2023 Number 1: Peter Gabriel

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 1
Peter Gabriel - i/o

Being a fan of Marillion or IQ, who take five or six years to write an album, can be frustrating. Then, there’s Moon Safari and Unitopia, back after a decade of absence. But Peter’s 21 years between UP and i/o makes them all look like King Gizzard by comparison. An album over two decades in the making better be fucking worth it. Well, here we are. The reviews are all glowing, and they are correct. This is really something special. What a privilege to be there for the release of a new Peter Gabriel album. 

There isn't a song on this record that isn't magnificent. The interesting thing about i/o, apart from all those different versions and the monthly release cycle and all that folderol, is that it’s a pure pop album, his most accessible since SO. I mean that in a positive way. It’s a big tent. Whereas US and UP, as wel as his orchestral works, often retreated into hermetic darkness (i.e. plodding), here is an album explicitly made for everyone to enjoy and celebrate. There’s a lot of nods to his previous work while still sounding fresh. It’s full of hope and joy whilst also bringing that mature sense of intimate melancholy that runs through Peter’s later work. What really makes this one is the immaculate songwriting, the incredible, layered Gabriel/Eno production and his voice, still as warm, rich and powerful as ever. I’m particularly partial to the lyrics, an ode to life, love and nature. Apparently the songs are even better live, but that’s Peter Gabriel for you.

An entire generation has been born and come of age between Peter Gabriel’s previous album and this one. It’s hard to imagine the 73-year-old having many more albums left in him – this is only his eighth! But if this turns out to be it for him, what a note to go out on. Play it often.