PETER GABRIEL Up (Geffen/Universal) Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
In his desperate bid to create future pop by subverting the song-structure conventions and dabbling with “unusual” sound juxtapositions, Peter Gabriel seems a little too taken with the cleverness of his own constructs and Tchad Blake’s awesome mix to realize that whatever message he’s trying to convey is obscured by the elaborate artifice. However, it could be that in the years he spent making Up, he realized that the details of what he has to say, beyond simple catchphrases like “life carries on,” are completely irrelevant unless it all sounds profound. Peter Gabriel plays the Air Canada Centre December 2.
