Book Reviews 765 to resell singles (and contained much filler, provoking. Reynolds is the first writer to of- including halfhearted covers of contempo- fer a book-length treatment of this timely rary songs), but the move away from this topic; he will certainly not be the last. practice began in the sixties (with The Christopher Doll Beatles), not the late seventies. Reynolds Rutgers University exaggerates terribly in moments such as this, but what’s worse is that this particular false statement doesn’t even quite jibe with his preceding two paragraphs, which dis- Peter Gabriel, From Genesis to cuss the significance of some cover-filled al- Growing Up. Edited by Michael bums from the pre-“post-punk era”—Todd Drewett, Sarah Hill, and Kimi Kärki. Rundgren’s Faithful (Bearsville Records (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music BR 6963 [1976]), David Bowie’s Pin Ups Series.) Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010. (RCA Victor APL 10291 [1973]), and Bryan [xvii, 267 p. ISBN 9780754665212. Ferry’s These Foolish Things (Atlantic SD $29.95.] Music examples, photo - 7304 [1974]) and Another Time, Another graphs, bibliography, index. Place (Atlantic SD 18113 [1974]). The con- tradiction between what the author knows Although there has been a blossoming in and what the author feels is palpable here popular music studies over the past two and elsewhere. His irrepressible desire to decades, much pop music writing remains position punk as the reference point for in the purview of non-music specialists. As a the entirety of popular music history con- result, some edited volumes of pop music fuses his otherwise reliable account. essays can tend towards the overly abstract The book presents a sizeable bibliogra- and theoretical, without a grounding in the phy, featuring work by such heavy hitters as music. This can result in collections which Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Walter are of limited use to music scholars, as au- Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jame - thors engage critically with politics, lyrics, son, and Harold Bloom. A major lacuna media framing, reception, or other post- here is scholarship on intertextuality: men- modern inquiries, while discussions of mu- tion of Julia Kristeva’s original work on this sic become a corollary. subject, and the mass of other articles and Peter Gabriel, From Genesis to Growing Up, books that her writings spawned, is com- succeeds first and foremost because it pletely missing. This is a real shame, be- places Gabriel’s music (or performance of cause some of Reynolds’ topics have as it in concert or video) in the foreground of much—if not more—to do with intertextu- almost every essay. This includes both close ality than with retro. Sampling, for in- readings of single songs and wider exami- stance, is not necessarily retro (take John nations that stretch across his repertoire. Oswald’s decidedly contemporary mash-up Editors Michael Drewett, Sarah Hill, and album Plexure [Disk Union R-340188, 1993], Kimi Kärki have curated a strong, interdis- p. 319), but by nature it is intertextual. Even ciplinary volume that focuses on a single with the very broad definition employed by multifaceted artist, using a wide variety of Reynolds, “retro” could be viewed as a spe- analytical methods and theoretical ap- cific intertextual subcategory. proaches. Additionally, most of this vol- As a piece of music journalism, Retro- ume’s authors base their arguments on a mania is as much about the writing itself as well-reasoned and clear understanding of it is about the actual content, and various theoretical (philosophical, sociolog- Reynolds’ oratory is excellent. (We get only ical, anthropological) frameworks, al- the rare flub: e.g., the idiom “to beg the though their conclusions are sometimes question” is misused a few times, pp. 65, unexpected. 