Trivia / Peter Gabriel

• Ascended Fanon: The fan nicknames for Gabriel's first three self-titled albums, Car, Scratch, and Melt, became official titles with the remastered versions. The fourth and final one, Security, received its title via Executive Meddling from his U.S. label at the time of release, Geffen Records, and lost that title when the album was reissued in 2010. On Gabriel's Bandcamp page, the self-titled albums are listed as Peter Gabriel 1 (Car), Peter Gabriel 2 (Scratch), Peter Gabriel 3 (Melt), and Peter Gabriel 4 (Security), reaffirming the ascent of the first three's fan nicknames while also preserving the intent to make all four releases eponymous.
• Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: Very much so; between touring, WOMAD, soundtrack spots, and studio recording, Gabriel tends to have a lot on his plate at one time. He admitted that this trope was a big factor in i/o's Development Hell, and is trying to curb back the amount of commitments he signs onto at once.
• Based on a Dream: Both "Here Comes the Flood" and "Red Rain" were inspired by Gabriel's dreams.
• Black Sheep Hit: "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time", in which a singer normally known for combining art rock and world music scores two huge hits with a Stax-esque soul throwback and a funk-rock tune, respectively. In terms of lyrics, both songs (especially "Sledgehammer") also have a much sillier tone than usual for his music. His later song "Steam" was deliberately given a similar style to "Sledgehammer" in an attempt to ride on the latter's success.
• Breakthrough Hit: While Atlantic Records refused to release his third album because they thought it was uncommercial, the album reached a respectable no. 22 on the Billboard album charts. The "Games Without Frontiers" single only peaked at no. 48 on the Hot 100, but was a hit on rock radio, with Billboard only launching a chart to track airplay on album rock stations the following year. The success of this album set the stage for his success with Security and So later in the decade.
• Channel Hop: While Gabriel stuck with Charisma Records for British distribution of his albums until 1986, when the label was absorbed by Virgin Records (following its purchase by EMI) and he switched to his own Real World Records vanity label, he certainly wasn't as consistent with his American distributors. His debut album was released in the US by Atco Records (who were also Genesis' American distributors at the time), and his second album was released on Atco's parent label, Atlantic Records. Shortly before his third album's release in 1980, Atlantic dropped him because they no longer considered his work commercially viable (both due to the heavier influence of African music and because executives misinterpreted "Lead a Normal Life" as a Creator Breakdown). As a result, the album was released on Mercury Records instead. Just before Mercury's US release of the album, Gabriel decided to hop over to Geffen Records, becoming one of their earliest signed artists.^note Geffen itself, like Atlantic, was distributed by Warner Music Group until 1990, when it was purchased by MCA. Gabriel would stick with Geffen for US distribution of all his later albums until 2008, when he switched to Rykodisc for distribution of his collaborative album Big Blue Ball. Afterwards, all his albums would be distributed in the US by his own Real World Records.
• Creator Backlash: Gabriel was unhappy with Bob Ezrin's bombastic production of the first album, singling out "Here Comes the Flood" in particular, so he recorded simpler versions of the song for Robert Fripp's Exposure and his own Shaking the Tree compilation.
• Creator Breakdown: Us was informed by Gabriel's divorce from his first wife Jill, estrangement from his first daughter, and his breakup with Rosanna Arquette.
• Creator-Driven Successor: "Steam" is basically Gabriel's attempt to recapture the sound and feel of "Sledgehammer." Likewise, "Road to Joy" reprises the style of "Kiss That Frog", itself based on the approach of "Big Time".
• Cut Song:
  • A track titled "I Go Swimming" was recorded during the sessions for Melt, but was ultimately left off the album. It would, however, be included in Gabriel's live repertoire, with a performance of it from the supporting tour for Security being featured on Plays Live in 1983. Additionally, the instrumental backing track for the studio version would be retitled "GA GA" and featured as the B-side to "Red Rain" in 1987.
  • A version of the song "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama, appeared in the initial pressings of Up given out to the press for review, but was then ultimately deleted from the CD prior to release. The song would eventually appear on the greatest-hits collection Hit, in a very different mix, with a sound that more resembled the song's first appearance on Big Blue Ball.
