"Beyond Our Differences"

This ambitious 2008 PBS program asks the world's great thinkers and religious and political leaders for solutions to the world's many problems. Hopeful reflections come from such diverse people as Andrew Young, Peter Gabriel, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Noam Chomsky. Unrated, 72 minutes. No DVD extras. shoppbs.org.

http://www.beyondourdifferences.com/

Peter's February update

10-Feb-2009

Peter Gabriel talks about a spate of award nominations and ceremonies including the Golden Globe Awards, the Grammy Awards and the Oscars's, all of which have 'Down To Earth' from Wall e in ther short lists. Enriching 'brain food' is recounted, having been eaten both at The World Economic forum and TED in the last couple of weeks. There is news of music from Charlie Winston and Spiro, whose track 'Antrobus' features in this months video. If that and the details missing from this description were not news a plenty, Peter also has an update on the forthcoming tour dates, 'Games Without Frontiers' on Real World Remixed and his work on the 'Scratch My Back' covers project in the studio. watch the video

The Creator: Inside the Collaborative World and Visionary Mind of Peter Gabriel

by Nevin Martell, Filter Mag; Photos by Arnold Newman & Stephen Lovell-Davis | 12.29.2008

To be a musician; that’s one thing. To be a visionary—well, that’s quite another.

Peter Gabriel is a quintessential visionary because his notable works transcend his numerous contributions to music. Since the late ’60s, he has continually reinvented himself by embracing sonic evolution through worldwide collaboration, the art of the music video, the power of social action and the creative expansion afforded by emerging technologies. He’s one of the few people on the planet who can get Bono, Steve Jobs and Nelson Mandela on the phone, and unlike other celebrity musicians who merely lend their image to a new project, Gabriel is an active brainstormer, overseer and executor of his myriad endeavors.

The 58-year-old Englishman enjoys experimentation, creation and innovation in large doses, thriving on them the same way Hunter S. Thompson flourished on a steady diet of illicit substances. Combining the mesmerizing showmanship of Houdini, the unbounded imagination of Walt Disney, and Asimov’s futurism, Gabriel is incessantly trying to make things happen—all sorts of things, with all sorts of people, in all sorts of places. And he was doing it years before Al Gore invented the Internet, before cellular technology was a fact of life, and before someone dubbed the phrase “multi-tasking.” In many ways, he’s the benevolent grandfather of this new digital age, but he’s not embracing Floridian retirement and trips on a charter boat; he’s got bigger fish to fry.

No matter where you look, Gabriel is leaving his stamp on the culture of today and tomorrow. You might hear his song with Tom Newman, “Down to Earth,” playing over the credits to Pixar’s WALL-E or read about him in the latest issue of Wired or even in a BoingBoing blog post. Considering the scope and depth of Gabriel’s works, it’s no wonder that he’s notorious for taking long stretches to finish albums (there was a 10-year gap between Us and its 2002 follow-up, Up).

His latest musical venture isn’t his new solo album (six years and counting); rather, it’s the Big Blue Ball project—a collection of songs culled from three week-long jam sessions he curated at his Real World Studios in the early ’90s. Featuring artists as varied as The Egyptian String Ensemble, flamenco guitarist Juan Canizares, Joseph Arthur, Sinéad O’Connor, Japanese percussionist Joji Hirota and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, the album is held together by Gabriel’s presiding vision of bringing creative people together.

Over the years, Gabriel has collaborated with a diverse array of artists—including Robert Fripp, Cat Stevens, Youssou N’Dour and Lou Reed—while his Real World Records label has introduced artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Blind Boys of Alabama and the Afro Celt Sound System to wider Western audiences. He also found time to write Passion—the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ—and contributed to movies like Natural Born Killers and Philadelphia. Of course, his most known contribution to film appears in Cameron Crowe’s 1989 high school-romance classic, Say Anything, in which John Cusack plays Gabriel’s swooning ballad, “In Your Eyes,” on a boombox hoisted over his head to woo back his girl.

Ever since Gabriel left Genesis in the mid ’70s and embarked on an incredibly rich solo career, he has been a master crafter of the unexpected pop song. From the lilting “Solsbury Hill” and the chant-worthy protest song “Biko” to the quirkily catchy “Shock the Monkey” and the sexual soul stylings of “Sledgehammer,” Gabriel has defied strict categorization, though many of his songs have found their way into the Top 40. He is a man who feels unfettered by traditional boundaries and continually surprises listeners by defying convention and expectation.

