Up (Peter Gabriel album)

Up
Studio album by Peter Gabriel
Released	September 24, 2002
Recorded	April 1995 – October 1998 (Principal recording), Early 2000 – April 2002 (Additional recording)
Genre	Art rock
Length	66:40
Label	Geffen (US & Canada), Virgin
Producer	Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel chronology
Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) Up (2002) Scratch My Back (2010)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Entertainment.ie
The Guardian
Pitchfork Media	(7.2/10)
Rolling Stone

Up (2002) is the seventh studio and 13th album overall released by the British progressive rock musician Peter Gabriel.

Pre-release

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.

Songs

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. It was not, however, written specifically for 9/11, having appeared on the City of Angels soundtrack in 1998 (in an earlier version) and performed live prior to 9/11.

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.

Other information

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.

Track listing

All songs written by Peter Gabriel.

1. "Darkness" – 6:51
2. "Growing Up" – 7:33
3. "Sky Blue" – 6:37
4. "No Way Out" – 7:53
5. "I Grieve" – 7:25
6. "The Barry Williams Show" – 7:16
7. "My Head Sounds Like That" – 6:29
8. "More Than This" – 6:02
9. "Signal to Noise" – 7:36
10. "The Drop" – 2:59

Personnel

• Peter Gabriel – Vocals, organ, bass, harmonica, piano, strings, harmonium, keyboards, tom-tom, sampling, Mellotron, string arrangements, brass arrangement, electronics, bass programming, loop, crotales, synthesizer drums, sampled guitar, sampled keyboards, string samples, Telecaster, JamMan.
• Tony Levin – Bass on "Darkness", "Sky Blue", "No Way Out", "I Grieve", "The Barry Williams Show", "My Head Sounds Like That", and "More Than This".
• David Rhodes – Guitars on "Darkness", "Growing Up", "Sky Blue", "No Way Out", "My Head Sounds Like That", and "Signal To Noise". Guitar on "The Barry Williams Show" and "More Than This". Electric guitar on "I Grieve". Backing vocals on "Growing Up", "Sky Blue", "The Barry Williams Show", "More Than This", and "Signal To Noise".
• Manu Katché
• Hossam Ramzy
• L. Shankar – Violin (Improvised) on "I Grieve".
• Melanie Gabriel
• Tchad Blake
• Jon Brion
• Richard Chappell
• Alan Coleman
• Edel Griffith
• Christian Le Chevretel – Trumpet on "The Barry Williams Show".
• Adrian Chivers
• Pete Davis
• Dominque Mahut
• Richard Evans
• Bob Ezrin
• Mitchell Froom
• Steve Gadd
• Peter Green
• Dominic Greensmith
• Will Gregory
• Stephen Hague
• Ronan O'Neill
• Chris Hughes
• Nick Ingraham
• Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
• Daniel Lanois
• Sally Larkin
• Ged Lynch
• Chuck Norman
• David Sancious
• Ed Shearmur
• Alex Swift
• Assane Thiam
• Danny Thompson
• Will White
• Black Dyke Band – brass on "My Head Sounds Like That".
• Blind Boys of Alabama – Additional vocals on "Sky Blue". Backing vocals on "More Than This".
• Dhol Foundation
• London Session Orchestra – Strings on "Darkness".

Charts

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

Certifications

Organization	Level	Date
BPI – UK	Silver	October 18, 2002
CRIA – Canada	Gold	July 23, 2003

External links

• Up at MusicBrainz
• Up at MusicBrainz
• Richard Chapelle on recording Up at Sound On Sound