Retro Spins: Peter Gabriel - So

Beyond his handful of hits in steady rotation throughout the 80's, I knew relatively nothing about Peter Gabriel. I was aware of his origins as the front man for Genesis, but even then, never listened to any of that music either. My era of that group was the Phil Collins fronting. Basically, I guess I'm saying I went into Peter Gabriel's So with no expectations.

I have to admit I was hooked right from the start. The haunting lyrics of Red Rain sucked me in, investing me what I was hearing. In general, So had a vibe of being different from what I was accustomed to hearing from the era, and I liked it a lot.

Even as I type this, I'm only on track four, and I have yet to hear a song which I didn't like. I'm so into it that my next step is going to be to track down other albums from the artist. I had to switch gears and hop over to ebay, where I picked up his 1980 self titled album and his 1982 self titled album (AKA Security). In addition to these, I picked up his two soundtracks, 1985's, Birdy and 1989's Passion (The Last Temptation Of Christ). These, plus So, cover his entire 80's release of studio / soundtrack albums.

On a side note, while look at his discography, I actually got a laugh out of him having four back to back self tiled albums.

This brought me up to track six, which at this point, I still hadn't heard anything I didn't like. That was until track eight, We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37). It wasn't bad, but the overall sound of the album kind of wore thin at this point. So ended on a flat note with This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds). Mind you, this was actually a track only included on the original cassette and CD versions of the album, and not the vinyl pressings.

In retrospect, I don't know that I necessarily "liked" everything on the record. I think what really intrigued me about it was how different it initially sounded. Still, it wasn't bad. I enjoyed hearing it from start to finish.

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