In a world where brand is king and artists of all ilks are expected to find a pigeonhole—then rape it for all its worth—Gabriel has done a superlative job of staying outside this artistically debilitating system. His only promise to his fans is that he’ll surprise them if they have patience and don’t mind a multitude of detours along the way. Whether he ultimately delivers a CGI video so trippy it makes Björk’s clips look blasé (“Kiss the Frog”) or a tongue-in-cheek condemnation of the talk TV circuit (“The Barry Williams Show”), Gabriel is one artist who would rather fail at something new than repeat himself for the sake of success.

Today, we find Peter Gabriel in constant motion acting as the artist in residence at his second home, Real World Studios, which is tucked away in the countryside of southwestern England. Though he has just put the finishing touches on his contribution to the WALL-E soundtrack and is at the end of a long day’s work in the studio, he is warm and generous, even apologizing for being a mere three minutes late. Over the course of our conversation, Gabriel opens up wholeheartedly to discuss his multitude of projects and how they help make him a better artist and shape his vision of a truly collaborative world.

What is your philosophical approach to making music now? Has it changed since you first started out?

It began fairly primitively, though I still consider myself a pretty primitive artist in lots of ways. For my latest project, Big Blue Ball, the recording was a huge collaboration. The World of Music, Arts and Dance Festival started in 1980 and it always brought together all these wonderful musicians from around the world, many of whom couldn’t communicate in any other way except through music. But, they’d always be jamming with each other at any given opportunity. None of that ever got recorded and it was such a magical feeling that initially we just thought, “Let’s grab some of these musicians and bring them down to the studio.” And then we began to think, “OK, jams are wonderful for those involved, but not always for those listening. So, let’s try and steer this towards writing songs that will stand up through repeated listening. Let’s start taking advantage of these unique musical mixes.” So we brought some songwriters and poets in and had some of the most exciting musical weeks of my life. They were exhausting even though we had a 24-hour café going. The enthusiasm that everyone had…there was a real generosity of spirit.

What was your role?

I was the instigator. [Former Waterboys/World Party musician/songwriter] Karl Wallinger and I were producing stuff upstairs in one room; that’s always what we were steering. And I appear as an artist or writer on a few of the tracks. Some people think this is my latest record, and I’m at pains to point out that this is very much a group record of which I was only a participant.

Of all the people you invited to Real World for those weeks of recording, who surprised you the most?

I loved working with some of the Egyptian string players. Hossam Ramzy, a percussionist I worked with on the Passion soundtrack, originally brought these guys over to work with Plant and Page, but then we roped them in. They would listen to a track and the lead violinist would play along to the melody and the other three guys would lean over, with their ears almost touching his instrument, copying whatever he played just a little bit behind. So it was a really organic, flowing, serpent-like string part that you hear on the track “Habibe,” which was a beautiful thing.

You’ve earned a reputation for taking a long time to make records. What was it like only having one week to collaborate, compose and record?

I actually like working fast, as opposed to the normal snail’s pace. It’s a different type of energy. It was like the old days in the Brill Building when there’d be a ton of songwriters who had to turn something in before they went home, and that’s good. It’s not good for everything—and it’s certainly not the best way to get what I do out there—but it’s another facet. You look at some painters who can deliver something in 10 seconds that’s extraordinary, and for someone else, it might take 10 years. One is not necessarily better than the other; it’s just different.

In terms of your artistic process, how much improvising and on-the-spot work do you do? Or, are you still a very calculated songwriter?

I’ve always been so 50/50. In other words, the performance is where the magic often happens, and you get spontaneous reactions to things and you try to catch them fresh. I will then chisel away like a sculptor, hoping something has been caught with life trapped inside it.

What song of yours required the least chipping away?

“Solsbury Hill” was pretty quick, but getting it recorded always takes longer than writing the lyrics.

Would you explain the title, Big Blue Ball?

One of the astronauts—and I can’t remember which one—said that once they’d been up in space and looked back at the place they’d come from, they had seen it just as a “big blue ball.” So it was impossible to think and feel about the world in the same way again. It’s such a queerly defined object, so a lot of the barriers and divisions that we make on its surface seem a bit ridiculous.

It seems that this record desires to obliterate those barriers and facilitate thinking about the world as one “big blue ball.”

