Peter Gabriel used to be a man of big ideas. Not that he isn't now (I guess), it's just that his ideas are benign and more of the "let's feed rice to starving children" variety than the "let's write a prog-rock concept album about New York street punks" variety, and that's sad. There's nothing wrong with "Down to Earth", his song from WALL-E that is nominated for a Golden Globe, I mean aside from the fact that it sounds like something Phil Collins would have aborted from his sandy vagina about 10 years ago, but that neutered world music shit (which dominates Gabriel's work even when he's not writing songs for plucky CG kids movies--that is, plucky CG kids movies which manage to make me tear up and watch them over and over again) pales when compared to something like, say, Down the Dolce Vita.

According to Songfacts:

This introduced the characters Aeron and Gorham, who set out on a journey across the sea. They would become part of Gabriel's story of Mozo, a mercurial stranger who would come and go, changing people's lives. Mozo would appear in "On The Air," "Exposure", "Red Rain," "Down The Dolce Vita," and "That Voice Again," but the Mozo story as a stage production or movie never developed.

I never knew that. I never cared, either. (Still don't.) What I do care about however is how ridiculously over-the-top this song is. It's got guitar that sounds about an octave shift away from being 1970's porn music, with the The London Symphony Orchestra doing grandiose sweeps and builds. It's almost got a disco feel to it, I can imagine Gabriel in spandex bell-bottoms dancing across the stage while singing this.

But this song was a "big idea". Peter Gabriel's first solo album is full of them. Every song is a big idea. Maybe Gabriel just used up all his big ideas on his early solo work. I guess it's unfair to expect a 58 year old guy to be as creative as he was at 26, but damn, why? Gabriel, give us another self-titled album. When you started titling them properly it all went to shit. (I mean, aside from Scratch which just sucks and continues to be the only Peter Gabriel album I do not physically own.)

* I am a big Peter Gabriel fan and nothing in this post is meant to be insulting to the man. I like So a lot, of course, and I enjoy songs like Steam and Big Town despite myself and the strange looks people give me when I play them.