I don't like Peter Gabriel's voice.

There are some of his songs that sound quite good (Carpet Crawlers), but take for example Firth of Fifth, the line "the sheep remain inside their pen" it makes me cringe. That's how I hear most of his songs, but am I simply missing something? From what I understand of the Prog community, Peter Gabriel is regarded as the best or the 2nd best Prog singer. For me, I'd give that spot to Jon Anderson, and it really baffles me to compare the two and even have it close.

For the record, I'm not saying this to slander Peter Gabriel, I am genuinely curious to know if I'm just missing something, or maybe I haven't heard his best vocal performance.

Oh, also on the subject on Peter Gabriel, did Phil Collins steal the melody from the middle bit of Mad Man Moon: "Hey man, I'm the Sandman, and boy I've got trouble for you..."? From what I recognize Phil Collins doing the Tarzan soundtrack for Disney did a song: "Strangers like Me" and the Chorus sounds nearly identical to that. I was wondering if my suspicions were well founded.

Thanks for reading!

I can understand that, some songs from Rush I'm not a fan of because of his voice, but I think that has more to do with melody. For example, Tom Sawyer "what you say about his company is WHAT you say about society" That bit goes way way high up there. Although I look past those small sections, and I generally like Tom Sawyer, but IDK there's something about Peter Gabriel's voice in particular that I just don't understand.

His vocals are extremely English. This is strongly related to the truth that he is, in fact, English.

I would recommend that you try the third solo album, Melt as it was named over the pond. There are some gems on that, and it is, perhaps, as accessible as Gabriel got.

Mad Man Moon is nothing to do with Gabriel as he was already out of the picture.

To be honest I wouldn't worry about not 'getting' Peter Gabriel and concentrate on the post Gabriel albums. So many great tracks even if all the albums are not great. Gabriel era Genesis is also way overrated imo.

Well, Donald said its good for me 

He used a particular kind of vocal placement that is peculiar to Britain (Jonathan Higgs of Everything Everything stretches it to the absolute, unpalatable extreme). It can be off putting in the beginning but if you take out Gabriel, you pretty much take out the soul of Genesis. Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to hear Gabriel singing soul, the music genre, I mean.  But in the context of symphonic prog of a very theatrical persuasion (unlike, say, the lofty spiritualism of Yes), his singing is perfect. Other than Back In the NYC (which was the one time he overreached), I haven't heard too many songs where other singers improved on his renditions for Genesis. 

 

 

so what Genesis albums have you listened so far? Or his solo career? 

 

Collins is a good singer as well but I prefer the tone of Gabriel. Compare and contrast "Carpet Crawlers" on TLLDOB and Seconds Out, particularly Collins and his "stickleback, back, back, back" which I find annoying.

This!

This....I really do enjoy and like Gabriel's voice. I actually prefer Gabriel's normal speaking voice over Phil's like when he does interviews.

Both are consistently great vocalists, few to no low points IMO. I really don't have much issue with any vocalists within the progressive rock genre, Gabriel is easily one of my top pics. H is also one I rate very high..

Michael (a native of Oklahoma) was holding court, and opined about Peter's voice.  "You should hear it in the studio without any processing or delay," he said, "F-ing horrible!" 

  I kid you not. 

I like how Peter does a little goat-sound at the end of some phrases, and his thick-as-Thames-Mud British accent is a scream!!  My college roommate used to stomp out of the room, he hated it so much.  Now, he is Gabriel's biggest fan.  

Repeat after me:  "I....RRRRRREPRESENT a firm of gentle-men who rrrrecently pur-chased this house and all the others in the row...."  

I'd say So is more accessible than Melt, but I suppose if your on a prog site Melt might be less irritating to some than So, lol.

I've only heard Pawn Hearts from VDGG, but from Hammill's performance on that album I'll much more inclined to take Gabriel seriously than Hammill. Just how I'm hearing it though.

I don't think he has a conventionally good voice, but it's unique and the way he sings a song (tells a story) is always fun to listen to. 

I can always create images in my head and form a story from listening to the older Genesis songs.

It makes it interesting, but I admit there are times where I cringe at some of the lyrics from Gabriel.

Hi,

I would almost think that this explains his not being able to do a lot of work in the past few years ... I think his voice has likely given out and he feels useless without being able to do his words and comments.

It's a sad way to go, for someone that got that well known, but it might also suggest that he could/should have taken some voice lessons, or singing work, in order to improve that, or make adjustments so that he could get away with some of those moments ... but if he "hid" all that ... eventually he will get caught, and I don't know if there is an answer or recipe for fixing it.

My guess, is that he is not capable of actually singing, and holding a note. And while that can be taught, there are times when the person's inner side can not adjust to that outside ... however, the difference, or contrast does not make him a bad singer, since in a studio everyone has a bad day, SPECIALLY when they can burn the money on it! Your band or mine would never even get the chance!