From the beginning, that was one of my hopes. In fact, one of the fears I have with the climate change is that by restricting travel, we inadvertently feed intolerance and racism.

If there was one song to play at your funeral that reflects this ideal of bringing people together, which would it be?

It was pretty emotional when we were doing the Human Rights tour for Amnesty International in 1986 and we would get people singing “Biko” all around the world, so that would definitely be a candidate.

Do you feel that it would be easier to write a political song like “Biko” now than it was in the ’80s? Then, it was a powerful statement magnified even more because it was on a major record label. Now, you could conceivably write a protest song, record it and upload it to the web all in one day. Is it easier now to be outspoken on issues that were formerly off limits?

I think it’s easier, for sure. “Biko” was a protest song and one of the benefit projects I’ve been working on is theelders.org, which is for global elders in a global village. One of the many proposals for the site was that you encourage people to spontaneously respond to the world’s events. So, you could get painters, cartoonists, musicians, poets or whomever generating responses. If you see the violence in Tibet or the earthquakes in China, this website would be an encouraging platform to get people to respond quickly, and not just with money.

In many ways, you’ve always been a collaborator, whether in music, emerging technologies or visual mediums. Do you see this new record as the apex of the way you collaborate?

It’s an opportunity to explore collaborations. One of my hopes with the digital revolution is that historically, every technology that has come along has changed the very nature of the content of the music. In other words, when the single record was invented after the player piano roll, because of how many grooves you could fit on the vinyl, the format determined the length of a composition. And now we’re in this digital world. You could have a piece of music that’s three days long or three seconds long. The other revolutionary aspect is the economics of the business.

In the old days, a record company would sit there and listen and say, “If we can’t sell 100,000 of these things, we’re not going to go and produce it. And we’re not going to pay for the studio.” Now we know that stuff can be done on a laptop and it can be made available in every country in the world, virtually for free. We had a great example of this happen at the Real World Studios when The Incredible String Band wrote to their fans on their website and sold admission to their recordings. They sold tickets for about $100 to 120 fans who came to the studio, and that gave them the budget to purchase the studio time. So they created a mini-economy based on 120 people, rather than the 100,000 required in the old model.

Would you ever consider allowing fans into your recording studio—perhaps for more than $100 a pop—in order to fund your own work?

That’s quite an interesting idea. I hadn’t thought about it as a means of funding for my work or stuff like Big Blue Ball, but absolutely. There are space constraints at Real World, but I’m sure we could figure something out.

Over the years, you’ve embraced a lot of technology—from your groundbreaking music videos and live concert CDs delivered to fans right after the show to the CD-ROM Explora to your numerous online efforts. Which one do you feel has influenced your artistry the most?

As far as music making, I’d have to say the Internet and the PC, because everything else has been delivered down those channels. They are fantastic tools. We now have all these different musical colors available, all these different ways of manipulating them and access to musicians around the world. I recently did this song, “Down to Earth,” for the Pixar movie WALL-E. I wrote the song with Tom Newman, then we sent out the tape to South Africa for the Soweto Gospel Choir to record its part, and then they sent it on to the bassist, who couldn’t be at Real World Studios. There’s no substitute for having all the musicians together in a room, but to have near-instantaneous access to all the world’s sounds, grooves, musicians and audience—that’s huge.

When is the next Peter Gabriel record coming out?

I don’t know. I hope before the second coming or the first coming, depending on which religion you subscribe to. But “soon” is a word I’ve often used. They generally say deadlines are something you pass on the way to completing a project. There are about 50 track ideas that I’ve started in one form or another, so there’s lots of stuff there, but I just need to finish it.

Two weeks ago, I went to a wedding and the priest turns to the bride and quotes scripture, but in the same breath, he turns to the groom and starts quoting “In Your Eyes.” No one realized it at first, but my fiancée and I started giggling wildly, because it had been such a profound ceremony...

[Laughs] Are you trying to say I’m not profound? You know, it’s funny—you start your musical life playing at weddings and that’s exactly where you end up.

Peter Gabriel on download project We7: "Throw it at the wall and see what sticks"

Photograph: Felix Clay

John Plunket, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008

Peter Gabriel: 'Twenty years ago, the thought of encouraging advertising with music would be like offering your daughter to the devil.'

It is emblematic of the challenges facing the music industry today that Peter Gabriel earned more money from a compilation CD given away free with the Mail on Sunday than he did from the sales of his last record, the million-selling Up.

