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Label: Interscope
Catalog: Music
Release date: 2002-09-24
Media: Audio CD
discs number: 1
Format: Enhanced
Ean: 0606949338824
Upc: 606949338824

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Artist:

Peter Gabriel

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Album tracks: (10)

Darkness

Growing Up

Sky Blue

No Way Out

I Grieve

The Barry Williams Show

My Head Sounds Like That

More Than This

Signal To Noise

The Drop

User Reviews:

Written on August 17, 2007
Summary: UP on a shelf - collecting dust. And that's where it will stay.
After track 1, there truly is nowhere to go on this mess other than UP. The opening track, Darkness, is one of the most grating, nails on a blackboard pieces of screech and distortion to be heard on a recording outside of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. It's not that it's boring to listen to - but that it is painfully obnoxious.

The rest of "UP" doesn't sound so bad when compared to the opening track, but none of it is particularly memorable or interesting. It sounds far too much like someone trying too hard to be artistic, and instead comes across as pompous. There's no consistent thread in these songs, but there's plenty of alternately quiet to the point of thinking your sound system stopped functioning, to drum-machine driven sonic-boom inducing loudness, on a series of poor to below fair very heavy songs. Nothing against weighty subject matter or substance in music, but Peter sounds like he's trying far too hard to sound deep and profound.

UP is, quite simply, one of the most disappointing releases from a superbly talented major artist I have in my collection. That said, I'll still look forward to Peter's next release, as I'm confident of his ability to rise from the ashes of this sonic mess.

UP

Written on June 15, 2007
Summary: maybe a new sort of musical direction...
Luis Mejia (son)- In my experience throughout music, Peter Gabriel was the first singer who really kept me apart from my first (horrible) experience with rap music. It took months for me to have the consciousness to sit down and lisen to my first Peter Gabriel cd, but this cd is one in a million. Being the first studio album after eleven years, Peter showed the result of time, pacience and effort. True, it's quite a change in musical style in Peter, but it shows a more personal, sensitive side of him. This is Peter Gabriel seevnth studio album and was reelased in 2002:

1. Darkness: this is one of those song that desilusionates any good hope of the cd, and it's creepy, dark and certainly the worst track he ever released. please if you're gonna hear the album, skip this song.

2. Growing Up: a popular song that is a very nice introduction for the alternative rock shown in the album. It was also remixed by Trent Reznor.

3. Sky Blue: it's said that Peter was thinking about this song for nearly fifteen years, but what was he thinking! this song is boring, without rythm, depressing and incomprehensible.

4. No Way Out: my favorite Gabriel song ever! it's true, is a very sad song but shows all that it needs to be shown in this cd, deep, emotional lyrics, non-exagerated techno arrengements, african drums, is a long song and it isn't repetitive.

5. I Grieve: being the main song of the mini series Gangs Of New York, it is a sad but greatly composed song. If you're thinking in this moment that all my sogns' descriptions are being uniform is because the whole album is uniform in one theme and almost one main structure.

6. The Barry Willians' Show: probably the only song that "gets close" of not having a sad or depressing theme. This is another one of the greatest songs in this album, telling about shows that humilliate people, make money in rating out of their suffering and shows the inhumanity in the media.

7. My Head Sounds Like That: even though it has a weird rythm, it is a nice and potent song expressed in slow rythms.

8. More Than This: another song for standing up. It has graceful rythm, good lyrics and is probably the song that gets out of the "uniformity" of the cd.

9. Signal To Noice: at first, incomprehensible, but then you find out that this song has another strong theme. It has the best music composition of the cd.

10. The Drop: a piano, 2 minute song. Not the best way to end an album, but appreciatable after all. It's the most depressing song in the whole album.

In conclussion, this is a sort of difficult album to comprehend, and if it's the first Gabriel album you've heard, don't draw conclussions about the artist. Experimentation has always been around Peter Gabriel's albums.

Written on June 9, 2007
Summary: The Drop: Terrifying
A great deal has been said about this album; I wish to comment on one song in particular: "The Drop." In my view, this song offers a close-up glimpse of what Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil."

On what is that conclusion based? Let's consider what we learn from its spare verses:

1. The narrator is inside an airplane, moving toward the open cockpit door, where he takes a position alongside the pilot, who is looking down, outside, "to see what lies ahead."
2. The pilot is watching things fall, one by one. The pilot has no idea where these falling things are going to land.
3. But the question of "where they've gone" is important and consequential, because this line is repeated twice, very sadly.
4. It is evening. City lights are visible below.
5. The song emphasizes how removed the narrator is from the reality of the city below. He notices in a detached way how the lights resemble "the nerves inside the brain." He's simply musing over this; it seems interesting (though not particularly important) to him.
6. Even though it is evening, the city lights are going OUT one by one. "You watch them dim."
7. As the song closes, the listener should be asking a series of increasingly urgent questions: what IS falling from the plane? What kind of plane is it? Why are the lights below going out, even though we know it's evening? Shouldn't they be just coming on? (If they're going out, something must really be wrong down there.) And why is the entire song pervaded with an eerily detached calm, even while the singing is drenched with an awful feeling of sadness and loss?

