''Peter Gabriel'' is the fourth studio album by the English

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

musician

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and human rights activist. He came to prominence as the original frontman of the rock band Genesis. He left the band in 1975 and launched a solo career wit ...

. In the United States and Canada, the album was released by

Geffen Records Geffen Records (formerly The David Geffen Company from 1980 to 1992 and Geffen Records Inc. from 1993 to 2004) is an American record label, founded in late 1980 by David Geffen. Originally a music subsidiary of the company known as Geffen Pi ...

with the title ''Security''. Some music streaming services refer to it as ''Peter Gabriel 4: Security''. A

German-language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is a ...

version, entitled ''Deutsches Album'' (''German Album''), was also released. The album saw Gabriel expanding on the

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

and

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

influences from his 1980 self-titled record, and earned him his first US top 40 single with "

Shock the Monkey "Shock the Monkey" is a song by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released in September 1982 as the first single from his fourth self-titled studio album, issued in the US under the title ''Security''. The song peaked at number 29 ...

". Instead of working with

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group, based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, Def Leppard, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black S ...

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 lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens (optics), lens which reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. The simpler Dioptrics, d ...

es, and lighting techniques. The album was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002.

Recording

The album was recorded at Ashcombe House in

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, half a mile from where Gabriel was living. Work on the album began in the spring of 1981, with Gabriel handling the writing and pre-production. He also used a

Fairlight CMI The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos It was based on a commerc ...

to sample sounds from various sources, including a junkyard. Like the previous album, he took a rhythm-first approach to songwriting by improvising on piano & keyboards to a drum machine, this time a

Linn LM-1 The Linn LM-1 Drum Computer is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics and released in 1980. It was the first drum machine to use samples of acoustic drums, and one of the first programmable drum machines. Its designer, the American en ...

. Co-producer David Lord would later join to help structure and arrange Gabriel's ideas into proper songs, and together they created 8-track demos with the Linn as a reference for his backing band. That summer, he recorded the basic tracks for the album with his band, including

Jerry Marotta Jerome David Marotta (born February 6, 1956) is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta; Rick is also a drummer and composer. Career Marotta was a member of the bands Arthur, Hurley & ...

Tony Levin Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer specializing in electric bass guitars, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (19 ...

, David Rhodes, and John Ellis. These sessions yielded seven hours' worth of material to be overdubbed & edited down over subsequent months. The first two weeks of sessions involved use of the Mobile One, a London-based recording truck which offered 46-track recording facilities before a control room was ready.CD liner notes After the basic tracks were recorded,

Larry Fast Lawrence Roger Fast (born December 10, 1951) is an American synthesizer player and composer. He is best known for his 1975–1987 series of synthesizer music albums (''Synergy'') and for his contributions to a number of popular music acts, inclu ...

joined for three months, working with Gabriel on 'electronic production' aspects including synthesizer overdubs, programming & audio treatments. By spring of 1982, Gabriel was focusing on writing lyrics and recording finished vocals, which he did in the control room at Ashcombe via a Shure SM57 dynamic microphone. As per Lord, they did up to 20 takes for each song, rated each word on a scale of one to ten, and compiled the best parts together - this whole process took hours to accomplish. The album was mixed down at Lord's Crescent Studios onto a Sony PCM-1610 digital 2-track, being an early use of

digital recording In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...

Songs

The songs of this album cover a wide variety of subject matter. "

The Rhythm of the Heat "The Rhythm of the Heat" is a song written and performed by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. Released in 1982, it is the opening track off his fourth self-titled album. In 1985, the song was used during the opening scene of "Evan" in sea ...

" is based on Swiss psychologist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

'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 White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

society, based on a story told to Gabriel by an

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

man. "

", a meditation on jealousy, uses imagery of a primate to describe personal anxieties. "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 Voodoo may refer to: Religions * West African Vodún, a religion practiced by Gbe-speaking ethnic groups * African diaspora religions, a list of related religions sometimes called Vodou/Voodoo ** Candomblé Jejé, also known as Brazilian Vodu ...

sacrifice. "

Wallflower ''Erysimum'', or wallflower, is a genus of flowering plants in the cabbage family, Brassicaceae. It includes more than 150 species, both popular garden plants and many wild forms. ''Erysimum'' is characterised by star-shaped and/or two-sided) tr ...