• Development Hell: i/o, the planned follow-up to Up, was originally teased in 2002 with an intended release date of 2004, yet remains in production nearly two decades (and two studio albums) later; its lead single, "Panopticom", didn't come out until the start of 2023. What's more, it started production in 1995, overlapping with the also-lengthy making of Up. Because of this, i/o's prolonged development reached Chinese Democracy levels of notoriety among fans, and the album's page on Wikipedia mainly served as a log of its constant delays from its creation in 2005 to its temporary deletion in 2022.^note The article wouldn't be restored until 2023, well into the album's lunar release campaign and after site staff were certain that the record was actually on its way out.
• Enforced Method Acting: Gabriel's herky-jerky movements at the end of the "Sledgehammer" video were because he was really being shocked by the wiring in the lights he was wearing.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Gabriel's fourth album was titled Security in the U.S. because his American label, Geffen Records, told him to stop releasing self-titled albums. Gabriel himself picked the Security title out, albeit reluctantly, and would begin giving proper names to his studio albums in all regions afterwards (albeit using curt, two-letter, one-word "anti-titles" as a Writer Revolt).
  • Gabriel invoked this on "Intruder", prohibiting Phil Collins from using any cymbals when developing the drum parts. Collins complained because hitting the cymbals is a reflex for experienced drummers. To address this issue, they installed additional drums where the cymbals would usually go on Collins' kit so that he'd have something to hit.
• Follow the Leader: "Intruder" was the first to use gated reverb, which quickly became popular in 1980's music.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition:
  • New Blood was released as 4-disc deluxe edition including an additional disc of instrumentals, a Blu-ray or DVD of the New Blood concert film and an abridged version of the Live Blood album.
  • In commemoration of the album's 25th anniversary, So was re-released as an 8-disc box set including the album on CD and on audiophile-grade vinyl, the re-mastered 1987 Live In Athens concert film on CD and DVD, a So DNA disc of demos, and a 2nd vinyl record, containing two songs recorded for the record but never released, along with a "Here Comes The Flood"-style piano arrangement of "Don't Give Up."
• Milestone Celebration: He celebrated the 25th anniversary of So with the "Back to Front" concert tour, where he performed the album in its entirety (along with some other well-known songs in his discography).
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The music videos for the Dark Side mixes of "The Court" and "Panopticom" were created as part of a contest where people sent in AI-generated animations set to the first four singles from i/o (i.e. "Panopticom", "The Court", "Playing for Time", and the Title Track). The winning video for the former was based on sculptures by prior Gabriel collaborator Tim Shaw, who also designed the cover art for the song's single release, while the video for the latter was made as an allegory for "the boundless possibilities that emerge from the fusion of human creativity and AI."
• Rarely Performed Song: Gabriel dropped all of his past material with Genesis from his setlists after 1978, owed to a combination of him wanting to more thoroughly separate himself from his old band and the fact that his solo output was moving in a vastly different direction. The only times he played any of Genesis' songs again were in 1982 as part of the one-off reunion concert "Six of the Best" and in 2016, when "Dancing with the Moonlight Knight" was included in the Rock Paper Scissors tour that Gabriel did with Sting. Even then, some shows had Sting perform the song instead of Gabriel.
• Referenced by...: Canadian figure skater Stephen Gogolev performed to a Peter Gabriel medley for his long program during the 2019-2020 competitive season. The songs are "The Rhythm of the Heat," "Darkness" and "Red Rain."
• Sequel Gap: Us released six years after So, and Up ten years after Us. His next record, the Cover Album Scratch My Back, released eight years after Up, and while the re-recordings album New Blood took only a year to come out, the long-awaited I/O was stuck in Development Hell for several years (it was originally slated for 2004 and started production all the way back in 1995, concurrently with Up; it was then finally completed and released in 2023). Gabriel attributes these gaps to a combination of his focus on making use of new advancements in music production technology and a tendency to get sidetracked with various side-projects, live appearances, and other commitments.
• Similarly Named Works:
  • "Modern Love" and "Slowburn" off of his first Self-Titled Album have no relation to "Modern Love" and "Slow Burn" by David Bowie.
  • Up shares its name with a Pixar film and albums by Right Said Fred and R.E.M..