"It was given away to charity," said Gabriel of the proceeds from last year's Mail on Sunday giveaway. His pained expression suggests he is not a regular reader of Peter Wright's paper. "No, I won't make a comment about the newspaper involved."

It was also the Mail on Sunday that infuriated the beleaguered record industry - but wowed marketers - by giving away nearly 3m copies of the latest Prince album, Planet Earth. Did it worry Gabriel? "No, I think everyone should try all sorts of stuff. Throw it against the wall and see what sticks."

The former Genesis singer has thrown a portion of his own fortune into a new online venture that will also give content away for free.

We7, which launched earlier this month, positions itself as an "easier and better alternative to piracy", is an advertising-funded service that allows users to download songs for free. The catch is that each song has an advert tagged to the front of it.

Ads are both the bane of commercial radio and its lifeline, with listeners preferring the clutter free BBC. So how will users cope with the prospect of ads interrupting their iPod?

"It's a big hurdle," admitted Gabriel. "Twenty years ago, the thought of encouraging advertising with music would be like offering your daughter to the devil, but I think the reality is that people have got used to free music, and this is one of the few ways that musicians can still earn in a free music environment."

Technology has moved on in the 22 years since novelty "cyberpunk" band Sigue Sigue Sputnik put ads for L'Oreal and i-D magazine in the gaps between tracks on their album, Flaunt It!.

We7 will offer targeted ads based on information volunteered by its users, with an average of two minutes of ads per hour of music.

Around half of We7's 2 million songs are available for free download. The other half - the ones licensed by the four major record labels - have to be paid for. But users can stream all the songs for free - again, with ads attached. "People hate ads but they love free better," said the We7 chief executive, Steve Purdham.

Gabriel has long pioneered new digital music technology, from the Eve and Xplora interactive CD-roms in the 1990s - hilariously clunky-looking today but ground-breaking at the time - to OD2, one of the first online music download services which he co-founded with Charles Grimsdale, who is also a backer of We7.

However, his enthusiasm for all things digital - not to mention the Womad music festival, his Real World studio and record label and the Elders, the group of 12 statesmen and women that Gabriel convened to help deal with global problems - means there is little time left for his own recording career.

Gabriel's next record has been funded by Patrick McKenna, the chairman of the Ingenious Media Group and Gabriel's former financial adviser. But he may have to wait a while to see a return. Next year, perhaps? "Hopefully there's something," smiles Gabriel. "But who knows?"

He is an investor, not an inventor, he pointed out, unlike his father. "My dad was an inventor, an electrical engineer, so I'm attracted to it and I am fortunate enough to work with some very smart people," said Gabriel.
"I watched my dad trying to sell something called dial-a-programme for about 10 years, a cable-based, entertainment on-demand electronic democracy home shopping [service]. But it was 1971 and he got nowhere. He was stuck with one English company who didn't think people would ever pay for television." How times change.

Peter Gabriel et We7

Alain Brunet, Chroniqueur à La Presse, Le Mercredi 26 Novembre 2008

Selon The Guardian, Peter Gabriel a investi une grosse somme sur le site de téléchargement légal We7. Mis en ligne récemment, cette plate-forme se veut «une alternative au piratage».

On peut y télécharger gratuitement des chansons… auxquelles on a collé une pub. Cela compte pour la moitié du répertoire de We7, on doit quand même payer pour les chansons sans pub.

Pour plusieurs observateurs, la voie des revenus publicitaires serait le dernier retranchement de la vente directe de musique en ligne. Rien, jusqu’à maintenant, n’a démontré aux créateurs la viabilité du modèle fondé sur des revenus publicitaires. Si ça ne fonctionne pas à moyen terme (ce que je crois personnellement), on devra se tourner vers d’autres solutions pour rétribuer équitablement ceux qui composent, écrivent et chantent - et je ne parle surtout pas des plus gros, une infime minorité au sein de la communauté artistique.

« C’est un véritable obstacle», a concédé Gabriel au journaliste du Guardian qui s’interrogeait sur l’accueil des fans de chansons gratuites téléchargées avec de la pub imposée - comme à la FM commerciale.

«Il y a 20 ans, l’idée de soutenir la publicité avec de la musique originale revenait à offrir sa fille au diable », ajoute le fameux chanteur britannique.

Nous sommes en 2008, 20 ans plus tard… Et l’on n’arrive toujours pas à rétribuer la création musicale avec la vente en ligne. Ce modèle fondé sur la pub a-t-il un avenir ?

