So by Peter Gabriel
So is the fifth studio album (and seventh album overall) and first non eponymous studio album by British rock musician Peter Gabriel, released in 1986. Many of its songs reflect a more conventional pop-writing style and became radio hits, while others still retain Gabriel's dark, brooding sense of experimentalism. As Gabriel explained in 2011: "I'd had my fill of instrumental experimenting for a while, and I wanted to write proper pop songs, albeit on my own terms." It is Peter Gabriel's second album produced by Canadian artist Daniel Lanois. The previous year, the two of them had worked together on Birdy. Lanois had been previously known for his ambient collaborations with Brian Eno as well as producing U2 since 1984. As he had with the soundtrack to the film Birdy, Lanois brought many of his own ambient sensibilities to this recording. Many of the tracks also continued to showcase Gabriel's interest in world music, with Gabriel commenting: "I think this album is nourished by so many varieties of black music, and not just soul and blues: there's stuff from Africa, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica." So is the best-selling album of Gabriel's career and charted at number 1 in the UK Album Chart, and number 2 on the Billboard 200 in the US. It is certified triple platinum in the UK, and five times platinum in the US. So ranked at number #14 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "Top 100 Albums of the Eighties" and is included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Exploring his love of R&B and soul music for the first time, Peter Gabriel reinvented himself on 1986’s <i>So</i>, his fifth album. It’s the album that transformed the once shadowy, sinister, secretive art-rocker—by now in his mid-thirties—into an unlikely pop sensation. For the first time, Gabriel’s songs were stripped of their layers of sonic trickery and cubist textures, while producer Daniel Lanois coaxed the singer into finally letting his drummers use cymbals and hi-hats again. And, for the first time, Gabriel’s face even appeared unobscured on the album cover. The resulting album would go platinum five times over, turn Gabriel into an MTV fixture and grant the singer a unique burst of total pop dominance—one that was never experienced at this level by fellow travellers like David Bowie, David Byrne, Bryan Ferry or even post-Police Sting. The album’s lead single, recorded almost as an afterthought, was “Sledgehammer”, an avant-garde R&B throwback powered by big synths and even bigger horns. A chart-topping hit in the US, “Sledgehammer” moves along via a one-take recording of drummer Manu Katché’s incredible groove (he’s been a staple of Gabriel’s band ever since). Similarly, the combustible funk-rock of “Big Time” features a big beat from Police drummer Stewart Copeland, as well as veteran Gabriel drummer Jerry Marotta tapping on Tony Levin’s bass with drumsticks. The success of “Sledgehammer” served as a gateway to the rest of <i>So</i>, exposing millions to Gabriel’s sui generis world of arresting ballads, vaporous atmospheres and omnivorous appetite for global rhythms. Though absolutely drenched in synthesisers, “Don’t Give Up” is something of Gabriel’s attempt at Americana, taking inspiration by Depression-era photographs. He originally sought Dolly Parton for the duet, but ultimately tapped Kate Bush, who supplies one of the album’s most intimate and chilling performances. The slowed-down Brazilian forró rhythms of “Mercy Street” floats like a fog, while “In Your Eyes” features the gymnastic, ecstatic voice of Senegalese mbalax superstar Youssou N’Dour, along with Katché’s absolutely wild drum fills. <i>So</i> was nothing short of a sensation, staying on the US album charts for an astonishing 93 weeks. Gabriel ended up nominated for four Grammys, three American Music Awards, and eleven MTV Video Music Awards—and the wildly ambitious video for “Sledgehammer” is regarded as a peak moment of the entire art form of music video itself. <i>So</i> would become even deeper engrained into the cultural firmament after John Cusack threw a boombox over his head to play “In Your Eyes” in the 1989 film <i>Say Anything</i>.
