Most of the time, when I write music reviews, I try to remain
\nimpersonal, unbiased, and clinical in how I approach the music, at
\nleast at the beginning. I’m going to utterly fail on this one;
\nbecause for anyone who grew up in the rock era and listened to
\npopular music, there are certain albums that become personal icons.
\nI can’t be unbiased about Peter Gabriel’s landmark 1986 release,
\nSo<\/i>, any more than I can be unbiased about Alan Parsons’
\nEye In The Sky<\/i>, October Project’s
\nOctober Project<\/i>, Marillion’s
\nMisplaced Childhood<\/i>, or Eric Clapton’s
\nRush<\/i>. They are so tied into portions of my life that they
\ntranscend music and become history for me.<\/p>\n
In 1986, I was a senior in high school — somewhat of a
\nmiserable misfit, trying to get by. I don’t know how many times I
\nlistened to
\nSo<\/i>, but I can tell you it was a lot. I wore out two
\ncassettes; this was long before I switched to CD. I was stuck in a
\nhouse I hated with a stepfather and mother who seemed a million
\nmiles from where I was; in short, I was eighteen. I won’t be so
\nhistrionic as to say that Peter Gabriel saved my life, but
\nSo<\/i> sure as heck made it easier.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t hurt that it’s a great album. Impeccably produced by
\nDaniel Lanois and Gabriel, this was the album where Gabriel came
\nfull circle, bringing his interest in African soul and pop music
\ntogether with his art rock roots. So is alternately brooding,
\njubilant, crisp, gentle, rhythmic, mysterious, complex, simple, and
\nin the end more than all these things.<\/p>\n
Everyone who was around back then knows the singles:
\n“Sledgehammer”, “Big Time”, and “In Your Eyes” — the latter of
\nwhich gets my vote for best love song of all time. However, there’s
\nsome gems on here you might not remember. The portentous “Red
\nRain”, the wistful and mist-shrouded “Mercy Street”, and the
\nbrilliant duet with Kate Bush, “Don’t Give Up”. There’s not a bad
\ntrack on
\nSo<\/i>, and a whole lot of excellent ones.<\/p>\n
Perhaps
\nSo<\/i> won’t become history for you; we all have our own
\ninternal soundtracks and memories, and we all have our own emotions
\nwhen we hear music we love. But for me,
\nSo<\/i> is one of a very few CDs that is an integral part of who
\nI am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5924],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37862","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-peter-gabriel","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37862"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}