Essayez We7 et livrez vos commentaires.

Gabriel gets in the Olympic spirit

Peter Gabriel, the pop guru-turned humanitarian, has joined the lengthy queue of people clamouring for a cut in the budget for London's 2012 Olympics.

"Instead of spending a fortune on the opening ceremony, we should begin with a simple ceremony," he says.

"Perhaps if the Queen walked in to the main arena and declared the Games open with a short speech along the lines of, 'You will all be delighted to learn that the cost of a lavish opening ceremony has been saved this year and all of the money that would have been spent has instead been sent to Africa to be used for much more worthwhile causes'."

Gabriel, who has just received an award from Amnesty International for his human rights work, also suggests the Olympics should be split in two, with a category for clean athletes and another for those who take performance enhancing drugs. "Now that would be interesting," he adds.

Peter Gabriel’s speaks up

After Hours Correspondent, Sunday, September 07, 2008

The musician wrote a song and performed for WALL-E. He also explained why he hopes WALL•E will be a big hit.

You’ve been associated with film music before, but WALL•E is the first animated film you have worked on. Why’s that?

I do get asked to do quite a lot of stuff, but it’s not my full-time job and so I really only get involved with film work when you have a director who really gets music and respects it and a film that’s interesting in one way or another. When you have all that it can be a lot of fun, and that was certainly the case here.

And how did your involvement with WALL•E begin?

From knowing [WALL•E director] Andrew Stanton. I went to visit Pixar quite a few years ago when I was working on the idea of an independent theme park. I did what we called a tech tour of America, just trying to talk to people who were doing interesting work, and that led me to Pixar and meeting Andrew. I met him a few more times at concerts and he mentioned WALL•E to me three or four years ago and asked if I’d be interested in contributing something, which ended up as Down to Earth.

Did Andrew Stanton give you an idea of what he wanted from the song?

He gave me some references in terms of my own songs. Secret World was one of them. He wanted something that had some melody and some muscle and still retained some of the quirkiness of the film, which is what I tried to achieve. I mean, that’s really the job when you write a song like this: you’re trying to help someone else realise their vision, which is sort of the reverse of what I do the rest of the time.

How much of WALL•E were you able to see before you began work and what was your reaction to the film?

It was some 30 odd sketches, rough animation and fully realised sections of the film. I thought it was very brave because there isn’t much dialogue at the beginning of the film. I also loved the references to films like 2001 and Alien and I liked the humor of the story. I also thought it was quite timely, though it’s done with a light touch, so it isn’t as if the moral of the story is thrust down your throat. I mean, WALL•E is an environmental film in many ways, but it really doesn’t say anything more strident than that looking after the planet is a good idea.

You wrote the lyrics for “Down to Earth”, but the music is a collaboration with Thomas Newman, who also composed WALL•E’s score. Is that a different sort of process for you?

Yes, because I usually work on my own, but Andrew was very keen that I should try working with Tom because Tom had created this musical world in which the film resided and he thought we ought to at least collaborate on a bridge going from “Thomasworld” to “Peterworld” [laughs]. I was hesitant about it to begin with.

But it worked...

Part of it was that I’ve always enjoyed Thomas Newman’s music, especially what he did on American Beauty and the theme for Six Feet Under. In fact I nearly wrote to him having heard Six Feet Under because I thought that was the best TV theme I had ever heard: it was very original, very evocative and just a beautiful composition with lovely colors and textures and choice of sounds, and deceptively simple too.

So did the two of you get together in a studio somewhere?

Tom flew over here to England and we sat around and we played around on the keyboards until we came up with something we liked. It was pretty fast.

Peter Gabriel Considers Studio Show For Fans

Showbizspy.com, September 1 2008

PETER GABRIEL is considering turning an upcoming recording session at his Real World Studios into an intimate gig after THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND did just that to cover the costs of a recent album.

The group charged 120 fans $100 (GBP54) for the privilege of recording tracks at Real World in Box, England - and studio boss Gabriel was more than impressed.

He tells Filter magazine, "The Incredible String Band wrote to their fans on their website and sold admission to their recordings... and that gave them the budget to purchase the studio time.

"They created a mini-economy based on 120 people."

And now Gabriel is considering hosting a similar studio treat for his fans: "There are space constraints at Real World, but I'm sure we could figure something out."