229, 343). This is not to say the content is The essays are grouped into three sec- anything less than absorbing and informa- tions by methodological approach. The tive; readers will likely learn a great deal first section is titled “Identity and Repre- and have an enjoyable time in the process. sentation,” which “attempts to address the Retromania reflects on an overabundance of many facets of Gabriel’s self which he has interesting issues, its opinionated message revealed on record and through his music at once fun, frustrating, and thought- videos” (p. 4). The second section is 766 Notes, June 2012 concerned with “Politics and Power,” and is Taylor’s chapter offers an orientalist cri- largely focused on Gabriel’s role in the tique of Gabriel’s world music activities South African anti-apartheid struggle with a hypercritical eye focused on power, through his song “Biko,” released in 1980, production, capital, and appropriation. as well as his other endeavors in the genre Laing then defends Gabriel against Taylor’s of world music. The final section deals with criticism, calling Taylor’s “homology be- “Production and Performance,” highlight- tween Gabriel’s studio techniques and the ing certain aspects of Gabriel’s music in live horrors of European colonialism” a “dubi- performance and his innovations in the ous leap” (p. 144). Laing makes a number studio. As a result of this organizational of salient points, for example, noting the scheme, some articles on the same subject reversal of the paradigm of Western appro- (for example, the video for “Sledge- priation in the relationship between hammer”) are placed at opposite ends of Gabriel and Senegalese musician Youssou the book. N’Dour (p. 146). The middle part of the volume, “Politics Taken together, these four essays set up and Power,” is the most cohesive, in part two dichotomies that demonstrate the because the essays deal with a relatively nar- complicated relationships between Gabriel, row slice of Gabriel’s output; namely, his world politics, and world music. In the first world music songs and specifically “Biko.” two, Gabriel is depicted as consciously ob- However, this cohesion seems staged for serving the anti-apartheid movement from the book, since the first three of these four the outside, yet his music remains a vital chapters were previously published else- component within that movement. In the where. The final essay, Dave Laing’s latter two, Gabriel is depicted as both a “ ‘Hand-made, Hi-tech, Worldwide’: Peter post-colonial appropriator of othered cul- Gabriel and World Music,” is a direct re- tural artifacts and also as a tireless pro- sponse to the previous essay, a barely edited moter and advocator on the part of margin- reprint of chapter 2 from Timothy D. alized musical cultures. Taylor’s book on world music (Timothy D. While each author probes fascinating as- Taylor, Global Pop: World Music, World pects of Peter Gabriel’s life and works, Markets [New York: Routledge, 1997], some do so in problematic ways. Drewett 39–52). The editors have provided a useful likens Gabriel to the Gramscian “organic service by collating essays from disparate intellectual” (Antonio Gramsci, Selections sources into one place; however, there is from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. very little new scholarship offered in this Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith section. [New York: International Publishers, 1971], Still, the editors have created a meaning- 5–14); however, he does not mention that ful recontextualization of these essays by Gabriel’s advocacy for racial equality in placing them adjacent to one another. South Africa still unavoidably earns him fi- Michael Drewett’s “The Eyes of the World nancial and cultural capital. Therefore, the Are Watching Now: The Political Effective- idea that “Gabriel fostered a different way ness of ‘Biko’ by Peter Gabriel,” argues that of conceiving cultural practice” should take Gabriel’s involvement “did not constitute into consideration Gabriel’s complex rela- membership of or strict allegiance to the tionship to power and capital as a musician anti-apartheid movement” (p. 110). This (p. 109). Laing’s criticism of Taylor does historicization avoids the impulse to “ro- not note that many of Gabriel’s activities in manticize, essentialize or exalt the part the business of world music recording can [Gabriel] played in anti-apartheid struggle” be read as a continued contribution to the (p. 110). Conversely, Ingrid Bianca Byerly hegemonic discourse that Taylor outlines. reveals how “Biko” became an integral part Likewise, there are problematic ap- of the cultural and musical discourse of proaches in the outer two parts of the protest amongst South African activists. book. Sarah Hill tracks Gabriel’s identity as Although she acknowledges that “music it- it changes across his first four solo albums, self . . . can probably not be considered a arguing for a change from provincial sole agent of change” (p. 118), she does Englishness to a worldly otherness. She place “Biko” around the “tipping point,” or links Gabriel’s lyrical subjectivity to a grow- the beginning of the final push towards vic- ing emergence of African tendencies in his