Up
Peter Gabriel
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, David Sancious, Blind Boys Of Alabama, Tony Levin, Steve Gadd
Geffen Records (USA), 2002
1 CD
Catalogue #: 493 388
EAN: 0606949338824
UPC: 606949338824
You save: 20%
This is an Enhanced CD, which contains regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Personnel includes: Peter Gabriel (vocals, arranger, guitar, piano, harmonium, organ, Mellotron, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, prgramming, samples); Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (vocals); Richard Evans (acoustic guitar); David Rhodes (guitar, background vocals); Daniel Lanois, Peter Green, Tony Berg (guitar); John Brion (mandolin, chamberlin); Shankar (violin); The London Session Orchestra (strings); Christian Le Chevretel (trumpet); The Black Dyke Band (horns); David Sancious (Hammond B-3 organ); Danny Thompson, Tony Levin (bass); Manu Katche, Steve Gadd, Dominic Greensmith, Dave Power (drums); Richard Chappell (percussion, programming); Will White, Stephen Hague, Manhut Dominique (percussion); The Blind Boys Of Alabama (background vocals).
Producers: Peter Gabriel, Steve Osborne, Stephen Hague.
Principally recorded at Real World, Box, England; Air Lyndhurst, England; and
Hype Studios, Singapore.
"The Barry Williams Show" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Though much effort has obviously been put into the sonic details of UP's production, and to fine effect, the album seems to represent not so much a new direction for Peter Gabriel, but rather a consolidation of the styles he's mined in preceding years. For instance, the opening track "Darkness" combines the dark, tension-filled paranoia of Gabriel's third self-titled album with the positive, seemingly therapy-derived lyrical direction of US's "Digging in the Dirt." Similarly, the heartworn emotionality of "No Way Out" brings to mind US's "Red Rain," but adds some slinky spy-movie guitar lines.
With a decade passing since his last album of new songs, Gabriel clearly has much to say, and accordingly most tracks hover around the seven-minute mark and are filled with sophisticated, enticing touches in an agreeable electronic/organic blend. With nothing to prove anymore, Gabriel sounds appropriately unconcerned about commerciality, as the only thing that comes within shouting distance of an "accessible" track is the TV-sensationalism parody "The Barry Williams Show," whose length and gritty lyrics make it an unlikely candidate for the top 40. In the end, UP is the sound of a mature artist pursuing the perfection of his craft, giving little thought to anything but the realization of his distinctive artistic vision.
Tracklist
Peter Gabriel
With Genesis, Peter Gabriel was the most theatrical of 1970s progressive rockers. On his own, he's been one of the most ambitious and eclectic, incorporating world music and political protest into both his pop-oriented solo albums and his more abstract scores for films. In the late 1980s, Gabriel founded the Real World label, which proved an invaluable channel for international artists of every stripe to ply their trade. His high-tech videos pushed the envelope of what was possible in the visual presentation of music. All this and his shepherding of political causes such as Amnesty International gained him a reputation as a true nobleman/artiste of the pop world.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Pakistan-born Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most revered and prolific Qawwali singer in recording history, took an obscure religious musical form and, with the help of some sympathetic collaborators and promoters, made it commercially and artistically viable in the western world. Born to a family of Muslim devotional musicians, Khan succeeded his father as the leader of their family's singing group (or "party") in 1971. Up through the '80s he stuck to the traditional style of Qawwali singing, bringing his passionate and transcendent music to ever-increasing international audiences--religious and secular alike. By the '90s he began experimenting with pop-music hybrids, garnering the attention of influential fans like Eddie Vedder and Peter Gabriel. In 1997, at the height of his commercial success, Khan died of a heart attack at the age of 48, after a lifetime of health problems.