" is about the treatment of political prisoners in Latin America during the 1980s.

, who played synthesizer, mentioned during a presentation on

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

s 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

pattern used on the track. Additionally, in the ''

South Bank Show ''The South Bank Show'' is a British television arts magazine series originally produced by London Weekend Television and broadcast on ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new version of the series began 27 May 2012 on Sky Arts. Conceived, written, ...

'' documentary on the album, the working title for "I Have the Touch" was shown to be "Hands". Gabriel discussed several of the songs in an interview with DJ

Alan Freeman Alan Leslie Freeman MBE (6 July 1927 – 27 November 2006), nicknamed "Fluff", was an Australian-born British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years, best known for presenting '' Pick of the Pops'' from 1961 to 20 ...

: *"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 Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

account of a wedding. I'd also been reading quite a lot of

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

at the time, so there is that influence in the lyric writing." *"Lay Your Hands on Me": "It is part ymnand part the sort of

faith healing Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healin ...

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 Amnesty () is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet be ...

programme that they were running on the television (possibly ''

The Secret Policeman's Ball ''The Secret Policeman's Ball'' is a series of benefit shows staged initially in the United Kingdom to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started in 1976 featuring popular British comedians but lat ...

'') 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."

Title

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 Shrink wrap, also shrink film, is a material made up of polymer plastic film. When heat is applied, it shrinks tightly over whatever it is covering. Heat can be applied with a handheld heat gun (electric or gas), or the product and film can pa ...

and on the disc labels. Whilst Gabriel provided the title himself, the album was officially known as ''Peter Gabriel'' in other territories. 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 Real World Records is a British record label specializing in world music. It was founded in 1989 by English musician Peter Gabriel and original members of WOMAD. A majority of the works released on Real World Records feature music recorded at R ...

label.

Critical reception

In ''

The Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the now defunct ''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 Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

'' it isn’t)." In a retrospective review,

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance ...

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 complementing 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.

Track listing

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

(all tracks),

Prophet-5 The Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the American company Sequential (company), Sequential. It was designed by Dave Smith (engineer), Dave Smith and John S. Bowen (sound designer), John Bowen in 1977. It was the first Polyphony ...

(tracks 1, 3, 5, 7),

programming (tracks 1–6),

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

(track 7),

surdo The surdo is a bass drum or a large floor tom-like drum used in many kinds of Brazilian music, such as Axé/ Samba-reggae and samba, where it plays the lower parts from a percussion section. The instrument was created by Alcebíades Barcelos duri ...

(tracks 1, 8), additional drums on track 2 *

–

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

(tracks 1, 7–8), Chapman stick (tracks 2–5),

fretless bass guitar A fretless bass is an electric bass guitar whose neck lacks frets and thus is smooth like traditional string instruments, and like the neck of an acoustic double bass. While the fretless bass is played in all styles of music, it is most common in ...

(track 6) * David Rhodes –

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

(tracks 2–8), backing vocals (tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8), * John Ellis – guitar on tracks (2, 4), backing vocals (tracks 1, 3, 8) *

–

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

(all tracks), surdo (track 1),

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

(track 6) *

–

(tracks 1–4, 8), Prophet-5 (tracks 1, 3, 5, 7), electronic percussion (track 8) * Stephen Paine – Fairlight CMI (track 4) * David Lord –

Polymoog The Polymoog is a hybrid polyphonic analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Moog Music from 1975 to 1980. The Polymoog was based on divide-down oscillator technology similar to electronic organs and string synthesizers of the time. Histor ...

and Prophet synthesizers (track 6), Fairlight CMI (tracks 6, 7), piano (tracks 7, 8) * Roberto Laneri – treated

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

(track 4) *

Morris Pert Morris David Brough Pert (8 September 1947 – 27 April 2010) was a Scottish composer, drummer/percussionist, and pianist who composed in the fields of both contemporary classical and jazz-rock music. His compositions include three symphonies, p ...

