So (album) - WikiHQ

So is the fifth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, released on 19 May 1986 by Charisma Records, Virgin Records and Geffen Records. After working on the soundtrack to the film Birdy (1984), producer Daniel Lanois was invited to remain at Gabriel's Somerset home during 1985 to work on his next solo project. Initial sessions for So consisted of Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes, although these grew to include a number of percussionists.

Although Gabriel continued to use the pioneering Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, songs from these sessions were less experimental than his previous material. Nevertheless, Gabriel drew on various musical influences, fusing pop, soul, and art rock with elements of traditional world music, particularly African and Brazilian styles. It is Gabriel's first non-eponymous album, So representing an "anti-title" that resulted from label pressure to "properly" market his music. Gabriel toured So on the This Way Up tour (1986–1987), with some songs performed at human rights and charity concerts during this period.

Often considered his best and most accessible album, So was an immediate commercial success and transformed Gabriel from a cult artist into a mainstream star, becoming his best-selling solo release. It has been certified fivefold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. The album's lead single, "Sledgehammer", was promoted with an innovative animated music video and achieved particular success, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and subsequently winning a record of nine MTV Video Music Awards. It was followed by four further singles, "Don't Give Up" (a duet with Kate Bush), "Big Time", "In Your Eyes", and "Red Rain".

The album received positive reviews from most critics, who praised its songwriting, melodies and fusion of genres, although some retrospective reviews have criticised its overt commercialism and 1980s production sounds. So was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1987 but lost to Paul Simon's Graceland. It has appeared in lists of the best albums of the 1980s, and Rolling Stone included the album in their 2003 and 2020 editions of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2000 it was voted number 82 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. So was remastered in 2002, partially re-recorded for Gabriel's 2011 orchestral project New Blood and issued as a box set in 2012.

Recording

upright=1.1364|thumbnail|right|Songs for the album were written and prepared in 1985 at Gabriel's home [[Ashcombe House, Somerset|Ashcombe House, an estate to the north-east of Bath]]

Since 1978, Gabriel had composed his music at Ashcombe House, including his album Security (1982) and the Birdy soundtrack (1984). He had an inexpensive studio in the adjacent barn consisting of two rooms, one where Gabriel would produce his vocals and work on lyrics, and another where the music would be assembled. Preparing for So, Gabriel considered Bill Laswell and Chic's Nile Rodgers as potential producers. He eventually asked his Birdy collaborator Daniel Lanois to stay at Ashcombe and work with him further.

Work on the album began in earnest in February 1985, with "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" as the first song; the first six months would be spent on writing and developing song sketches. The songs were usually recorded in the studio with Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes playing together to a drum machine, based on an idea or chord structure Gabriel had. Lanois recalled they had "a nice starting point [as] in that kind of scenario, it's not a good idea to have a lot of people around because you get nervous that you're wasting other people's time". Consequently, there was a relaxed atmosphere surrounding these sessions and the trio would jokingly refer to themselves as the "Three Stooges". This also involved the wearing of construction site hard hats as they had a "turning up for work humour".

Once they had the songs' foundations, bass and drums were overdubbed - primarily with Tony Levin, and Manu Katché, respectively. According to Lanois, he usually liked "to capture as much of the live playing as possible in any session, but these [sessions] were really the reverse... It was like overdubbing the rhythm section on top of a demo. That was the spirit of the record." During the recording, Gabriel would occasionally invite Levin, Rhodes and Katché back to re-do their parts as the songs continued to take shape and evolve.

The studio's basic equipment consisted of an SSL console and two analog Studer A80 24-track machines - one stock and one modified with custom audio cards.

