MeaningfulName: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-''So''. This is Gabriel's fifth album. You can figure out the rest.
77	* MinimalisticCoverArt: A black and white photograph of Gabriel against a solid white backdrop; mitigated somewhat on CD and digital reissues, which incorporate the logo sticker from the LP shrinkwrap into the cover. Worth noting is that the album cover and logotype was designed by longtime Music/JoyDivision and Music/NewOrder collaborator Peter Saville, himself a master of this trope.
78	* NewSoundAlbum: Compared to his previous, experimental albums, ''So'' is much poppier and more accessible.
79	* OneWordTitle: "So" and "Sledgehammer." The choice of album name was a WriterRevolt against executive demand that Gabriel finally start titling his albums (as his previous four were [[SelfTitledAlbum self-titled]], creating enough confusion among catalogers that people started adopting their own names for the first three, while the fourth had a title forcibly given to it by Geffen Records for its US release), with "So" being chosen in part because it was an anti-title of sorts.
80	* {{Pastiche}}: "Sledgehammer" is a pastiche of Southern {{Soul}}, and Gabriel himself has described the song as "[his] chance to sing like Music/OtisRedding."
81	* PepTalkSong: Music/KateBush's parts in "Don't Give Up".
82	* ProtestSong: "Don't Give Up" was written as an expression of Gabriel's discontent towards the rising unemployment rates in Britain during UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's tenure as prime minister.
83	* RearrangeTheSong:
84	** "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" is an alternate version of Music/LaurieAnderson's own song "Excellent Birds" (on which Gabriel provided backing vocals), written and recorded for the 1984 Nam June Paik art film ''Good Morning Mr. Orwell''.
85	** Live performances of "In Your Eyes" are far more anthemic and drawn out compared to the studio version (usually lasting upwards of ten minutes), being much more celebratory in tone as a result.
86	* {{Retraux}}: "Sledgehammer," according to Gabriel, was written as a throwback to soul music from TheSixties, and even features the Memphis Horns (who played on a lot of [[Creator/StaxRecords Stax-produced records]]) on backup.
87	* ShoutOut:
88	** As [[http://petergabriel.com/focus/the-day-good-became-so/ confirmed]] by designer Peter Saville, the album cover's "DeliberatelyMonochrome headshot of artist against a white background with a simple but striking logotype on the side" design is a nod to ''Music/LowLife'' by Music/NewOrder; Saville designed the cover art for both records, and has a penchant for carrying over design elements from album to album in a short span of time. The style of the photo is also based on the work of photographer David Bailey.
89	** The pixilation-heavy StopMotion video for "Sledgehammer" is a deliberate nod to a scene in the video for [[Music/LittleCreatures "Road to Nowhere"]] by Music/TalkingHeads, of whom Gabriel was a noted fan. A nod to the same Talking Heads video also appears in that for "Big Time", which has a brief scene of Gabriel sitting in an elaborate throne room similar in design to the one Music/DavidByrne sits in during "Road to Nowhere".
90	* SmallTownBoredom: It's heavily implied that the narrator of "Big Time" feels this way, complaining that the residents there "think so small and use small words" before proclaiming that he's "better than that."
91	* SpecialGuest:
92	** Music/ThePolice drummer Stewart Copeland plays hi-hat on "Red Rain" and drums on "Big Time". Gabriel in fact selected Copeland to play on "Red Rain" specifically because of his skill with hi-hat cymbals, marking a break from Gabriel's self-imposed ban on metallic percussion sounds that stretched back to ''Music/{{Melt}}''.
93	** Adam and the Ants drummer Chris Hughes plays electronic drum parts and provides programming for "Red Rain".
94	** Music/KingCrimson bassist and regular Gabriel collaborator Tony Levin plays bass on the first five tracks of the album, plus drumstick bass on "Big Time" (which was done collaboratively with session percussionist Jerry Marotta; the technique would later inspire Levin to invent funk fingers, specialized drumsticks fastened onto one's fingertips, to recreate the effect on his own).
95	** Memphis Horns player Wayne Jackson, Music/BillyJoel collaborator Mark Rivera, and soul singer P.P. Arnold perform on "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time", with Jackson providing trumpet and coronet parts, Rivera playing saxophone, and Arnold singing backing vocals.
96	** Prior collaborator Music/KateBush duets with Gabriel on "Don't Give Up".
97	** Indian violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar performs violin parts on "That Voice Again" and "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)". Shankar had previously collaborated with Gabriel's former Music/{{Genesis\|Band}} bandmate, Music/PhilCollins.
98	** Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour provides backing vocals on "In Your Eyes" and sings the outro; Gabriel would return the favor by singing on N'Dour's "Shaking the Tree" three years later. The Call frontman Michael Been and Music/SimpleMinds frontman Jim Kerr also provide backing vocals on "In Your Eyes".
99	** Avant-garde musician Music/LaurieAnderson provides synthesizer parts and backing vocals on "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)", itself a remix of a prior collaboration. Music/{{Chic}} guitarist Nile Rodgers also plays guitar on the same track.
100	* StopMotion: Almost the entirety of the video for "Sledgehammer" consists of this, courtesy of Creator/AardmanAnimations, combining claymation, puppets, raw chickens, and especially pixilation. The extensive and highly creative use of the technique throughout the video led to it becoming an '80s icon, the most acclaimed music video ''ever'', and the most famous entry in Gabriel's filmography, to the point where many of his later videos (most notably [[Music/{{Us}} "Steam"]]) were direct responses to it. The video for "Big Time" also falls into this, a collaboration between Aardman and New York animators Peter Wallach and David Daniels, featuring a lot more claymation than the previous video and resembling the far more [[DerangedAnimation deranged]] look of ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'' (which both Daniels and director Stephen R. Johnson worked on).
101	* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: The ending of "Big Time", which pairs "look at my circumstance" with "the bulge in my big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, BIG." Reportedly, Gabriel meant to more properly rhyme it with "pants," but A&R representatives shot the idea down.
102	* SurrealMusicVideo: Comedic ones with "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time", the latter of which is best described as "Sledgehammer" thrown even further off the rails.
103	* TextlessAlbumCover: While most releases of ''So'' feature a logotype of the album title and artist name, on LP releases this is simply a small removable sticker, a-la a Music/PinkFloyd album. This was a compromise between designer Peter Saville, who wanted the cover to be textless, and Creator/CharismaRecords.
104	* UnusualEuphemism: The title of "Sledgehammer" refers to Gabriel's "''[[LampshadedDoubleEntendre sledgehammer,]]''" and the lyrics are littered with other such euphemisms.
105	* UpdatedRerelease: The 2002 remaster moved "In Your Eyes" to the end of the album, in keeping with Gabriel's original intention.
106	* ViewersAreGeniuses: "Milgram's 37," [[AsYouKnow as those who pay attention to psychologists know,]] is about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Stanley Milgram's subjects in his shock experiments,]] and "Mercy Street" is about / InspiredBy the works of the late poet Creator/AnneSexton, who wrote the source of the song's title -- ''45 Mercy Street.''
107	----
108	-->"''[[TheStinger Anne with her father is out in the boat\
109	Riding the water, riding the waves\

Context Music / So