Peter Gabriel - Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats

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Free Music Notes for Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats

Free Music Review: Why no "In Your Eyes"? Well...
Hit: 5 Stars

Gabriel reportedly excluded "In Your Eyes" for two reasons; first of all, he just tired of it, disliking it as a millstone around his neck which misrepresented him and pigeonholed him. It became his "Creep," to make a wholly inappropriate analogy to a Radiohead song. In some sense I agree with this; I for one find it really annoying when I try to talk about Gabriel to my friends and all they know by him is that damned behemoth prom song. The second reason is a bit more personal: he wrote it about his wife Jill, and their marriage fell apart afterwards (Much of Us is based on the emotional turmoil in Gabriel's life during the period of his divorce, of course). So it was a little painful to revisit it, I suppose. I for one don't miss it much, as it never did a thing for me.

As for the absence of tracks from Peter Gabriel 2, there are also two reasons for that. Firstly, both of the first two album were recorded for Atco, not Geffen, so there were licensing issues (apparently they didn't want to pay to include the songs). You'll notice that of the first two albums, only "Solsbury Hill" is here (really only because it would have been completely unacceptable to have a best-of compilation without it); "Here Comes The Flood" is a 1989 remake (which I prefer anyway; really haunting stuff). Second, he was really disappointed with both the tepid reception of the album and the production, which WAS a bit ropey and loose.

Enough with the trivia, though, now onto my own worthless views! I LOVE this as a compilation (although it could easily be a double CD since there are some questionable omissions: "Modern Love?" "On The Air?" "Wallflower?" And we didn't need "San Jacinto!"); to me it's everything that a best-of should be. It's thoughtfully (though contentiously) selected, well-sequenced, and sweetened with bonus tracks and edits. That means a lot, too, as a bunch of songs here are slightly altered from the album versions: "Sledgehammer," "I Have The Touch," "Shock The Monkey," "Games Without Frontiers," "Zaar," "Mercy Street," etc, and in EVERY case the changes are for the better. "I Have The Touch" turned from an anonymous flat-as-yesterday's-Mr. Pibb song into some sort of percussive beast! And all it took was a new drum track. "Sledgehammer" is a lot more fun now that the wacky ersatz-flute intro has been cut out, too. Anyway, while this ISN'T a definitive compilation (I'd say you need the first & third albums as well), it's a damn fine listening experience in its own right, with the songs put together with each other in a way that makes you sit up and say "Hey! That Peter Gabriel, he was some writer, wasn't he?"

And UP is finally out now! Go get it!

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