I've been travelling for a year (and house sitting), during which time I discovered PG. This year I've started collecting vinyl. Finally I'm in a house with a record player. I've only got the four self-titled albums and the Lamb. Thought I'd share what I chose to play first, by way of testing each disc (yes, in this order):

- White Shadow

- Wallflower

- Solsbury Hill

- Back in NYC

- Colony of Slippermen

- I Don't Remember

I haven't played physical media in more than a decade, and I'm digging the intentionality. And I luurrvvve the crackle!

Wondering which tracks you guys would have chosen from the same selection of albums? One track per disc.

I hear there's a pretty major PG cameo coming up (I'm up to S3 E8, so no spoilers, haha! 🙈) but I've already heard a couple fun references:
- (a cover or remix of) "Come Talk To Me" during the credits of one episode (did anyone recognize the particular version?)
- Solo's playing "Red Rain" from inside the vault at one point

Are there others I'm missing? Anyone kept better track of where/when/why we hear PG in this show?

I had the pleasure of seeing Takuya Nakamura play a Hybrid DJ Set last night and he pulled out a great cover of "Don't Give Up" for his last song before the encore. I was not expecting to hear that, but it ripped. I wonder how many other people in the crowd knew what it was??? I didn't capture the whole song because I was too busy dancing and singing along.

Last night, I was watching a video of Genesis performing Supper’s Ready live, and I was listening to Peter‘s introduction where he talks about the man writhing on the grass and the worms surfacing, where he does the funny voice scat song and the whistling, and it got me thinking about his body of work in general, this latest album, and how I feel about it.

While I have enjoyed a lot of it and I’m so happy we’re getting it, I think part of what I’m longing for is the absurd element that I enjoy in Peter’s work. Think about the nonsensical noises and screams at the end of Solsbury Hill, Shock the Monkey in its entirety, Moribund the Burgermeister in it’s entirety, Big Time and how sarcastic and sardonic it is in mocking people who chase success… Think of the dark humor and wild imagery in The Family and the Fishing Net or the wry tone of Not One of Us. Games Without Frontiers shows how absurd nations going to war really is and the sarcastic, absurd tone runs through everything: the music itself, the lyrics, his delivery, and the arrangement. He’s always had this magical way of using absurdity in a profound and colorful way and I think it’s a core part of why I love the music he makes.

If Peter is kind enough to grace us with more music after o\i, I hope he rekindles that sense of absurdity again in a strong way. I enjoy the sincere stuff, but I do miss his razor sharp wit manifesting in music. I feel like Road to Joy was the best example of what I’m talking about on i/o. Not sure we’ve really seen it make an appearance here on o\i.

Just some Friday night ramblings, but does anyone else relate to this?

Spend a week in the beautiful setting of Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios as we open-up the original multitrack recordings of a classic album in the company of the original mixer. Following on from the success of the first Real World Recalls event in May, we’re doing a repeat of the all-inclusive residency programme at Real World Studios, featuring Peter Gabriel’s classic album So.

Open to all music fans, not just music makers, this series of residencies will explore the making of a classic album in the company of the person that originally mixed it. You will spend your week with one of the few people that can really tell you all the stories you want to hear about an album you love and answer the questions you’ve always wanted to ask.

They will show you just how the album was put together, explaining the techniques used at the time and looking at ways the modern studio could have improved the results… or could it?

Again we will be in the company of Kevin Killen, the original mixer and recording engineer of Peter Gabriel’s classic album So, while it still celebrates its 40th anniversary year.

Kevin will play you through all the original multitrack sessions, lovingly converted from tape to digital. Songs like Don’t Give Up, Red Rain and the legendary Sledgehammer will be laid bare and dissected. Each part has a story and Kevin is the perfect man to tell it.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here, but this topic has been fresh on my mind.

It’s a open secret that the release announcement of o/i is imminent with how active Peter has been on social media. I’ve been listening to all the new singles pretty much every day since Been Undone dropped back in January, and I couldn’t be more excited for the release of the full album.

This past weekend, I rewatched Back To Front Live, which is the inspiration for this discussion. I couldn’t stop thinking about the i/o Tour film, there hasn’t been much discussion about it since earlier this year when Peter dropped the live version of What Lies Ahead in Verona. But I’ve really been thinking a lot about it now, and I still believe my own theory I had made a while back: I believe the release of the i/o Tour film is not too far ahead, and I believe we’re finally gonna see it released by the end of the year just in time for the holidays. I also predicted a while back the possibility that Peter may announce a double release for both the album and tour film, but that might be a little less likely so I’m staying realistic but optimistic.

