Gabriel's power lies in the cathartic grace of his wistful vocals, confessional lyrics, stirring arrangements, and an intuitive use of international musicians (in addition to longtime bandmates like bassist Tony Levin, guitarist David Rhodes and drummers Manu Katche, Ged Lynch and Jerry Marotta). Another track from that album, "In Your Eyes," which also featured Youssou N'Dour, ascended as its own mighty force, finding cinematic immortality in the guise of a lovelorn John Cusack bearing a boombox in Cameron Crowe's "Say Anything. Gabriel was 36 at the time of So's supernova status: a reminder that fresh beginnings in pop music can easily launch at the cusp of middle age. The album that spawned that single, 1986's So, also became Gabriel's mainstream breakthrough and biggest commercial hit nearly twenty years after the start of Genesis. Johnson, first shouted from television screens. It's been over 30 years since Gabriel's playful stop-motion and claymation clip for "Sledgehammer," directed by Stephen R. Gabriel's visionary approach covered far more than onstage performance: he used early computer samplers, like the Fairlight CMI, and explored the creative possibilities of video, with a fledgling MTV as an unlikely platform.
His series of four eponymous albums (known Stateside as Car, Scratch, Melt and Security) nudged at the theatrical perimeters of pop music and inched towards performance art, akin to fellow adventurers David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, and Talking Heads. His solo career boldly expanded on his experimentalism. Gabriel released seven albums with Genesis and departed the band in 1975. As he celebrates his 70th birthday on February 13, 2020, he remains an inspiring activist for diversity, inclusion, and global unity. He became one of rock's most iconic and influential figures, as well as a groundbreaking human rights activist and a cultural ambassador for world music.
This dramatic young Englishman, who once upon a time imitated a cosmic lawnmower (really) while keening "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)," followed his muse, no matter how eccentric his ideas appeared to be in the very beginning. An adept storyteller with a theatrical flourish, Gabriel always pushed the artistic boundaries of the band he cofounded in 1967 with his schoolmates, spinning cryptic tales via epic songs ("Supper's Ready") and concept albums, like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
Over five decades have passed since Peter Gabriel, as the frontman of Genesis, first bounded onstage wearing a plush fox head and a chysanthemum crown.