Peter Gabriel : The creator

by Staff | 08.26.2008

FILTER 32 Hits Newsstands on September 12

At a time when music and culture coverage needs it the most, FILTER has once again raised the bar. Running through the heart of our latest issue—featuring an exclusive interview with cover artist Peter Gabriel—is the central theme of creation. As such, Patti Smith delves into her transformation from an angsty New York poet into the punk icon we know today. Jon Brion connects with Randy Newman to explore the latter’s enigmatic nature, Matthew Broderick pays tribute to Marlon Brando and their work on a film called The Freshman, and award-winning political satirist Bill Maher takes a leap of faith with his new film, Religulous, with commentary from acclaimed director, Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Also between the covers are exclusives with Oasis, Of Montreal, Black Kids, Ra Ra Riot and more.

With the latest issue of FILTER, we have striven to create much more than a typical music magazine. Instead of simply “reporting the news” with profiles of bands and artists, we hold our story-telling to a higher standard, thus enabling our readers to be changed by the experience of reading. These creators and visionary artists spoke to FILTER because they respect our credibility and share our creative vision. We are forever committed to the tangible aesthetic of holding a magazine in one’s hands, and FILTER continues to deliver visually appealing and thought-provoking content not found anywhere else.

Where other magazines are shrinking and disappearing, we’re thriving. Good music will prevail. Here at FILTER, we’ve never been more certain of it. And times have never been better.

Me and my superheroes

By Robin Denselow, The Guardian, Friday August 15 2008

When he's not taking calls from Mandela and Tutu, or keeping an eye on Womad, Peter Gabriel still loves a good groove. He talks world domination with Robin Denselow

Peter Gabriel isn't sure if he's meant to be saying this - it's the kind of thing that could get a former secretary-general of the UN into trouble - but he's talking about the project that prevented him joining last year's Genesis reunion. "Kofi Annan was saying the fact that he didn't have the security council on his back every single move was enormously liberating." Annan hasn't been in the studio with Gabriel ; he's part of the latest stage of Gabriel's vaultingly ambitious career, serving as one of the 12 members of the Elders, a group of statesmen and women - including Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Jimmy Carter - Gabriel helped convene to deal with global problems.

Ambition has been a constant in Gabriel's career. He co-founded Genesis while still at school, only to leave them in 1975 for a massively successful solo career. Not content with that, he helped to transform the world music scene by promoting international artists through the Womad festivals and Real World record label. And now the Elders.

Gabriel has found himself too busy to devote his full attention even to that - he missed this summer's meeting because he had just become a father for the fourth time, at the age of 58. All of which has meant little time for making new music. It's six years since Gabriel released Up, his last studio album, but he does appear on a new Real World release, for which he was co-curator. It's called Big Blue Ball, and consists of collaborations by artists from around the world who came together for what Gabriel called Recording Weeks, held at Gabriel's studios in Wiltshire in 1991, 1992 and 1995, with extra vocals added to one song last year. But why has it taken so long to be completed? "That's pretty quick, I'd say!" retorts Gabriel. "Normally, in a recording studio, you chop away as you go, but with this there was no time. There was a mountain that needed clearing and sorting, and every time someone looked at it, vertigo was the result. And I'm a perfectionist, so it took a while to satisfy me as well."

Big Blue Ball is a perfect Gabriel project: it combines his fascination with technology, experimentation and music from around the world. The motivating idea was "creative anarchy and allowing interesting things to happen", and the results include a glorious collaboration between Natacha Atlas, an Egyptian string section and percussionist Hossam Ramzy, and a song featuring Sinéad O'Connor, Chinese flute player Guo Yue, and Sevara Nazarkhan from Uzbekistan. Then there are the tracks involving Gabriel himself, including a rousing number with drummer Billy Cobham. "Most of the tracks started with a groove," he says. I'm a big groove fan - and a failed drummer. It's still that, and passionate singing, that brings me into a lot of music."

The project could never have been long-running, he says, "because we never found a way to make it pay for itself - but I'd love to do it again. It was among the most exciting musical moments I have ever had. We may have dreams of women and money, but fun is still the motive for a lot of people starting in music, and there's nothing like being with a group of musicians and generating something that hasn't existed before."

Big Blue Ball is part of Gabriel's ongoing quest to bring new music to audiences. "It's a bit like food," he says. "The taste may be a little foreign at first, but after a while you get to like it. If we can absorb the world, which we need to do, that is part of a globalisation process. I have a lot of sympathy for the anti-globalisation movement, but I think it's the wrong word. Womad has always been a globalisation festival to me."

