Peter Gabriel – My (life in) music lists

100 best covers: #42 Pop Will Eat Itself “Games without frontiers”

So here’s a topsy-turvy, chicken and the egg kind of story.

I remember hearing “Games without frontiers” on AM radio as a pre-teen not really know who the artist was or what the song was about. I much later became a fan of Peter Gabriel when I picked up his “Shaking the tree” compilation on CD in the midst of my 80s retro kick in the late 1990s and there, reacquainted myself with the track. However, prior to that, in the early 1990s, I became a fan of Grebo jokesters Pop Will Eat Itself, mostly because of their relations with The Wonder Stuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, bands of whom I was already a big fan. Years later, some time in the early 2000s, whilst exploring some of PWEI’s back catalogue that I had yet to consume, I came across this cover they did of “Games without frontiers” and with a bit more digging, found that it was their contribution to a fundraiser compilation supporting the peace efforts in Northern Ireland, called “Peace together”.

Peter Gabriel’s original version of the song was recorded for his self-titled third album, released in 1980. It features Kate Bush on backing vocals, plodding percussive and bass synths, a drum machine mimicking congos, whistling, and sinister guitar lines dancing along the minor key. It is oft-considered an anti-war song with a title referencing a well-known European game show and lyrics that equate politics with children games, rhyming off names of children from different cultures, all playing together.

So a good choice then for a band to cover for an album promoting peace. Pop Will Eat Itself’s cover is longer, predictably rage-filled, and rife with samples. Though its rhythm and its use of rhythm as melody is the same, the tone is indeed very different. It feels like they packaged it all up, Gabriel included, and shot it off into an apocalyptic future world similar to that found in “Tank girl”. Yeah, it’s fun in its angst.

Indeed, both versions are a gas and make you feel urbane as your happily singalong, but I think I may be siding with original in terms of preference, even as I replay the cover with the volume cranked.

Cover:

Original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part four

Getting down to the wire now, heh? Just two more days left of 2023 after today. I think we might just manage it.

I usually do this thing sharing the final part of my ongoing annual playlist on the morning of New Years Eve but I’ve decided to switch it up for 2023. My last post of the year, the last word as it were, will be dedicated instead to my favourite album that the year offered us. It feels fitting now but we’ll see how it feels when it’s all said and done.

And I know I just inferred that the finish line is a welcome sight but honestly, 2023’s been a pretty good year. A marked improvement on the last, which was a huge leap forward on the previous two combined. I can’t really say things are back to normal* but they feel more familiar, if not weirdly surreal. The COVID is still around and the numbers still seem higher than they should be for a pandemic that is ‘over’ but we seem weirdly dismissive of it. Nonetheless, I’ve experienced a lot of post-pandemic firsts this year, like the first time back in the office, first time meeting some of my colleagues in person, first indoor concert, first train ride, first road trip across the border, whew. All of it has been exciting but also saddening for all the experiences that we collectively missed out on.

I don’t really want to talk about everything else that’s been going on in the world because it’s more than just a little crazy, so many deaths and so much damage and so much loss. So I’m just going to get back to the music. These last twenty five songs is a blend of new ones released over the last three months and a few b-sides, songs that had been released earlier on but for some reason, I missed them the first time around or just couldn’t fit them.

If you haven’t already perused them, I invite you to go have a look-see at parts one, two, and three. If you’re already in the know, have a gander at the highlights:

- - Kicking things off right with “Real life” a new song from the raw and frenetic Canadian indie rock trio, The Rural Alberta Advantage
  - Emma Anderson‘s (ex of Lush and Sing-Sing) debut solo album “Pearlies” has lots of great moments that show she hasn’t lost her dream pop sensibilities and “The presence” might be the closest sounding to epic Lush of the bunch
- - As Trans-Canada Highwaymen, Canadian 90s alt-rock royalty, Steven Page, Chris Murphy, Moe Berg, and Craig Northey unleashed an album of 70s Can-rock covers, like this faithful take on The Guess Who’s “”Undun”
- - “Panopticom” is the first track on the first new album of new material by Peter Gabriel in 21 years and shows he’s still incredible at what he does
- - Toronto-based Breeze gifted us 90s alt rock aficionados with an early Christmas present with a new album that includes the wonderful “Ready for love”
  - The dreamy “Amnesia” by M83 is definitely unforgettable
  - “Cicciolina”, from Cumgirl8‘s debut release on 4AD show that raw inventiveness that brought the legendary indie label to sign them