Side two

"In Your Eyes" has been described as Gabriel's greatest love song. The song relates to the experiment on obedience carried out by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, intended as a reference to the obedience citizens show to dictators during times of war. Marotta's drums on the song – said to resemble "a heartbeat heard from the womb" However, Gabriel remembered it slightly differently: both of them quite liked the song such that they agreed to release it on their own albums. Anderson's version, with Gabriel on additional vocals, appeared on her 1984 album Mister Heartbreak, which is closer to the version premiered on Good Morning, Mr. Orwell. When the album was profiled in the Classic Albums documentary series, Gabriel quipped that its short title meant it could be enlarged and useful when marketing it. Before the album was eventually named So, it was meant to be entitled Good. The album's cover is a portrait of Gabriel photographed by Trevor Key, who was then most famous for capturing the bell artwork for Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (1973). The sleeve was designed by Peter Saville and Brett Wickens; Saville was best known for designing several sleeves for Factory Records artists and was paid £20,000 for his work on So. According to Saville, the cover was based on the one he designed for New Order's album Low-Life the previous year, utilizing a similar method of taking Polaroid photos to produce a "groovy" portrait of the artist; Saville described the results as "contemporary, young but grown up, mature." Gabriel recalled: "The only compromise I made was to go with Peter Saville's idea for a retro-style portrait. I was told my usual obscure LP sleeves alienated women." The cover was partly influenced by photographer David Bailey's work.

So was released on 19 May 1986. It topped the charts of seven countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom, where it became Gabriel's second number one album. In the United States, So became one of Geffen Records' most commercially successful releases, peaking at number two and remaining on the chart for ninety-three weeks. In April 1986, "Sledgehammer" was released as the album's lead single and became Gabriel's first and only number one on the Billboard Hot 100, displacing his former band Genesis' first and only US number one "Invisible Touch". The success of "Sledgehammer" can be seen, in part, due to its hugely popular and innovative stop motion music video, designed by Aardman Animations. Gabriel would go on to say in an interview for Rolling Stone that he believed the video exposed Sos songs to a wider audience, bolstering the album's success. Two high-charting singles followed, "Don't Give Up", which rose to number nine on the UK Singles Chart and a less successful seventy-nine in America, while "Big Time" peaked at number thirteen in the UK and number eight in America. "In Your Eyes" saw moderate success in America, where it reached twenty-six on the Hot 100, while "Red Rain" peaked at forty-six in the United Kingdom.

Bono contacted Gabriel to perform at A Conspiracy of Hope, a series of Live Aid-inspired concerts that intended to spread awareness of human rights issues in light of Amnesty International's twenty-fifth anniversary. Gabriel accepted and in June 1986, he performed alongside Sting, the Police, Lou Reed, and Joan Baez, with a set that opened with "Red Rain" and featured "Sledgehammer". Gabriel described it as "the best tour [he'd] ever been on". In the same month, Gabriel performed at London's Clapham Common, along with Boy George and Elvis Costello, for Artists Against Apartheid. Gabriel eventually embarked on the ninety-three date This Way Up tour to support So, beginning in Rochester, New York on 7 November 1986. One of the dates was a special two-night residency (20–21 December) at Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Stadium to fund a global computer system for the University for Peace, a United Nations project. The tour suspended in early 1987 until June when it reached Europe, before going on to America and finishing at the Lycabettus Amphitheatre in Athens in October. Gabriel partially performed So at The Prince's Trust Concert and at Human Rights Now! Tour in 1988.

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

So received mostly favourable reviews from music critics. Music Week commented that So had "all the usual hallmarks of rhythm and vocals" associated with Gabriel. They also expressed their belief that the album was less adventurous than Gabriel's "groundbreaking groundbreaking third PG LP". Billboard said that the album "presents Gabriel with a warmth and directness almost certain to broaden his audience beyond the platinum mark". Cashbox believed that the album served as a continuation of Gabriel's work "at the leading edge of pop, transcending trend." Music & Media labeled it as "Gabriel's most accessible and streamlined album ever", adding that it was "one of the best albums released this year, both commercially and artistically."

Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote "only a handful of Western rock musicians have managed to use exotic rhythms and instruments with so much ingenuity and conviction". Pareles also praised his vocals, describing them as "grainy but not bluesy, ageless and joyless, the voice of some ancient mariner recounting disasters". Tim Holmes of Rolling Stone described the album as "a record of considerable emotional complexity and musical sophistication" and felt that the mainstream pop music scene would be encouraged to innovate by the album.

Terry Atkinson of Los Angeles Times viewed the album as offering "an amazing variety of tones, moods and topics, and a consistently powerful level of expression". Although disliking "Big Time", Atkinson concluded So was "a great album, possibly Gabriel's best". Steve Hochman, also of Los Angeles Times, praised Gabriel's reinvention too, describing it as "real progress" compared to the contemporaneous work of other progressive rock acts such as Genesis, GTR and Marillion.