A rather obvious interpretation presents itself: the narrator is in an airplane that is dropping bombs on a city. The song lulls the listener into thinking that it is about something soft, slow, and peaceful, only to shatter this reverie with the dawning realization that the song is really about the absurd detachment and unreality of sitting peacefully in an airplane looking down at the lights of a city, while unleashing terrible violence on those below, violence that unfolds silently, even beautifully, from the point of view of its perpetrator. People are being blown to bits, lives are being snuffed out, while the agent of this monstrous act muses unconcernedly that the city's lights look like the nerves inside the brain.

I've seen dozens of comments about this song here, and elsewhere on the web, and I'm amazed at the number of people who think this frightening, horrifying song is a peaceful, soothing lullaby. It's not. It's a deeply disturbing window into the psychopathic lack of empathy entailed by technological, state-sanctioned, mass killing. The most awful part of all is the realization of how disturbingly easy it is to sit there, watching the bombs fall, knowing nothing and caring nothing about the lives below, the agony below, the death below. The listener realizes that he too could do that. At the end, when it becomes clear what the song is about, the listener realizes too that, like the narrator, he has been lulled into a state of obliviousness to an act of almost inconceivable violence - violence which, to the extent that it is visible at all, appears dreamlike, slow-motion, abstract, and lacking in meaningful consequences.

Of course, the beauty of great poetry is that multiple interpretations are possible; however, I think the interpretation of this song just offered is (a) an obvious one; that (b) seems for some reason to have escaped listeners who have commented on it here.

Written on April 5, 2007
Summary: Peter Gabriel - His Best Album In 20 Years
During the 80's and 90's Peter Gabriel became a huge star playing sold out arenas all over the world. His music had become much more commercial and he had several huge hits that dominated top 40 radio. The albums were all good, but nothing past his 3rd album in 1979 would I consider to be anything really special. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when "Up" was released in 2002. Instead of playing it safe and putting out more commercial fare, Gabriel went the opposite direction with "Up" being his most experimental album in more than two decades. Unfortunately he paid the price in sales, as the album pretty much bombed at the cash registers. This is unfortunate as this is by far his best album in 20 years, and in my opinion probably 2nd only to his 3rd album "Melt" in terms of his entire career. I understand why people who were fans of his more popular albums "So" and "Us" might not "get" this album. There is nothing here that is overtly commercial. The song "More Than This" is probably the closest track on the disc to being radio friendly. The single "The Barry Williams Show" did not really catch on with the public and is one of the weaker tracks on the album. For the most part "Up" is darkly themed. Gabriel spent several years putting this album together and reportedly had over 150 songs recorded at one point. Ever the perfectionist Gabriel pondered over what to include here painstakingly re-recording much of the album over and over before it was eventually released. Highlights include the opening track "Darkness" which starts out slow and brooding before a loud guitar shriek breaks in and sets the tone for the rest of the album. The first time I listed to it I had turned the stereo way up due to the quiet nature of the opening of the tune. When the guitar kicked in it literally made me jump out of my seat. The 2nd track "Growing Up" is my favorite on the disc. The middle section is almost a dance tune with a pulsing electronica beat. Not my usual fare, but it works beautifully on this piece. One of the highlights of the "Up" tour was Gabriel bouncing around inside of a huge ball during the dance beat part of this tune. "Sky Blue" is another great one, dreamy in texture, with great lyrics, and a cool closing choral section featuring the Blind Boys Of Alabama. "I Grieve" is just what it sounds like a song of grieving. Gabriel makes this totally believable, and moving. "My Head Sounds Like That" is a slow one with lyrics that personally resonate with me. "Signal To Noise:" is another choice cut. The album closes with the slow "The Drop" which my or may not be about September 11. Most of Gabriel's usual musical cohorts are here, along with a long lineup of special guests. Sonically this album is recorded very well and sounds great on a good stereo. This may not be an album for Gabriel novices, but fans of his early more experimental stuff should love this. "Up" is Peter's best album in more than 20 years and is worth further exploration.

Written on March 23, 2007
Summary: Peter Gabriel's best work?
Dark, uplifting, melancholy, pungent, soothing. These adjectives all describe "Up" to a 't'.

It is hard to believe that Peter Gabriel, who has produced handfuls of great records, could produce the best work of his career in his 50's, but that is what he did when he wrote "Up."

Music like this is not your typical pop fluff that is going to instantly grab you. This is music that must be listened to numerous times, and before you know it, those dark yet calming melodies will have grabbed a hold of your soul. And there will be no turning back.

My recommendation is to sit in a dark room, put your headphones on, turn it up loud, and let this powerful record take you to places you never knew existed.

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