December 12, 1992
- STAYED AT #1:5 Weeks
In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.
How do you respond when Peter Gabriel gets fonk-ayyyyy? Over the decades, Gabriel has built and earned a reputation for building dense, layered sonic environments. He spends years recording albums, he brings in musicians from all around the world, he messes around with experimental and futuristic recording techniques, and he makes music that seems to beam directly from a mature but emotionally open headspace. Every once in a while, though, Gabriel gets extremely silly, and that silliness clashes so hard with the rest of his music that you might convince yourself that he's really making a commentary on silliness rather than actually being silly.
"Sledgehammer" is the most obvious example. With the biggest pop hit of his life, Peter Gabriel tried to claim that he was paying tribute to "the spirit and the style" of Otis Redding and the other American soul singers that he loved as a young man. But "Sledgehammer," in spirit or style, doesn't really recall Otis Redding. Instead, it sounds like Peter Gabriel singing a catchy new wave jam about his dick. The epochal "Sledgehammer" video is a marvel of experimental animation and visual imagination, but it's also a slapstick party-time romp. "Big Time," another of the hits from Gabriel's 1986 blockbuster So, might be a satire of the yuppie-striver mentality, but Gabriel renders it in a form that yuppies could get down with. Is he doing something sophisticated, or is he just having fun? Does it matter?