Chicago Tribunes Lynn Van Matre praised the album's "wave of funky rhythms" and called for more appreciation of Gabriel's talent, but noted a lack of "quirkiness" and said there were no tracks as impactful as his 1980 single "Biko". Robert Christgau was lukewarm in The Village Voice, writing that "Gabriel's so smart he knows rhythm is what makes music go, which relieves him of humdrum melodic responsibilities but doesn't get him up on the one—smart guys do go for texture in a pinch." The Quietus Wyndham Wallace praised Sos sincerity and called it "a heartfelt journey through intense emotional territory, assembled and arranged with intricacy and commitment, laboured over with such care that it sounds effortless".

Ryan Bray, writer for Consequence of Sound, concluded So was an "all-too-rare record that manages to have it both ways, earning its richly deserved critical and commercial respect without giving so much as an artistic inch". He added that "it still stands on its own two feet as one of the consensus best records of the 80s". Mark Blake of Q described the album as "carbon-dated to 1986 thanks to those blaring saxes and Fairlight CMI digital sampling synths". He added that "Gabriel crafted an album of user-friendly pop that was still reassuringly odd." Terry Staunton of Classic Rock wrote "Red Rain was familiarly pensive and politically charged, but the radio waves completely surrendered to the record's muscular dance rock and slower tempo eloquence." Staunton concluded that Gabriel had displayed "a masterful confidence, delivering a satisfyingly unified whole".

In a less positive retrospective review, Mojos David Buckley contrasted the album with Gabriel's earlier, more experimental work, stating "on 1986's So, he switched tack to write pop, and write big. The results are mixed. 'Sledgehammer', echoing both Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' and David Bowie's 'Fame', retains its punch. Elsewhere, Gabriel sounds airbrushed on 'Mercy Street', 'Red Rain' and 'In Your Eyes', with only 'We Do What We're Told' a reminder of a daring past." In a mostly positive 8/10 review for Uncut, John Lewis also directed criticism at the album. He praised its state-of-the-art production in parts, highlighting "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer" as standout tracks, but stated elsewhere it interfered in places, such as the Fairlight CMI synthesizer on "That Voice Again" and whistling ambient accompaniment on "Mercy Street".

Legacy

At the 29th Annual Grammy Awards, So was nominated for Album of the Year, losing to Paul Simon's Graceland (1986), while "Sledgehammer" received nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. At the sixth Brit Awards, hosted by Jonathan King at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, Gabriel won Best British Male Artist and "Sledgehammer" won Best British Music Video. Gabriel was most successful at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards where he was honoured with the Video Vanguard Award and "Sledgehammer" won an additional nine awards including Video of the Year, a record that has not been challenged. Its video is the most played music video in the history of MTV.

So is often regarded as Gabriel's best album, as well as one of the best albums of the 1980s. It enabled Gabriel to transform from a cult artist, acclaimed for his cerebral, experimental solo work, into a mainstream, internationally known star. Rolling Stone placed So at 187 (2003 edition) and 297 (2020 edition) on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and at 14 on its 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, noting that "despite its mass appeal, however, So also presented compelling challenges." Stereogum placed it at number one on its list of Gabriel's best albums, writing, "Peter Gabriel's fifth studio album is a mesmerizing dichotomy: simultaneously hooky and experimental; timeless, yet completely crystallizing its moment in history ... It's a masterpiece.

So has been profiled in the Classic Albums series and featured in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Slant Magazine listed the album at 41 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, describing it as "Gabriel's most accessible yet ambitious work. A chronicle of political, emotional, and artistic exploration, the album [attempts] to balance standard pop orthodoxy with his still-rumbling desire for sonic experimentation". Jim Allen wrote for Ultimate Classic Rock, "What makes So important is the way he seamlessly blended peerless pop savvy with an iconoclast’s adventurous artistic instincts. His slightly twisted pop songs packed enough emotional impact, sonic surprises and catchy melodies to make for one of the era’s most consistently rewarding records."

