Us (Peter Gabriel album)

In an interview with New Musical Express published in June 1989, Gabriel mentioned that he intended for his next release after Passion to be either a concept album or two separate releases, with one oriented around "melody and atmosphere" and another with an emphasis on "rhythm and dance".^[11] In October 1989, Gabriel started work on songs which would end up on the Us album. During that time, he was concurrently preparing new versions of songs for the 1990 compilation album Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats and supervising the editing of 1987 concert footage shot in Greece, which was released in 1990 as the live video album POV.^[10]

Through 1991 and into June 1992, he focused on composing and recording the Us album, mainly at his own Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, with specialised recording sessions held at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans, and Studio 2000 in Dakar. Daniel Lanois co-produced the album with Gabriel, with support from David Bottrill in programming and engineering. The final album ended up being almost 58 minutes long, substantially longer than all his earlier releases which adhered to the 46-minute limit of the analog 12-inch vinyl LP.^[10] As a change from So, Lanois agreed to work on a more on-and-off basis with Gabriel as producer; the former did short stints of at least two weeks at a time, balancing commitments with U2's Achtung Baby and solo album For the Beauty of Wynona.^[12] That way, Lanois felt there was more renewed excitement and energy in the studio, which showed in the songs more than in a long drawn-out stay.^[13] While less involved in the more detailed production work (including mixing), Gabriel noted that Lanois had greater influence in the musical areas of the album, pushing him more musically, lyrically and as a performer in the studio.^[12]

Typically, Gabriel started off songs in the studio with a rhythm pattern – usually a loop, a programmed drum pattern or both combined. To the drum pattern, he would improvise chords on piano and keyboards and ad-lib some vocals, with the performance captured onto DAT for reference.^[14] Gabriel would also listen back to the captured performances, to which he would play along on his keyboard rig and inspire further ideas. Like on So, Lanois and David Rhodes occasionally played guitar alongside Gabriel during these early stages. Gradually, Gabriel arrived at a rough structure of the given song, and from there start involving other musicians.^[14]

Gabriel held two sets of full-band sessions with his studio line-up, including Lanois, Rhodes, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Manu Katché. For the first sessions in October 1990, Katché had an African percussion kit setup with Gabriel's old bass drum from his time in Genesis,^[15] whereas he used a standard drum kit for the second set of sessions the following year.^[14] The musicians were given freedom to develop their own parts within the song structure. Subsequently, Gabriel continued to refine the songs in the studio, tweaking the song structure, melodies and lyrics until satisfied. Typically, Botrill would assemble a song structure on tape via transferring elements from several multitrack tapes; this process was repeated when Gabriel came up with newer ideas that required them to restructure the composition. Over the course of the two-and-a-half-year recording sessions for Us, each song usually went through three to four iterations before Gabriel finalised their structure.^[14]

Gabriel had met Sinéad O'Connor in October 1990 at the Amnesty International human rights benefit concert held in Santiago, Chile.^[10] Gabriel invited O'Connor to Real World Studios to record vocals for "Come Talk to Me" and "Blood of Eden".^[16]

The album opens with "Come Talk to Me", a song that Gabriel had written about a rift in communication between him and one of his daughters.^[10] Musically, the song was developed around a groove played by Doudou N'Diaye Rose during a 1980 recording session in Senegal.^[10][17] The song incorporates the use of bagpipes, a duduk, and a Russian choir.^[10][12] "Love to Be Loved" emerged from the lines "Liked to be liked / Need to be needed / Want to be wanted and loved to be loved", which Gabriel had written down a few years prior to the release of Us.^[17][18] According to David Bottrill, who served as one of the audio engineers for the album, Gabriel sang his lead vocal parts "about 40 times", with the final product being a composite of multiple takes.^[14]

"Blood of Eden" uses biblical imagery to describe the failure of a romantic relationship.^[19] Lanois was initially dissatisfied with the song, which ultimately went through multiple different iterations before they settled on a simpler groove than earlier versions of the track, which Gabriel said "verged on sounding trite".^[19] "Steam" was derived from a lyrical idea from Gabriel's third self-titled solo album that he had initially abandoned and re-worked into the song "And Through the Wire". He wrote "Steam" about a relationship with a woman who "knows everything about everything" other than herself, and a man who is only knowledgeable about her.^[19][20]

"Only Us" begins and ends with vocals from Ayub Ogada, a Kenyan singer based in London who Gabriel described as having "this very sweet, soft and quite rhythmic way of singing". Further instrumental textures were provided by L. Shankar on violin and Kudsi Erguner on a ney flute.^[19] The guitars on "Only Us" were played by Rhodes and Bill Dillon, the latter of whom recorded his parts in New Orleans using Electro-Harmonix delay pedals.^[21] "Washing of the Water" features a horn arrangement that was recorded at Lanois' studio in New Orleans.^[21] Gabriel described "Washing of the Water" as a love song with a "spiritual reference". He remembered that he anguished over the song's groove and nearly decided to abandon the drums that Manu Katché had recorded. Gabriel thought that the drums carried the quality of "a guy in a hotel, [playing] in a bar band" with a cabaret feel. He ultimately decided that the drums properly suited the song, believing that they had a "nice poignant, slap-dash quality".^[19]

When assembling the liner notes, Gabriel decided to commission different artists to create accompanying visuals for each song on the album.^[22] To promote Us, Virgin Records launched a marketing campaign using these commissioned pieces of artwork.^[23] The artwork was also showcased at the Art 93 London Contemporary Art Fair.^[24] Virgin Records also promoted the album in the UK through a £250,000 campaign consisting of television advertisements, press advertising, window and in-store displays, and what Music Week described as a "nationwide teaser and answer campaign" through various posters.^[25]

In the United States, Geffen Records handled the distribution of Us. They anticipated that the initial shipment of Us would comprise 250,000 compact discs and 150,000 cassettes. Similar to Gabriel's previous release, Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats, Gabriel decided to forgo longbox packaging in favour of jewel cases. Certain retailers, including Kemp Mill Music, who had limited the stocking of Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats due to their belief that the jewel box packaging was not retail-friendly, opted to carry Us at their stores unabated. Billboard reported that both Kemp Mill Music and Russell Solomon of Tower Records had agreed to treat Us as a "normal release" no differently than albums packaged in longboxes. Geffen Records provided retailers a seven percent discount on initial purchases of Us rather than the five percent rate usually offered.^[26]

More information Review scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[27]
Chicago Sun-Times	[28]
Chicago Tribune	[29]
Entertainment Weekly	C+[30]
Los Angeles Times	[3]
NME	5/10[31]
Q	[32]
Record Collector	[33]
Rolling Stone	[34]
The Village Voice	B−[35]

Close

Us received generally positive reviews from critics. Billboard thought that Gabriel was positioned to "repeat the success of his So with his release of Us.^[36] Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot stated the album's "opaque melodies and exotic rhythms reward the patient listener, but not without a struggle."^[29] The Los Angeles Times awarded the album three-and-a-half stars out of four and praised Gabriel's ability to integrate elements of world music into an art rock style.^[3]

Music Week listed the album as their pick of the week, calling it a "stunning album of great cohesion" that represented "an important milestone" for Gabriel.^[37] Music & Media felt that Us aligned with the "globally determined" outlook of Gabriel and his Real World label.^[38] Writing for Select magazine, Dave Morrison wrote that world music influences were "seamlessly integrated into the textures of Us" and that it "finds Gabriel pushing further into his imaginative soundworld."^[39] In a combined review of So, Us, and Up, Record Collector gave the album four stars out of five and called it an "underrated, rewarding listen".^[33]