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oddities,
rehashes and occasional brilliance the b-sides in chronological order me and my teddy bear september 1978 |
oddities, rehashes and occasional brilliance
the b-sides in chronological orderme and my teddy bear september 1978
jetzt kommt die flut february 1980
shosholoza august 1980
soft dog september 1982
soul rhythm december 1982
don't break this rhythm april 1986
in your eyes (single and special remixes) september 1986
curtains march 1987
ga ga june 1987
john has a headache ? 1988
quiet steam july 1992
bashi bazouk july 1992
games without frontiers (massive/db mix) january 1993
mercy street march 1993
kiss that frog (mindblender mix) september 1993
What is it about the B-side? When someone buys a single it is largely on the strength of a commercially viable A-side: something that gets airplay and is catchy or remarkable enough to remember when entering the music shop. When you have made the purchase to you take it home, you slip the disc into/onto its designated player and you hear the song you already know so well. You leave the disc playing/flip it. Suddenly it seems like someone else is playing. It's a short song. It's a long song. It's wildly experimental. It's catchy, but in a quirky kind of way. It's hilarious. It's spooky. It's instrumental and the vocals sound like they were recorded in a cardboard box. It seems to go nowhere but it always lands on its feet. It has lasting appeal and it ensures that the disc will be played long after the novelty of the A-side has faded.
Welcome to the B-side.
So then what is it about Peter Gabriel's B-sides? PG's B-sides are an extremely hit-and-miss affair, one moment you are overcome by the sheer brilliance of it all, immersed in music you had never dared to imagine possible and the next you're giving the stereo some very odd looks. For within this collection are some of the grandest moments of Peter Gabriel's career and some of his most embarassing and self-indulgent doodles. This isn't really unusual in a collection of B-sides. an obvious comparison can be drawn in the Beatles' B-sides: Rain and You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) represent respective high and low points in their career.
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of Peter's B-sides is the large proportion of rehashed and remixed material on singles scattered throughout his career. While remixes in modern popular music are a cheap and easy way to fool consumers into thinking they're getting value for money (sixteen remixes of the same song on one low-priced cd??), good remixes can throw a whole new light on the existing song and occasionally surpass the original in quality. Thankfully most Peter Gabriel remixes fall into the latter category. When the concept of rehashing previously released material on B-sides was hatched in the late 1960s, a generation of fans largely missed out on the opportunity to relish in the oddity of the "true" B-side material.
With the CD single gradually becoming a money-spinner again, and with the advent of formatted singles (simultaneous release of a several versions of a single with different B-sides for each), artists are once again discovering the unique quality of the B-side as a genre in itself.
The most startling thing about peter's "true" B-sides (remixes of particular note are included in this discussion, but near-identical rehashes and previously released material have been ignored) is how few of them there are. Check out a full seven-inch and CD singles discography and see how many songs from previous releases are bundled onto the B-sides. Now compare it with the meagre list above. It seems peter took time to find his stride with the B-side as a genre. Apart from the vaguely interesting (but essentially forgettable) Me and My Teddy Bear and the German version of Here Comes the Flood, the early gabriel B-sides are all primarily instrumental tracks of little distinction.
In 1986 Peter found his form releasing some of his best and most polished B-sides (Don't Break This Rhythm and Curtains). These tracks rate not only as excellent B-sides, but maintain their quality when compared with album tracks. Between the release of So and Us, the compact disc essentailly replaced vinyl records as the primary means of buying music, effectively increasing the number of tracks expected on a single release and the quality and popularity of remixed songs grew steadily. This ensured that the singles related to Us would not only have a greater number of B-sides, but increased the likelihood of finding previously released material (albeit usually creatively and often deceptively remixed beyond recognition). In fact only one all new song was released within the Us B-sides, but it is perhaps the best of all Gabriel's B-sides and certainly his best instrumental.
Peter Gabriel is a wonderful musican and a gifted songwriter. His multi-faceted writing touches a nerve with people across the globe in more ways than even he has expected. Certainly there is something about the collection of songs written by him that has fuelled this very singular and slightly obsessive analysis of them that you are reading. Like any popular musician, there is always a group of people who will seek out and collect all of the legally (and illegally) released music created by him. It's only natural... kind of like collecting stamps, but more interesting and rewarding. Musicans know this and often leave the most wonderful and interesting songs in the most unusual and hard-to-find places and Mr Gabriel is no exception. Of course in these cynical times it is hardly surprising that record companies have also cottoned onto this and encourage this practice so that box-sets and "odds and sods" collections can be hyped up as "eagerly awaited". Funnily enough fans don't really mind being manipulated this way (it sure as hell beats waiting seven-plus years for a new album). Expect a Gabriel odds and sods collection soonish (but don't hold your breath).
This is not a B-sides discography! In an effort to concentrate on what are considered "true" B-sides, songs that have appeared as B-sides after their original release (such as Slowburn from 1977) have been completely ignored here. Remixes that closely resemble the original songs (such as the Digging in the Dirt Rich E Mix) are similarly ignored. And Through The Wire has an excellent Peter Gabriel discography that covers all of the B-sides, whether rehashed or not.
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last revised: December 04, 1999