  • "More Than This" is unrelated to the opening track of Avalon by Roxy Music.
  • Us is also the name of a doppelganger horror film directed by Jordan Peele.
  • "Road to Joy" is also the name of a 2005 song by American Alternative Rock band Bright Eyes.
• Technology Marches On: "Intruder", recorded in 1979 and released the following year, refers to cutting a telephone line, presumably to render a victim unable to call for help, before the proliferation of cellphones.
• Throw It In!: The powerful drum sound during "Intruder" came from a happy accident courtesy of former Genesis bandmate Phil Collins, who was present as a guest percussionist. The studio he was recording in used a Solid State Logic 4000 console which had a "listen back" circuit, using an omnidirectional microphone with a powerful audio compressor allowing everyone in the live room to be heard. Collins started drumming while the circuit was still engaged, producing a powerful compressed drum sound. The engineers at the studio cracked open the console and rewired it by hand to allow the sound to be recorded to tape.^note Subsequent models of the SSL 4000 included a "listenback to tape" feature The compressed drum sound was then put through a sound gate, resulting not only in "Intruder's" distinct gated reverb percussion, but also created Collins' own trademark drum sound, though it wouldn't be until the technique's use on Collins' own "In the Air Tonight" that gated reverb would become the popular percussion style of the 1980's.
• What Could Have Been:
  • David Bowie declined to cover one of Gabriel's songs for And I'll Scratch Yours. Granted, we got Brian Eno instead (who's pretty awesome in his own right), but it was still pretty disappointing. Radiohead also dropped out of the project, having intended to cover "Wallflower" but ultimately backing out due to their dissatisfaction towards Gabriel's rendition of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)".
  • Gabriel's decision not to reunite with the "classic Genesis" lineup in 2007 to tour The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway may count as well.
  • For the film Say Anything... Cameron Crowe wanted "In Your Eyes", Gabriel requested a rough cut of the film before he licensed the song. He told Crowe yes, but that he was disturbed by the overdose at the end. The producers had sent him the film Wired (a John Belushi biopic) instead.
  • When "I Don't Remember" debuted in live performances during Gabriel's 1978 tour, it originally featured a much different, poppier mix that emphasized David Byrne-esque scatting and featured guitar solos by Robert Fripp. This version was intended to be released as Melt's lead single, but was rejected for being too uncommercial; it would end up becoming the B-side to the album's actual lead single, "Games Without Frontiers", and would receive its own music video after some considerable editing. Ironically, the version that ended up on Melt turned out to be less commercial than the live performance. The very first performances of the song also featured a radically different set of lyrics, which were changed as the tour went on; a performance featuring the original lyrics can be seen on the band's 1978 gig on the German music TV show Rockpalast.
  • At one point while working on i/o, Gabriel attempted to collaborate with Skrillex of all people. It ultimately fell through due to creative differences, but Gabriel was still grateful for the experience as it helped him explore outside his comfort zone.
• Working Title:
  • For Security:
    • "The Rhythm of the Heat" was originally titled "Jung in Africa".
    • "Shock the Monkey" was originally titled "Black Bush".
    • "Lay Your Hands On Me" was originally titled "93", after the LinnDrum pattern used on the song.
  • Gabriel initially intended to release So with the title Good (after Charisma Records told him that he couldn't name it Peter Gabriel a fifth time around). According to Peter Saville, who designed the album cover, Gabriel and Saville's assistant, Brett Wicker, decided against Good thanks to their displeasure with how it looked on the art proofs.
  • For Up:
    • According to Gabriel's website, "Darkness" was originally called "House in the Woods".
    • "No Way Out" was originally listed on promo copies as "Don't Leave".
    • I/O was tossed around as a potential name for the album, only for Gabriel to pick Up instead; i/o (with all lowercase letters this time) would later become the official title for the follow-up.
  • For i/o:
    • "Playing for Time" was originally played live during the Back to Front tour under the title "Daddy Long Legs".
    • The Title Track was originally called "In and Out".
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Gabriel commonly forms the vocal parts of songs by stringing nonsense syllables together (which he calls "Gabrielese") and then forms lyrics around that, as demonstrated here.

---