So Amazing, So Different, So Brilliant, So Peter Gabriel

So Amazing, So Different, So Brilliant, So Peter Gabriel

In 1986 the infrastructure for cable television finally made its way to Sandy, Utah.  I still remember the day we got a flyer on the door from Insight Cable letting us know they were ready to install cable in our neighborhood.  My Dad was completely ecstatic that finally ESPN and MTV were coming to our house.  I was excited that finally I was going to have more than 5 channels.

Back in the good old days before MTV stood for Mundane Teenage Vomit it once stood for Music Television and it showed music videos instead of 24 hours of reality television.  Prior to having MTV the only access I had to music video were shows like Solid Gold and very rare concerts on PBS and specials on network television.  Having access to MTV was a huge deal.  I still remember watching Utah Jazz games and Major League Baseball with my Dad and brothers and flipping back to MTV during the commercial breaks.  One thing that made MTV unique (and sadly led to its downfall to a degree) is the variety of music on MTV.  As much as hard rock and heavy metal very much ruled my world in 1986, MTV was very influential in facilitating a forum in which I was exposed to music, both awesome and terrible, that I would not have initially been exposed to otherwise.

I was already a huge fan of the Phil Collins era of Genesis at age 9.  However, at that time I had no idea Peter Gabriel was the original lead singer of Genesis or that he had a very extensive solo career.  One Saturday morning after Saturday morning cartoons ended my brother Scott and I were flipping through the channels, ended up on MTV, and I saw the video of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” for the very first time.  It was by far the coolest and most unique music video I had ever seen.  It fits the music perfectly and showcases a plethora of animation and film styles.  Peter Gabriel really put his acting skills and creativity to the test just to make this music video and pulls off a masterpiece.  Even people who are not fans of Peter Gabriel’s music love this music video.  In addition, the music video for “Sledgehammer” became a new benchmark for the quality and creativity of music video as an art form.  Musically “Sledgehammer” is the perfect mixture of Latin drum beats, jazzy horns, mixed with rock and roll and a quirky set of lyrics.  As much as the music video got my attention, the song is just plain awesome and has made a very lasting impression on me.

In 1987, my father joined the BMG music club with the offer of get 10 cassettes for the price of one.  What made this offer ever cooler is that my father let me and my brothers pick two cassettes each for the mail in offer and I picked the cassettes of Vital Idol by Billy Idol and So by Peter Gabriel.  A couple of weeks later the cassettes arrived in the mail, and I went bicycling through my neighborhood with So playing on my Walkman.  I’ll be the first to admit this album musically was not what I was expecting at all.  I completely expected all of the songs to be in the vein of “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time”.  To be honest after my first listen I did not really know what to even make of it.  I gave it a couple of more listens, but I just could not get into So. 

In 1989, the movie Say Anything starring John Cusack came out and MTV started to play the music video for the Peter Gabriel song “In Your Eyes”.  The first time I saw the video for “In Your Eyes” I was completely taken back.  It was simply one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.  At this point of my life knew a very extensive amount of love songs, power ballads, lust anthems, and romantic songs from Broadway, but none of these songs actually reflected what I thought love was really about.  What made “In Your Eyes” so special to me is that as I heard Peter Gabriel sing it is that I knew Peter Gabriel meant every word of it and I could feel that.  It was a song that really spoke to me about what I perceived love to be about, love is not always easy or instant, and there are a lot of ups and downs, but seeing that love in a girls eyes, is what makes it worth it.  I was 12 years old when “In Your Eyes” was a hit song and I hit that special time in a boy’s life when out of nowhere, girls are now exceptionally attractive and I had my very first crush on a girl in my neighborhood named Jennifer L.  At this point in my life I was the neighborhood metal head, bicycle and roller blading dare devil, and in all reality the odd and kind of there kid (I’m sure there is one in every neighborhood).  I wanted Jennifer to like me so bad, but I just did not know how to act around her, she would only talk to me if she really, really had to, and my attempts to impress her were horrible at best.  But I had a very hopeless crush for the first time in my life and I lived for just seeing Jennifer at school or around the neighborhood.  “In Your Eyes” at that point really summed up how I felt about her, however, such as the case with most first crushes, nothing ever happened between us, but the memories are very precious to me.  “In Your Eyes” is currently in a six way tie with “More Than Words” by Extreme, “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” by Meat Loaf, “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” by Air Supply, “She’s Got a Way” by Billy Joel, and “The Flame” by Cheap Trick as my favorite love song ever.