So is Gabriel's best-selling album, having been certified fivefold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). In 2002, So was re-issued and remastered. In 2011, several of tracks from So were featured on Gabriel's ninth studio release New Blood, a project of orchestral re-recordings from Gabriel's discography. In 2012, for the album's twenty-fifth anniversary, a limited-edition box set was released. It includes the remastered So album, the Live at Athens (1987) album and a So DNA album which examines its production, as well as new liner notes, photographs, vinyl collectibles and the So: Classic Albums documentary. In the same year, Gabriel embarked on the Back to Front Tour, where Gabriel plays every song on the So album with several of the session musicians from its recording. English musician Steven Wilson said, "People think the 80s were a shallow, superficial era", but he cited So as an album that was "really smart".

Peter Gabriel – lead and backing vocals, CMI (all tracks), Prophet synthesizer (all except tracks 5 & 9), piano (all except tracks 7 & 9), Linn 9000 (tracks 3 & 7), synthesizer (tracks 5 & 7), percussion (track 4), Yamaha CS-80 (track 6), LinnDrum (track 9), Synclavier (track 9)
Tony Levin – bass guitar (tracks 1–5), drumstick bass (fretting only) (track 7)
David Rhodes – guitar (all except tracks 6 & 9), backing vocals (tracks 1 & 5)
Jerry Marotta – drums (tracks 1 & 8), additional drums (track 5), bass guitar (drumming only) (track 7)
Manu Katché – drums (tracks 2–5), percussion (tracks 3–5), talking drum (tracks 5 & 9)
Chris Hughes – electronic drums, programming (track 1)
Stewart Copeland – hi-hat (track 1), drums (track 7)
Daniel Lanois – guitar (tracks 1, 2 & 4), tambourine (track 2), surf guitar (track 7), twelve-string guitar (track 9)
Wayne Jackson – trumpet (tracks 2 & 7), cornet (track 7)
Mark Rivera – tenor saxophone (tracks 2 & 7), processed saxophone (track 6), alto saxophone, baritone saxophone (track 7)
Don Mikkelsen – trombone (tracks 2 & 7)
P. P. Arnold – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Coral Gordon – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Dee Lewis – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Richard Tee – piano (tracks 3, 5 & 6)
Simon Clark – keyboards, backing vocals (track 3), Hammond organ, programming, bass guitar (track 7)
Kate Bush – vocals (track 3)
L. Shankar – violin (tracks 4 & 8)
Larry Klein – bass guitar (tracks 5 & 6)
Youssou N'Dour – backing vocals (track 5)
Michael Been – backing vocals (track 5)
Jim Kerr – backing vocals (track 5)
Ronnie Bright – bass vocals (track 5)
Djalma Corrêa – surdo, congas, triangle (track 6)
Jimmy Bralower – programming kick (track 7)
Bill Laswell – bass guitar (track 9)
Nile Rodgers – guitar (track 9)
Laurie Anderson – synthesizer and vocals (track 9)
Kevin Killen - recording and mixing engineer
Greg Fulginiti – mastering

Charts

Weekly charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Weekly chart performance for So

!scope="col"|Chart (1986–1987)

!scope="col"|Peak position

!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)

!scope="row"|Finnish Albums (IFPI)

!scope="row"| French Albums (SNEP)

| align="center"| 12

! scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)

| align="center"| 1

!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)

!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (AFYVE)

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

!scope="col"|Chart (1992)

!scope="col"|Peak position

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

!scope="col"|Chart (2012)

!scope="col"|Peak position

!scope="row"|Greek Albums (IFPI)

!scope="row"|UK Physical Albums (OCC)

|35

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

!scope="col"|Chart (2016)

!scope="col"|Peak position

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

! scope="col"| Chart (2025)

! scope="col"| Peak position

! scope="row"| Greek Albums (IFPI)

| 1

Year-end charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Year-end chart performance for So

!scope="col"|Chart (1986)

!scope="col"|Position

!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)

|31

!scope="row"|Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)

!scope="row"|Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)

|13

!scope="row"|French Albums (SNEP)

! scope="row" | New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)

| 15

!scope="row"|Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)

!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)

|19

!scope="row"|US Billboard 200

|35

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

!scope="col"|Chart (1987)

!scope="col"|Position

!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)

|28

! scope="row" | New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)

| 11

!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)

|38

!scope="row"|US Billboard 200

|21

Certifications

References

Notes

Citations

Sources