tory, of the social revolution. music (p. 28), yet she never addresses Book Reviews 767 specifically why Gabriel’s subjective self erty” with eccentricity, but also identifies manifests itself as more African. Similarly, other characteristics endemic to Gabriel’s Hill implies that progressive rock restricts English musical identity: “middle-class or Gabriel, yet she does not offer a nuanced suburban identity” (p. 34), “English folk” explanation of those constraints (p. 19). (p. 35), “rock-theatre” (p. 37), and “Olde Some of these issues stem from the fact that English romanticism of the nineteenth cen- she never properly theorizes the concept of tury” (p. 38). Perhaps switching the order “Englishness” on which her argument rests. of the first two chapters would have allowed Other essays catalogue a single idea this variegated concept of Englishness and across Gabriel’s career without actually eccentricity to frame Hill’s argument. elucidating many conclusions. Rebecca Guy With its many references to a wide variety charts Gabriel’s use of the flute with spec- of transatlantic cultural theorists and tacular detail, noting his various techniques philosophers, this book is designed for a and shortcomings. However, her promises scholarly audience. However, most chapters to reveal the flute’s “multiple other-musical lack musical notation, and therefore the associations” (p. 160) and “semantic associ- general reader will find a number of acces- ations” (p. 167) go unfulfilled. Similarly, sible chapters. Music scholars will have to Kärki outlines the history of collaboration wait for in-depth analysis of Gabriel’s between Gabriel and stage designer Robert compositions, although there are already Lepage, demonstrating how both artists limited theoretical writings addressing struggle with creating an intimate perfor- Gabriel’s time with Genesis (see, for exam- mance in large arenas. However, Kärki’s ple, Mark Spicer, “Large-Scale Strategy and analysis of the “Growing Up” stage show Compositional Design in the Early Music of merely dents the surface of semantic Genesis,” in Expression in Pop-Rock Music: interpretation. Critical and Analytical Essays, ed. Walter The knotty or questionable essays are Everett [New York: Routledge, 2008], certainly outweighed by the successful 313–44). ones. Kevin Holm-Hudson’s excellent chap- Although some essays suffer from the oc- ter on Gabriel’s relationship to African casional failure to follow through on a line American soul music locates the artist’s of inquiry, to see all sides of an issue, or to work within larger issues of rock aesthetics delve into some critical aspects more fully, and African American musical traditions. these sixteen essays generally reveal many Franco Fabbri establishes Gabriel as an in- new insights into one of the more success- novator in studio production, while John ful pop-rock artists of the past four Richardson reads the “Sledgehammer” decades. This volume offers a well-rounded video as a surrealist hypertext, providing a sampling of Gabriel’s career and a strong rich exegesis of the video’s metaphorical argument for the benefits of an interdisci- landscape. Despite her chapter’s faults, Hill plinary examination of a single subject. is successful in showing how Gabriel moves Hopefully, it will inspire further study of from “hiding behind characters” to eventu- this fascinating composer and performer. ally “exploring [his] own psychology” and Jacob A. Cohen then “reaching beyond” (p. 22), following City University of New York Stuart Hall’s construction of identities as “fragmented and fractured” and “multiply The Studio Recordings of the Miles constructed” (Stuart Hall, “Introduction: Who Needs Identity?” in Questions of Davis Quintet, 1965–68. By Keith Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul Waters. (Oxford Studies in Recorded DuGay [London: Sage, 1996], 4). Jazz.) New York: Oxford University Unlike Hall, Kari Kallioniemi provides a Press, 2011. [xvi, 302p. ISBN stronger theoretical basis for Englishness in 9780195393835 (hardcover), $99; his chapter, “Peter Gabriel and the ISBN 9780195393842 (paperback), Question of Being Eccentric.” Locating $18.95.] Music examples, bibliogra- Gabriel within a cultural history of eccen- phy, index. tricity, Kallioniemi notes that “certain ideas involved in eccentricity are often confused Every music library should have a copy of with the peculiarities of Englishness” Keith Waters’ new book. It goes beyond a (p. 31). He links the “English idea of lib- purely descriptive analysis of the workings