Thanks to MTV showing the video of “In Your Eyes” at age 12 I decided to dust off my cassette of So, hopped on my bicycle and gave it another listen.  This time the album blew me away from the from the sounds of the Hi Hats that open the song “Red Rain” the album captured me.  Every song on the album is unique and yet they blend together so perfectly.  The most miraculous thing at this point is I was listening to a lot of AC/DC, Rush, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Guns n’ Roses, and Aerosmith, and yet Peter Gabriel fit in perfectly with all of it.  Forgiving the fact that radios and Walkman’s were banned at Union Middle School and would be confiscated if a teacher caught me with one, I always had mine with me, and would listen to songs as I walked from one class to another (provided I wasn’t chatting with my friends).  Because I had so many cassettes I usually had two different tapes with me almost every day and my friends were always interested in what the tapes of the day were.  All of the heavy metal stuff my friends were pretty cool with and envious of, if I brought Elton John, Billy Joel, or James Taylor I usually got teased pretty bad by my rocker friends, and surprised and impressed my other friends, but for some reason, everyone was pretty cool with Peter Gabriel.  He was one of the first musicians I was ever into that for the most part, everyone liked him.  Heavy metal and Peter Gabriel could co-exist very well in my musical universe and So became one of my favorite albums.

When I was 15 years in 1992 old I was a sophomore at Hillcrest High School and I was happy as a clam.  I loved the whole experience.  My last class of the day was an LDS Seminary class where our course of study was the New Testament.  Many of my best friends in High School I met in this seminary class.  Our classes always started with a prayer, a spiritual thought or song from a member of class, and then our lesson for the day.  A very sweet girl, who would become one of my best friends in High School and the first girl I would ever ask on a date named Amy gave the spiritual thought to start the class one day and she played the song “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel and shared a scripture.  I’ll be honest in saying that “Don’t Give Up” was at that time what I considered to be the weakest song on So.  At this point it had been a couple of years since the last time I listened to So and this time “Don’t Give Up” sounded amazing and the message of the song reached me. 

Now we fast forward about 10 years.  It’s January of 2003, I have earned my Associate of Science in General Studies from LDS Business College and I transferred to Utah State University and relocated to Logan, Utah.  I was very excited to arrive at Utah State University and I had been looking forward to going to school there for quite some time.  However, I was working part time for $7.00 dollars an hour and financially I was dirt poor and struggling to support myself in Logan, Utah.  In order just have enough money to buy groceries I had to stop buying CD’s for a little while which was a huge sacrifice for me.  During this period of my life I went through my old cassettes and CD’s that I had not listened to in a very long time and I was able to find some hidden gems in my own music collection which helped to make up for not being able to buy new music.  One day when I came back to my apartment after a long day of classes my roommate had downloaded a bunch of music and we listened to a bunch of it together.  He then played the song “Red Rain” by Peter Gabriel.  Forgiving the fact I had heard this song before, it had been 10 years since the last time I heard it and I don’t know what came over me, but this time “Red Rain” just penetrated me to my very core.  The song literally took my breath away.  At this time I was in my first Calculus class and a C++ software programming class that were incredibly difficult and were literally eating up every ounce of my time just to stay caught up in the classes.  To make things more difficult there was a lot of tension between me and my roommate.  “Red Rain” summed up exactly how I felt and the huge amount of stress I was going through.  After I listened to “Red Rain” with my roommate I immediately went into my bedroom, dusted off my cassette of So and for the first time in at least 10 years I cranked it up on my Walkman and went for a nice long evening walk through Logan, Utah.  Once again So completely blew me away.  I just could not get enough of it and it became of my very favorites when I was attending Utah State University.   I would later dust off my old cassette of Security by Peter Gabriel and that very quickly became another favorite. 

While I was attending Utah State University I was finally able to pay off my car which made my financial situation a lot better.  I bought several of Peter Gabriel’s other albums and really enjoyed them.  At the same time I was a fan of progressive rock, and other than “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”, I had never heard any of the songs of the Peter Gabriel era of Genesis.  I bought the CD’s of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Genesis Live by Genesis and just was completely floored by both of them.  Peter Gabriel is a much different musician in Genesis compared to his solo career, but the music he creates in Genesis is the some of the best progressive rock ever made.  I would own all of the Peter Gabriel era Genesis CD’s before I graduated college.  Peter Gabriel was very much part of the soundtrack of my life while I attended and graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Finance from Utah State University.

When it’s all said and done So is Peter Gabriel’s most successful album.  It received four Grammy award nominations, is noted on several best albums of the 80’s and best albums of all time lists, several of its songs have been recorded by other artists (Queensryche has a superb cover of “Red Rain”), and it is hailed by many critics and fans alike as Peter Gabriel’s masterpiece.  Peter Gabriel this year is celebrating the 25^th anniversary of So by performing the entire album of So live on his upcoming tour and I will be at his Las Vegas show this October.  Peter Gabriel’s So holds a very special place in my heart, the album has expanded my musical horizons and has several of my most cherished memories tied to it.  I am glad that this is an album that is loved by so many people and will continue to stand out for years to come.