– traditional Ethiopian pipes (track 4),

timbales Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfic ...

(track 6), percussion (track 8) * Jill Gabriel – backing vocals on track 2 *

Peter Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer-songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and ...

– backing vocals on tracks 4, 5, 6 * Ekome Dance Company –

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

ian drums on track 1 Production * Peter Gabriel – producer * David Lord – producer, engineer * Neil Perry – assistant engineer * Andy Rose – engineer (Mobile One) * Tim Wybrow – engineer (Mobile One) *

Greg Fulginiti Gregory Fulginiti (born 1951) is an American recording and mastering engineer. He was nominated for the TEC Awards by '' Mix'' magazine six times, in 1985 and 1987–1991. Career Fulginiti grew up in Wildwood, New Jersey, and graduated from Wi ...

– mastering *

Julian Mendelsohn Julian Mendelsohn is an Australian record producer, audio engineer and mixer. Early life After completing school in Australia, Mendelsohn moved to the United Kingdom. He secured his first job in 1974 at Milner Sound Fulham Rd. Chelsea, run by ...

– remix on track 5 * Danny Heaps – remix assistant on track 5 * Malcolm Poynter – album art

Charts

Certifications

''Deutsches Album''

''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 has 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 A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are u ...

are redone in German. In the third track, a shouted nonsense refrain has been added. All songs were written by

with "Texte" (lyrics) by Peter Gabriel and .

Track listing

Side One

#" Der Rhythmus der Hitze" – 5:36 #"Das Fischernetz" – 6:45 #" Kon Takt!" – 4:31 #" San Jacinto" – 6:13

Side two

#" Schock den Affen" – 5:43 #"Handauflegen" – 6:02 #" Nicht die Erde hat dich verschluckt" – 5:59 #"Mundzumundbeatmung" – 4:54

In other media

"The Rhythm of the Heat" appears in the opening scene of "Evan", an episode aired during the first season of ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, Ricardo "Rico" Tub ...

''. 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 Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and later became the lead singer of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis and had a successful solo career, ac ...

, 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 ''Natural Born Killers'' is a 1994 American romantic crime action film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims ...

'', and in the commercials for the 2001 film ''

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

''. "Shock the Monkey" was featured on the 1987 film '' Project X'' (starring

Matthew Broderick Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is an American actor. He starred in ''WarGames'' (1983) as a teen government hacker, and ''Ladyhawke (film), Ladyhawke'' (1985), a medieval fantasy alongside Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. He play ...

and

Helen Hunt Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American actress. Her accolades include an Academy Award, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. Hunt rose to fame portraying newlywed Jamie Buchman in the sitcom '' Mad Abou ...

). 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 ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...

'' episode "

Raisins A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, the word ''raisin'' is reserv ...

". "I Have the Touch" featured in the 1988 film ''

The Chocolate War ''The Chocolate War'' is a 1974 young adult novel by American writer Robert Cormier. It was adapted into a film in 1988. Although it received mixed reviews at the time of its publication, some reviewers have argued it is one of the best young ad ...

''. An alternate version of the track was featured on the 1996 film ''

Phenomenon A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be ...

'', starring

John Travolta John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He began acting in television before transitioning into a leading man in films. List of awards and nominations received by John Travolta, His accolades include a Primetime Em ...

. A cover version by

Heather Nova Heather Nova (born Heather Allison Frith, 6 July 1967) is a Bermudian singer-songwriter and poet. , she has released eleven full-length albums, six EPs and twelve singles. Biography Heather Nova was born Heather Allison Frith on Bermuda, a Bri ...

was featured in '' The Craft''. "Lay Your Hands on Me" appears in "Crossbreed", a fifth season episode of ''

The Americans ''The Americans'' is an American historical drama, period spy fiction, spy drama television series created by Joe Weisberg for FX (TV channel), FX. It aired for six seasons from 2013 to 2018. Weisberg and Joel Fields also served as showrunners ...

''. 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

External links

* * {{Authority control 1982 albums Peter Gabriel albums Albums produced by Peter Gabriel Charisma Records albums Geffen Records albums Worldbeat albums