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Peter Gabriel (1982 album)

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Peter Gabriel
Studio album by
Peter Gabriel
Released10 September 1982 (1982-09-10)[1]
Recorded1981–1982[2]
StudioAshcombe House, Bath, England
Genre
Length45:27
LabelCharisma (UK)
Geffen (US, Canada)
ProducerDavid Lord and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel chronology
Peter Gabriel
(1980) 		Peter Gabriel
(1982) 		Plays Live
(1983)
Peter Gabriel studio album chronology
Peter Gabriel
(1980) 		Peter Gabriel
(1982) 		So
(1986)
Singles from Peter Gabriel
  1. "Shock the Monkey"
    Released: September 1982[9]
  2. "I Have the Touch"
    Released: December 1982[10]
  3. "Wallflower"
    Released: 1982 (NL)[11]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Chicago Sun-Times[13]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[14]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[15]
Q[16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[17]
Uncut8/10[18]
The Village VoiceC+[19]

Peter Gabriel is the fourth studio album by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. In the United States and Canada, the album was released by Geffen Records with the title Security. Some music streaming services refer to it as Peter Gabriel 4: Security.[20] A German-language version, entitled Deutsches Album (German Album), was also released. The album saw Gabriel expanding on the post-punk and world music influences from his 1980 self-titled record, and earned him his first US top 40 single with "Shock the Monkey".

Instead of working with Hipgnosis on the cover art as he did for his previous three albums, Gabriel turned to sculptor Malcolm Poynter. The image is of Gabriel's face, based on an experimental videotape recorded by Poynter and heavily distorted through the use of flexible mirrors, Fresnel lenses, and lighting techniques.[21]

The album was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002.

Recording

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The album was recorded in 1981 at Ashcombe House close to where Peter lived at the time which was half a mile away from Ashcombe House (Ashcombe House, in Somerset).[22] The album was an early example of digital recording, having been mixed to a Sony PCM-1610 digital 2-track.[23] The songs contain many unique sounds from the sampler/synthesizer Fairlight CMI. The first two weeks of recordings involved use of the Mobile One, a London-based recording truck which offered 46-track recording facilities.[23]

Songs

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The songs of this album cover a wide variety of subject matter. "The Rhythm of the Heat" is based on Swiss psychologist Carl Jung's experience watching a group of drummers and dancers in Kenya, during which he became overwhelmed and worried that the music and dancing would subsume him. "San Jacinto" reflects on the fear and pain experienced by an Indigenous American man who sees his culture overwhelmed by modern white society, based on a story told to Gabriel by an Apache man. "Shock the Monkey", a meditation on jealousy, uses imagery of a primate to describe personal anxieties.[24] "Lay Your Hands on Me" deals with a theme of healing, through trust, which is further explored on later albums. "The Family and the Fishing Net" compares a modern-day wedding to a voodoo sacrifice. "Wallflower" is about the treatment of political prisoners in Latin America during the 1980s.[25]

Larry Fast, who played synthesizer, mentioned during a presentation on Moog synthesizers that the working title for "The Rhythm of the Heat" was "Jung in Africa", the working title for "Shock the Monkey" was "Black Bush", and the working title for "Lay Your Hands on Me" was "93" – this was the number of the Linn LM-1 pattern used on the track.[26] Additionally, in the South Bank Show documentary on the album, the working title for "I Have the Touch" was shown to be "Hands".[27]

Gabriel discussed several of the songs in an interview with DJ Alan Freeman:

  • "The Family and the Fishing Net": "It's basically a wedding song, but it's more an approach from the undercurrents of the wedding ritual. There are quite a lot of situations that we accept as perfectly normal and regular, traditional, that have this element of ritual that makes deep impressions on the psyche. And this is a somewhat impressionistic account of a wedding. I'd also been reading quite a lot of Dylan Thomas at the time, so there is that influence in the lyric writing."
  • "Lay Your Hands on Me": "It is part [hymn] and part the sort of faith healing aspect, which I think occurs in that and in 'Kiss of Life' too… I'm convinced that we have abilities within ourselves that are not really acknowledged yet. There's also the fairly dry, urban images in the verses, and then there's the sense of cleansing through this laying-on of hands. There's the screaming for the hands to be laid on in the choruses."
  • "Wallflower": "'Wallflower' began almost as a love song. In fact, that's probably the oldest of the songs. I started doing a version of it on the third album, which was never finished. And then I rerecorded it for this one. The Amnesty programme that they were running on the television (possibly The Secret Policeman's Ball) made quite a big dent on me as a prisoner of conscience situation. And I thought that the emotion that's in the song could be usefully directed with that sort of lyric. So, after a certain amount of soul-searching, I decided to go for it on this album. And it feels real to me, so I'm quite pleased with it."[28]

Title

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As with his previous three albums, the album is titled Peter Gabriel. In the United States and Canada Geffen Records issued the album under the title Security to differentiate it from his previous releases. The title was changed with Gabriel's reluctant agreement. The new title was displayed in a sticker on top of the LP sleeve's shrink-wrap and on the disc labels. Whilst Gabriel provided the title himself, the album was officially known as Peter Gabriel in other territories.[29] The Security title was maintained on American and Canadian releases of the album until 2010, when it reverted to the original Peter Gabriel title for reissues by Gabriel's own Real World Records label.

