I'm all heart for the Gabester. Albums 3 and 4 especially, and I feel it most when he's been off the stereo for so long that memory does its monument-building magic. Which is understandable; he's got his name on several seminal records of my early listening years.Then I go and listen again and hear all the problems in execution that obscure the brilliant ideas. So I end up having to enjoy him almost academically, because I can hear what he's aiming for (say, modern isolation and paranoia), and it's obvious that the art is more in the process than the product.
Here's a good example. The ingredients are awesome, and so is the groove, but there's something so stiflingly early-'80s about the production. Maybe it was deliberate; given that the song's all about getting off on the crush of population density. I don't know if I'm necessarily in tune with that on my morning commute, but the energy does seem to make the train kick it up a notch.
Peter Gabriel - I Have The Touch