But it reminds me of a comment in the George Martin special ... and one artist that was not happy with the recording because her voice did this or that and GM said it was fine ... and he had something else in mind ... well, for the record it became a hit and she had her days in the shine! That kinda tells me that PG had an issue but no one tried to improve on it, and kept on hiding it.

I have no difficulty believing that assessment. A good experiment to bring this out even in a studio context would be to listen to his cover of Radiohead's Street Spirit.  Transpires that he doesn't even have the power of Thom Yorke...and that's still another goat-bleat singer.  Not one with a smooth production like messrs Hayward and Sinclair. 

 Peter is brilliant in the specific Genesis/solo context and not very good outside it.  Said another way, he's like an oboe or clarinet.  His voice is interesting in a specific context and maybe more compelling than other versatile instruments in that context.  But it's not a guitar/violin/saxophone that could fit just about anything. He runs up into limitations pretty quickly, limitations made worse by rock's high note tyranny.  He had a nice baritone and didn't get to use it often enough.

Thanks, M, great post! 

I've read a bit about hypothetical Genesis reunions, and somewhere Peter said what you said = "My voice has changed since then."  Let's face it, he won't be singing "Supper's Ready" anymore.  I doubt that vocal lessons would help, but one never knows. 

The Genesis tribute "Musical Box" really nails the classic Genesis period, I'm glad they do their craft with precision and artistic integrity!  

He was straining mightily to sing the Suppers Ready climax (or the "Captain leads his dance right on through the night" verse in Dancing With The Moonlit Knight) going back to Shepperton Studios.  

Both times, he isn't really able to properly hit that note, in fact, sort of nearly gets there and moves away lightly touching it.  One of those singers who knew more about music (as in, composition) than about singing (the mechanical aspect of it) which is true for quite a few prog rock singers from that era.  I think the open mindedness to sing over odd time sigs/changes and over weird soundscapes was more important than how well, technically, the singer could sing. 

Hi,

Absolutely, and this is the part that I'm calling "acting" the words, instead of "singing" them. In many ways, Peter Hammill is like this for quite some time, but he head really good way of voicing his words and many times just seemed like speaking them, which fits a lot of music, probably better/easier than having to stay on the right note.

I, personally, do not think that at 18, 19 or 20 when a lot of this music came out that we all were that much on top of music and "knew" the music like some college folks might, but when all this is looked at through today's glasses and ideas, I would imagine that we think that many of them are not good singers ... but it didn't hurt them or the music a whole lot ... and is remembered far better than a lot of music that was note perfect and had so much bleach in it, that it stunk! The "color" was gone for ideas about "notes" .... but I have a feeling that the whole thing was literally because most folks that came into the studio had their songs, but not their "music".  In those days, I think it was more about the music, than the song, and it made a huge difference. As soon as we started on "singing", "music" and a lot of other musical details and "laws" (as I call it), a lot of this stuff lost its taste ... and some folks have said that progressive music has died since.

I like the idea of us throwing away the "book", and go free trying anything again. It worked then, and should work now, but we have to let go of commercial instincts and the fear that one comment on PA ends up killing the band ... kind of thing ... and this is where I find too many bands/musicians not ready for prime time ... I imagine that PG was already having many comments about his voice then (time to dig up those MM articles!) ... but it would not explain his doing well on at least 4 or 5 solo albums.

Something is missing here!

Overrated are you having a  you must smoke so weird stuff! Gabriel era Genesis is far superior than the pop-spat of later Collins era! 

I wasn't saying Collins era is better than Gabriel ,that would be stupid. For me though , Genesis is strong right through the seventies and getting hung up on the Gabriel era is not necessary. Genesis didn't turn into a pop group overnight. Even Invisible Touch has some good tracks.

I don't dislike Phil, but his voice is very thin and tinny, and he has a pretty limited range which he rarely attempts to leave.

Very interesting.  Not sure many other singers would try such an approach.  Technically proficient singers would probably decide they don't need a guide track once they have learned the song well; they would just attack the vocals freely without it anyway. 

Interestingly, a version of what Gabriel was doing was done for a long, long time in Indian film music.  They would record a guide track with a different singer (called the track singer in local parlance) and the one who was to record the final take to be committed to film would use the guide track to learn and sing the song. On some occasions, the established singer in question was gracious enough to say the version recorded by the track singer was good enough and should be retained. I don't think that practice exists anymore with revenues off music dwindling like everywhere else.  Songs are now recorded mainly to promote and create a buzz about the film so it's often done under lot of time and cost pressure and the luxury of having a separate track singer is most likely gone for good. Of course, it's easier now for composers to create a cheap dummy track showing what they expect of the singer.

M27Barney wrote: Invisible touch? I presume you meam Domino? Not heard that myself, its like putting your wifes knickers on...what if you enjoy it?

 

I actually knew a Marillion fan who did exactly that. His wife left him after he kept walking around the local town dressed as a woman.

Anyway Domino - the live version from The Way We Walk - The Longs kicks serious ass. Put it on loud with the bass turned up and the house will literally shake