Critical reception

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In The Boston Phoenix, Howard Hampton wrote that "though I have serious reservations about the album, it is just varied, provocative, and experimental enough to have radio programmers and fans murmuring 'artistic breakthrough.' It even has commercial potential (up to a point – Asia it isn’t)."[30]

In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic thought that the album "continued where the third Gabriel album left off, sharing some of the same dense production and sense of cohesion, yet lightening the atmosphere and expanding the sonic palette." Erlewine partially attributed the album's "brighter feel" to Gabriel's embrace of African and Latin rhythms, which he thought were effective in complimenting the synthesizers. He asserted that certain songs required greater attention from the listener , including "The Family and the Fishing Net," "Lay Your Hands on Me," and "Wallflower", but felt that some of them failed to deliver a rewarding experience.[12]

Track listing

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All tracks are written by Peter Gabriel

Side One
No.TitleLength
1."The Rhythm of the Heat"5:15
2."San Jacinto"6:21
3."I Have the Touch"4:30
4."The Family and the Fishing Net"7:08
Side Two
No.TitleLength
5."Shock the Monkey"5:28
6."Lay Your Hands on Me"6:03
7."Wallflower"6:30
8."Kiss of Life"4:17

Personnel

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Production

  • Peter Gabriel – producer
  • David Lord – producer, engineer
  • Neil Perry – assistant engineer
  • Andy Rose – engineer (Mobile One)
  • Tim Wybrow – engineer (Mobile One)
  • Greg Fulginiti – mastering
  • Julian Mendelsohn – remix on track 5
  • Danny Heaps – remix assistant on track 5
  • Malcolm Poynter – album art[31]

Charts

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Chart (1982) Peak
position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[32] 66
Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[33] 2
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[34] 14
Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)[35] 13
French Albums (SNEP)[36] 5
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[37] 18
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[38] 15
UK Albums (OCC)[39] 6
US Billboard 200[40] 28

Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[41] Platinum 100,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[42] Gold 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[43] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Deutsches Album

[edit]
Deutsches Album
Studio album by
Peter Gabriel
ReleasedNovember 1982
Recorded1981–1982
Length45:27
LabelCharisma Records
ProducerDavid Lord and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel chronology
Peter Gabriel
(1980) 		Deutsches Album
(1982) 		Plays Live
(1983)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[44]

Deutsches Album (1982) is Gabriel's German-language adaptation of his fourth album. It was released simultaneously with the English-language edition in Germany.

Like Gabriel's previous German-language album, Ein deutsches album (1980), Deutsches Album differs from its English-language release in several ways. The album boasts a different running order: "San Jacinto" is swapped with "The Family and the Fishing Net" (here, "Das Fischernetz"). Some of the songs are substantially remixed and are, for instance, 15–30 seconds longer or shorter than their international versions. Track eight gains a final coda not found on the English version, while track seven has an earlier instrumental fade. The background vocals are redone in German. In the third track, a shouted nonsense refrain has been added. All songs were written by Peter Gabriel with "Texte" (lyrics) by Peter Gabriel and Horst Königstein [de].

Track listing

[edit]

Side One

[edit]
  1. "Der Rhythmus der Hitze" – 5:36
  2. "Das Fischernetz" – 6:45
  3. "Kon Takt!" – 4:31
  4. "San Jacinto" – 6:13

Side two

[edit]
  1. "Schock den Affen" – 5:43
  2. "Handauflegen" – 6:02
  3. "Nicht die Erde hat dich verschluckt" – 5:59
  4. "Mundzumundbeatmung" – 4:54

In other media

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"The Rhythm of the Heat" appears in the opening scene of "Evan", an episode aired during the first season of Miami Vice. Gabriel, who had seven songs used, had the most songs featured by a solo artist in the series. He is also the only artist to have had a song used in four of the show's five seasons. (None of his songs were used in the second season, though "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins, which features backing vocals by Gabriel, was used in the second-season premiere.) The song was also used in the feature film Natural Born Killers, and in the commercials for the 2001 film Pearl Harbor.