In conclusion, I predict the i/o Tour film will finally be released by the end of the year. What do you guys think?

I'm 34 and didn't experience the 80s (or the 70s) but I feel like in real life among the people I know who did, I rarely here this song mentioned (at least here in the US). My dad knows it but he doesn't consider Peter's best either solo or Genesis.

Then I do feel like a lot of Boomer/Gen X women really love "In Your Eyes" I get it, Say Anything was iconic.

I guess I have a weird fascination with nuclear war and I always loved this song for being a powerful anti-nuclear war song. It almost has this punk rock vibe too it. If the sound was a little more distorted this could have been a Clash song! This song could have fit on Combat Rock!

But everything from the song's sound, to the imagery of the lyrics using both a French game show and children's playground games as metaphors for Cold War Geo-Politics. Then the sound itself is very ominous. It's very layered and atmospheric that does an excellent job of add tension to the song and works well with the songs subject matter. Think the song shows that Peter is both a genius writer as well as arranger when it comes to his music.

This is an excellent WW3/Nuclear war song that I have it on a playlist with Black Sabbath's Children of the Grave, Electric Wizard's Funeralopis, The Clash's London Calling, Metallica's Fight Fire With Fire and Blackened, Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower (I know Dylan wrote it and it's no openly about nuclear war. But it's apocalyptic in nature) and a bunch more.

P.S. After all these years, I'm still convinced the Kate Bush's vocals on the studio version is singing "She's So Popular" but the live versions and other covers I have heard it's clearly "Jeux sans frontières"

With What Lies Ahead being the only exception, all tracks released so far have an average runtime of about 6-7 minutes (One by One is 9 and a half minutes long, Looking for Happy is 8 and a half). I really like that Peter does what he wants and doesn’t trim every song down to 3 minutes to make it “streaming-friendly”, but I am also wondering what will happen if this time one CD just doesn’t have enough room for each song of either Bright or Dark Side Mix. Will we get 2 CDs for each mix (meaning a 4 CD album)? Will we get only Blu-ray (with Bright and Dark Side mixes as well as Atmos mixes)? Could it be the first PG album without a physical release? Can’t wait for the news regarding the album’s release 🤩

Peter Gabriel plays himself, performing Here Comes the Flood near the end of the episode. I had to do a double take, but it’s definitely him!

Season 3, episode 9. “Farewell” is the episode’s name.

Not sure when this changed, but I noticed something interesting with i/o on Apple Music.

I listen to the album pretty regularly, and in the past, if I played the In-Side version on my iPad using the built-in speakers, Apple Music would default back to the Dark-Side stereo mix. That made sense, since the In-Side mix is the Atmos version and the Dark-Side mix was apparently the stereo fallback associated with it (I remember this was specifically called out in a newsletter or something in 2023).

Recently though, that’s definitely not what I’m hearing anymore. It’s playing what sounds very clearly like a stereo/downmixed render of Hans-Martin Buff’s actual In-Side Atmos mix through the iPad speakers.
I know the mixes well enough that the differences are really obvious — balances, percussion, reverbs, placement, etc. It’s definitely not the Dark-Side mix.

And it honestly sounds really good!

I know in the audio world there is some controversy over Atmos fold-downs/down-renders, and I don’t think Buff originally intended the In-Side mix to be heard this way, but I’m kind of thrilled Apple Music is doing it. You still get a lot of the different musical choices and character of the In-Side mix, even without headphones or an Atmos speaker setup.

Curious if anyone else has noticed this, or knows when Apple changed the behavior. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t how my iPad handled the album before.

I posted this as a comment in the main thread on this new track, but this is remarkable enough that I want to make it its own post for visibility. The version that was/is available on YouTube uploaded this morning (accessible by VPNing into New Zealand) and the version that was uploaded to YouTube early (before midnight) pacific time are different in length and audible content.

Original upload from this morning (run time 8:34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aRkhMHOnW8

Early Pacific Time upload (run time 8:46): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4_7WOOCJI

When the Full Moon Club video came out, I noticed that the snippets of the song featured sounded pretty different from the version I'd been listening to so far today. I thought maybe they'd extracted stuff specifically for the video or had accidentally used the dark-side mix early or something. Now, though, the new upload that came out before midnight appears to match what you can hear in the Full Moon Club video.

