Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now
The basics notes here were written in 2009, about the time we finished our album by album auditions of his early catalog.
On this title, forget the Brits. Every British pressing we played was badly smeared and veiled.
This took us somewhat by surprise because we happen to like the British PG pressings, but remember, So on British vinyl is awful too, so it’s clear (to us anyway) that the later PG records are bad on British vinyl and the early ones are better.
We are limiting our comments here to albums up through So. Anything after that is more or less terra incognita for us simply because we don’t care for the music he was making after 1986.
Plays Live, from 1983, takes the dark, overly-rich, overly-thick and way-too-smooth sonics of Security and lathers it over the material he had previouly recorded up through then. Some of it works well enough I suppose, but in my experience it usually isn’t long before the monotony of this approach grows tiresome.
What We Listened For
The best copies have sonic qualities that are not the least bit difficult to recognize:
- Presence, putting PG front and center;
- Dynamics, both micro and macro;
- Energy, allowing the rhythmic elements to bring out the life in the music;
- Transparency, so that we hear all the way to the back of the studio (where some of the many musicians that play in the densest parts no doubt had to stand); and
- Ambience, the air that surrounds all the players and what instruments they played.
And of course we played the album VERY LOUD, as loud as we could. It’s the only way to get the massive druming to sound right.
The Music
This is one of the most important records in the Peter Gabriel canon, groundbreaking and influential on so many levels. The entire album is a wonderful journey; anyone with a pop-prog bend will enjoy the ride. Just turn the volume up good and loud, turn off your mind, relax and float along with PG and the band. You’re in good hands.
I’ve listened to this one more than other PG albums with the only exception being his second release, the one produced by Robert Fripp. That one is still clearly my favorite of the lot. I play it to this day and have never tired of it since I bought it way back in 1978.
Naturally, I would have originally picked up the domestic pressing, which is clearly made from a dub tape, but in 1978 what did I know about master tapes and imported pressings?
I was still a big Mobile Fidelity fan at that time, which is a simple way of saying that it’s clear that I had a very long way to go in this hobby and a great deal left to learn!
Nothing Peter Gabriel released after So did much for me so I resigned myself to the first five albums. Five excellent albums from one artist is plenty in my book.
If you like the albums after So, to each his own and more power to you. It’s my opinion that their appeal is limited, such that doing a shootout for them is not likely to be in the cards.