The Womad festival is now as much part of the British musical summer as Glastonbury - this was it's 26th year - and there is now a global network of Womad events. Has it achieved what Gabriel wanted? "Like all good evangelists, we'd love it to have taken over the world, but it has opened a lot of doors for a lot of artists, and for that, everyone involved feels very proud. It's the only festival I know of that's been exported."

But could it become a victim of its own success, now that artists from around the world are staples of so many other festivals? With the departure this year of Thomas Brooman, Womad's co-founder and original artistic director, Gabriel suggests there could be changes. "I'm looking at different ways of opening up Womad, so I hope some of the original ideas might be looked at again. Originally we were trying to do more with poetry, film and art and it would be great to find a way of getting more of that."

There might also be more younger bands, especially after the intriguing work combining British and African musicians in the Africa Express project, started by Damon Albarn and others as an angry reaction to the lack of African musicians at Live 8. Gabriel sees what they are doing as a continuation of the Recording Weeks concept. "I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate being told that," he says. "But I do see a connection. At the first Womad, we had Echo and the Bunnymen playing with the Burundi drummers."

So what next? He says there will be a new album soon, possibly next year. And he's recorded for an album called Scratch My Back, in which artists cover each other's songs. And then there's his involvement with the Elders, the concept of which sprang from a conversation with Richard Branson in 1999. The aim was "getting a group of superheroes to work together - I do think that governments are in some ways the record companies of the governance world, in the sense that the old models are redundant in some areas." He hopes this group of veteran politicians and activists, currently chaired by Desmond Tutu, will be able to offer advice on issues such as conflict resolution: "If you have the Elders, whose phone calls will not be refused and rejected by any statesman, you have some means of influencing events."

And did he really have to make the choice between meetings with Mandela, Tutu and co and singing The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway? It seems so. The Elders, said Gabriel "was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity and more pressing for me than a Genesis reunion, even though it could be fun to do some time. But it's not necessarily something I would want to live in." Meaning? "It's a nice place to visit but not somewhere you want to move back to necessarily." It's not, perhaps, the Real World.

· Big Blue Ball is out now on Real World Records via Proper

Peter Gabriel: le marieur des genres

Eric Mandel, La Presse, Collaboration spéciale, Le dimanche 10 août 2008

Figure emblématique du rock progressif avec Genesis, pionnier des musiques du monde et de la révolution internet, esthète pop et homme d'affaires éclairé, Peter Gabriel signe aujourd'hui son retour avec un nouveau projet baptisé Big Blue Ball. Un album coloré, fruit de sessions musicales fécondes organisées en 1991, 1993 et 1995 dans son célèbre studio Real World, en pleine campagne anglaise. La crème des artistes pop-rock (Sinead O'Connor, Billy Cobham, Joseph Arthur, Manu Katché) et de la scène World (Francis Bebey, Papa Wemba, Natasha Atlas...) était invitée à communier en musique.

Q Pourquoi avoir attendu si longtemps pour sortir ce projet ?

R Nous avions accumulé une quantité vertigineuse de travail. Je dois l’avouer, porter ce projet à son terme était assez intimidant. Il a fallu faire le tri, procéder à des choix difficiles. Ces sessions ont sans doute été l’expérience la plus amusante de ma vie de musicien. Mon studio était devenu une sorte d’agence matrimoniale pour musiciens du monde entier. Et nous avons célébré de beaux mariages. Quand j’entends Papa Wemba, la star de la rumba zaïroise, accompagné par Juan Canizares, un as de la guitare flamenco, je suis fier. Aujourd’hui, ce type de rencontre est commun, mais à l’époque, c’était plutôt radical. Iggy Pop et Joe Strummer étaient également venus pour assister à notre petite cuisine. Joe s’était installé au sous-sol, dans une tente, pour jammer avec des musiciens. Malheureusement il est parti avec les bandes. La musique est un langage universel, ce projet le prouve. D’où le titre de l’album. Vu de l’espace, la Terre n’est qu’une grosse boule bleue, sans la moindre frontière.

Q Vous organisez toujours des sessions de ce type ?