"Shock the Monkey" was featured on the 1987 film Project X (starring Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt). The song was referenced in the 1988, Season 6, Episode 17 of the American sitcom Cheers. Lillith says she will never be able to hear "Shock the Monkey" again without crying. The song also appeared in the South Park episode "Raisins".

"I Have the Touch" featured in the 1988 film The Chocolate War. An alternate version of the track was featured on the 1996 film Phenomenon, starring John Travolta. A cover version by Heather Nova was featured in The Craft.

"Lay Your Hands on Me" appears in "Crossbreed", a fifth season episode of The Americans. It was the third appearance of a Gabriel song in the series, the first being "Games Without Frontiers" in the season one finale, "The Colonel", and the second being "Here Comes the Flood" in the third episode of season two, "The Walk In."

References

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  1. ^ "Peter Gabriel". PeterGabriel.com.
  2. ^ Mic, Smith (2002). Peter Gabriel (booklet). Peter Gabriel. Box, Wiltshire: Real World. p. 1.
  3. ^ "Peter Gabriel's Best Songs: A List of His Essential Tracks". 18 May 2018.
  4. ^ Thomson, Graeme (30 October 2015). "Peter Gabriel – the first four solo albums remastered". Uncut. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  5. ^ "Peter Gabriel 4". Billboard.
  6. ^ Hombach, Jean-Pierre (2008). Phil Collins. Dallas Museum of Art. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-4716-2948-8.
  7. ^ Bahn, Christopher (27 March 2007). "Peter Gabriel III". The A.V. Club.
  8. ^ Milano, Brett (2021). "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time". Udiscover Music.
  9. ^ "Shock the Monkey".
  10. ^ "I Have the Touch".
  11. ^ "Peter Gabriel – Wallflower (1982, Vinyl)". Discogs. 1982.
  12. ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Security – Peter Gabriel". AllMusic. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  13. ^ DeRogatis, Jim (4 July 1993). "A Solo Discography". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
  14. ^ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  15. ^ Brunner, Rob (12 July 2002). "Peter Gabriel: Security". Entertainment Weekly. pp. 84–85.
  16. ^ "Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 1: 'Car' / Peter Gabriel 2: 'Scratch' / Peter Gabriel 3: 'Melt' / Peter Gabriel 3: 'Ein Deutsches Album' / Peter Gabriel 4: 'Security' / Peter Gabriel 4: 'Deutsches Album'". Q (352). November 2015.
  17. ^ Considine, J. D. (2004). "Peter Gabriel". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 319–20. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  18. ^ Thomson, Graeme (November 2015). "Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 1 ('Car') / Peter Gabriel 2 ('Scratch') / Peter Gabriel 3 ('Melt') / Peter Gabriel 4 ('Security')". Uncut (222): 88–89.
  19. ^ Christgau, Robert (30 November 1982). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  20. ^ "Peter Gabriel". Spotify.
  21. ^ "Peter Gabriel 4 – Security » Real World Galleries". realworldgalleries.com.
  22. ^ "Peter Gabriel at Ashcombe House". Synergy-emusic.com. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  23. ^ a b CD liner notes
  24. ^ "Tracks explained". Rolling Stone. 4 November 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  25. ^ "Wallflower by Peter Gabriel Songfacts". Songfacts.com. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  26. ^ "Conversations in the Key of MOOG". Synthtopia.com. 25 February 2010. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  27. ^ "The South Bank Show 31 October 1982". IMDb. 31 October 1982. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  28. ^ Capital Radio interview with Alan Freeman, broadcast October 1982; transcribed in Gabriel fanzine White Shadow (#3, pp14) by editor Fred Tomsett
  29. ^ Scarfe, Graeme (2021). Peter Gabriel: Every Album, Every Song. United Kingdom: SonicBond. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-78952-138-2.
  30. ^ Hampton, Howard (12 October 1982). "Another Third World: Peter Gabriel misses a beat". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  31. ^ "Peter Gabriel 4 – Security » Real World Galleries". realworldgalleries.com.
  32. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 120. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  33. ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 6941a". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  34. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel 4: Security" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  35. ^ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-21053-5.
  36. ^ "Le Détail des Albums de chaque Artiste – G". Infodisc.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2012. Select Peter Gabriel from the menu, then press OK.
  37. ^ "Charts.nz – Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel 4: Security". Hung Medien. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  38. ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel 4: Security". Hung Medien. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  39. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  40. ^ "Peter Gabriel Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  41. ^ "Canadian album certifications – Peter Gabriel – Security". Music Canada.
  42. ^ "British album certifications – Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel Pg4". British Phonographic Industry.
  43. ^ "American album certifications – Peter Gabriel – Security". Recording Industry Association of America.
  44. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (2023). "Security [Germany] – Peter Gabriel | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
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