Up (Peter Gabriel album)

Up (2002) is an album by the British progressive rock musician Peter Gabriel. This album was Gabriel’s seventh album (excluding soundtracks, compilations, and live albums).

After the release of Us (1992) and his Secret World Live tour, Peter began work on the album. Its name was Up from the start, though at one point it was considered to be called I/O. Peter began saying the album was near completion somewhere around 1998 but did not release it until September of 2002. In the months preceding the album's release, video clips of Peter talking about the songs as well as short demos of each song were released at the coming of every full moon.

The album's lyrics deal mostly with birth and especially death. The opening track, "Darkness", is a song about overcoming fears. "Growing Up" is a summation of life put to a very groovy beat. "Sky Blue" is a track Peter claims to have been working on for over 20 years before finishing it. The track "No Way Out" is the first track to deal with death solely, though death is a common theme across the entire album. "I Grieve" was conceived after Peter looked over his catalogue of music as if it were a catalogue of emotional tools. He found one major missing tool to be one to cope with death and therefore "I Grieve" was born. The first single from Up, "The Barry Williams Show" is a down-beat jazzy song dealing with reality talk shows such as Jerry Springer (the 1999 "Weird Al" Yankovic song Jerry Springer dealt with the same topics in a more humorous tone). The second single, "More Than This" is one of the more upbeat songs from the album. The song wonders over there being something more to life. The song "Signal to Noise" was a challenge for Peter because the guest vocalist for the track, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, passed away. All that was left to work with were recordings from a live performance of an early version of the song at the 1998 VH1 Music Awards. Finally, "The Drop" consists of only Peter and a Bösendorfer grand piano.

Many artists, including Trent Reznor and Elbow, remixed the tracks. These remixes were included as b-sides to the singles.

Track listing

"Darkness" - 6:51
"Growing Up" - 7:33
"Sky Blue" - 6:37
"No Way Out" - 7:53
"I Grieve" - 7:24
"The Barry Williams Show" - 7:16
"My Head Sounds Like That" - 6:29
"More Than This" - 6:02
"Signal to Noise" - 7:36
"The Drop" - 2:59

Personnel

Peter Gabriel - Organ, Bass, Harmonica, Piano, Strings, Harmonium, Keyboards, Tom-Tom, Producer, Sampling, Mellotron, Performer, String Arrangements, Design, Concept, Brass Arrangement, Electronics, Bass Programming, Loop, Crotale, Synthesizer Drums, Sampled Guitar, Sampled Keyboards, String Samples, Telecaster, Jam Man