| Up | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Peter Gabriel | ||||
| Released | September 24, 2002 | |||
| Recorded | April 1995 – October 1998 (Principal recording), Early 2000 – April 2002 (Additional recording) |
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| Genre | Art rock | |||
| Length | 66:40 | |||
| Label | Geffen (US & Canada), Virgin | |||
| Producer | Peter Gabriel | |||
| Peter Gabriel chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Entertainment.ie | [2] |
| The Guardian | [3] |
| Pitchfork Media | (7.2/10)[4] |
| Rolling Stone | [5] |
Up (2002) is the seventh studio and 13th album overall released by the British progressive rock musician Peter Gabriel.
Contents |
In the Spring of 1995, Gabriel began work on the album. Its name was Up from the start, though at one point it was considered to be called I/O. Gabriel began saying the album was near completion somewhere around 1998 but did not release it until September 2002. In the months preceding the album's release, video clips of Gabriel talking about the songs as well as short demos of each song were released at the coming of every full moon on Gabriel's official website.
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 pulsating beat. "Sky Blue" is a track Gabriel claimed to have been working on for 10 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 Gabriel 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. Gabriel performed the song live on the television show "Larry King Weekend" on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, during which Gabriel said that his two daughters were living in New York City on 9/11 and he could not contact them for a while, and that this song was for people who didn't hear anything from their relatives then.[6] It was not, however, written specifically for 9/11, having been performed live prior to that date.
The first single from Up, "The Barry Williams Show" is a down-beat, jazzy song dealing with reality talk shows such as Jerry Springer (in fact, The Brady Bunch star Barry Williams appeared as an audience member in the Sean Penn-directed music video for the song).
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 Gabriel because the guest vocalist for the track, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, died. All that was left to work with were recordings from a live performance of an early version of the song at the VH1 Witness show on April 28, 1996. Finally, "The Drop" consists of only Gabriel 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.
The album cover pictures five water drops in a diagonal line, over a faded background of Gabriel's face. Each drop contains a refracted image of Gabriel's face.
The song "I Grieve" is (in an earlier version) on the soundtrack from City of Angels (1998), as well as featuring in the Smallville episode "Reckoning" and the episode "Found" of NCIS: Los Angeles. An instrumental version of "Signal to Noise" appeared on the soundtrack from Gangs of New York (2002).
An instrumental version of "Darkness", entitled "Darker Star", was used as the theme song to sci-fi TV show Starhunter 2300.
The album is available on CD, vinyl, Super Audio CD, and DTS DVD-A.
The album, in a similar fashion to the earlier "US", used specially commissioned artwork representing each song, which was reproduced in the CD, vinyl, DVD-A, and SACD packaging. In this case the medium chosen was photography.
All songs written by Peter Gabriel.
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | UK Album Chart | 11 |
| 2002 | U.S. Billboard 200 | 9 |
| 2002 | Billboard Top Canadian Albums | 2 |
| 2002 | Billboard Top Internet Albums | 9 |
| 2002 | Italy FIMI official Albums charts | 1 |
| Organization | Level | Date |
|---|---|---|
| BPI – UK | Silver | October 18, 2002 |
| CRIA – Canada | Gold | July 23, 2003 |
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