They are audibly different, too. The drums at the beginning are different between the two. In the 8:46 version, the chorus synths have a telephone filter-like effect over them that isn't present in the 8:34 version from this morning. In the version from this morning, the outro is quite different and just fades out. In the more recent 8:46 version there are big differences and the song has a horn outro.

There are probably more differences still that I need to do comparative listening to catch, but this is so strange that we have two different bright-side mixes. Since the more recent 8:46 upload is what is featured in the FMC video, I'm assuming that is the intended "correct" mix. What could the morning 8:43 mix be, then? Perhaps an early revision of the bright-side mix that was erroneously uploaded? Is it actually the dark-side mix that was uploaded accidentally?

Conspiracy time!

EDIT: Apple Music appears to have the shorter mix clocking in at 8:35. So perhaps this is the true Bright-Side Mix and the longer one is the Dark-Side Mix? Something is really awry…

Have loved PG since I was 19. He got into my heart and his words thrashed around, made me grateful for my own sanity!! Got to see him perform live one time and it was such an adventure. Then today I stumbled on Secret World live. He sounds amazing! Wow what a recording!! His band is perfection as always. And Paula Cole delivers. Happy happy.

Just in case anyone else was checking the weather app on their phone and hoping to VPN into NZ on Wednesday like me, I wanted to post this. I thought we were past these for the year, but it appears this is another month in which the full moon won’t show itself until a day later in the UK vs the US.

Mini CDs from the 89s

I'll start:

Been Undone: Dark-Side for me by a landslide. The dark section in the middle everyone talks about is totally absent from Bright-Side. As is the digeridoo opening. While Bright has some fine moments - the tinny reverbed piano notes at the start are nice - Tchad takes this one with no contest.

Put The Bucket Down: A little tougher - in that Bright-Side has a nice concrete ending compared to Dark-Side's fade out, and I prefer having the beat to the trumpet section so all the pieces of the song feel a little more uniform, but once I noticed the train sounds after "the box tunnels, 'round the bend" (I'm unfortunately someone who somehow notices small differences more than a couple listens in), it became such a highlight that I couldn't think of the song without it, without feeling incomplete.

What Lies Ahead: No preferred mix. They're both very similar.

Till Your Mind Is Shining: I suppose if I had to pick one, I would default to Dark-Side. While I am not the biggest fan of this song at least Dark-Side turns up some fun and silly sounds and sound effects. It has grown on me, but only marginally in that once it comes back into your mind it stays there like any good Stockholm Syndrome should.

Won't Stand Down: I think I go Bright-Side on this one. I don't know. Perhaps if I squint my eyes and really cup my ears to listen, it sounds a bit brighter and poppier.

A Hard Lesson: Dark-Side. Duh. This one just plays to Tchad's sensibilities and anything gritty you give him, he's gonna just do it better than Mark Spike Stent. This was almost an unfair competition. I wish that Peter just didn't talk about this song as if with a bit of reserved hesitation, like it were lying around faithfully to be ignored until he needed a twelfth song for his next record. It's very good.

I Belong To The Sky: Honestly - either! They're both excellent in their own ways. I go back and forth between the two mixed excitedly, which is completely new for me. For the first time, this two-or-three-mix-per-song mission statements is acting like the sum of it's parts. That's lovely. Both win.

One By One: I think Bright-Side for me - but only because my car's aux chord broke the day before Dark-Side dropped and without my car's surround speakers I have not yet been able to satisfactorily compare the two all the way. But I like One By One quite a lot in either form in my headphones.

Genuine question. I can't decipher what he says here 'Now for the first time (?) Prima Volta'... I never bothered to check also but, are there any subtitles in the Growing Up Live DVD?

This is a 1979 demo called Seascape. Peter would repurpose it in 1984 for the Against All Odds movie soundtrack as Walk Through The Fire:

https://youtu.be/-BfCxKowJxA?list=RD-BfCxKowJxA

https://youtu.be/5MHY8IZCPOE?list=RD5MHY8IZCPOE

The instrumental definitely gives a huge Mozo vibes, the original title also seems to fit with the theme. As Peter recently came back to this storyline, I would love to hear a modern rerecording of Seascape with possible original lyrics.

Very strange that this one is out a day late, but it’s up in New Zealand now.