R Non, pour des raisons bassement financières. Si elles étaient riches d’un point de vue artistique, ces rencontres nous ont également coûté très cher. Nous avons perdu de l’argent chaque fois. Il fallait payer les voyages, payer les hôtels, payer les scéances d’enregistrement. Mais si ce nouvel album marche, peut-être pourrons-nous recommencer. Et puis nous avons diversifié nos activités. Comme je dispose d’un studio à la pointe de la technologie, je le loue pour le cinéma. Nous mixons d’ailleurs le son du prochain James Bond. Et comme j’adore le cinéma, cela ne me pose aucun problème. Enfant, je voulais devenir réalisateur, c’était mon rêve. Bon, maintenant il est un peu tard pour me lancer dans une nouvelle carrière, il me faudrait au moins 10 ans de travail pour apprendre ce métier.

Q Vous semblez concilier assez facilement vos activités d’artiste et d’entrepreneur…

R C’est un héritage familial ! Mon grand-père était joueur et un homme d’affaires doué. Mon père était ingénieur et inventeur; d’où mon intérêt pour les nouvelles technologies et la révolution internet. Pour moi, l’art et les affaires sont complémentaires. Youssou N’Dour possède à Dakar sa propre entreprise de cassettes audio. Regardez les rappeurs américains et leurs empires financiers! On ne peut opposer systématiquement art et affaires. L’art n’est pas une forme d’expression noble, pure et spirituelle. Et le business une activité vile et bassement commerciale. La vérité est plus complexe. Le but n’a jamais été de gagner de l’argent pour gagner toujours plus d’argent, mais pour préserver ma liberté d’artiste. Et cela passe par l’indépendance financière.

Q Vous avez également écrit un morceau pour la bande originale de Wall-E, le nouveau film d’animation de Pixar…

R Oui j’adore l’histoire de ce robot chargé de nettoyer la pollution humaine. J’ai trouvé le thème de ce conte écolo très intéressant. La science-fiction m’a toujours passionné. Mais pour être franc, je suis prêt à collaborer à tous les films Pixar, peu importe leur thème, leur esthétique… Je suis un fan absolu des films d’animation, et de Pixar en particulier.

Q Après le projet collectif Big Blue Ball, à quand un nouvel album solo ? Le précédent, Up, remonte déjà à 2002…

R J’ai déjà une soixantaine de chansons en boîte. Mais je ne suis pas pressé, il sortira quand il sera prêt. Et puis la musique n’est pas tout, dans la vie. Je viens d’être papa d’un petit garçon. Je veux passer du temps avec lui, le voir grandir.

Q Pure hypothèse de science-fiction : si la Chine vous avait invité à chanter pour l’ouverture des Jeux olympiques de Pékin, le militant des droits de l’homme que vous êtes aurait-il accepté ?

R Durant l’apartheid, je faisais partie des artistes favorables au boycottage de l’Afrique du Sud. D’autres artistes comme Youssou N’Dour ou Tracy Chapman y étaient opposés. Ils disaient : «Nous devons jouer en Afrique du Sud pour livrer notre message contre l’apartheid.» Aujourd’hui encore j’ignore qu’elle serait la bonne réponse. Une chose est certaine : un monde avec une Chine isolée est bien plus dangereux qu’un monde avec une Chine intégrée à la communauté internationale. Il faut dialoguer avec les Chinois, avec franchise. Et fermeté. Ce n’est pas toujours facile vu la puissance financière de la Chine. Et puis, du point de vue de la Chine, les pays occidentaux, anciennes puissances coloniales, ne sont pas toujours les mieux placés pour donner des leçons de démocratie. Mais je n’irais pas chanter pour les JO à Pékin.

Q Une reformation de Genesis est envisageable?

R Aucune porte n’est fermée, même si ce n’est pas encore à l’ordre du jour. Entre reformer Genesis ou contribuer à la naissance du projet de Nelson Mandela pour les droits de l’homme (The Elders, NDLR), j’ai choisi la seconde option, celle tournée vers l’avenir. Et non celle du passé.

An Old Rocker Gets Digital

David Ebener/European Pressphoto Agency

By FRED GOODMAN, New York Times, Published: August 9, 2008

When Charles Grimsdale, a British investor, started the Internet music venture OD2 in 1999, he had a hard time persuading large record companies to license their music. But when he approached the rock musician Peter Gabriel about putting his music catalog online, he got a very different response: Mr. Gabriel was not only willing, he also wanted to take a stake in the company.

While major record companies have spent heavily on the Internet with relatively little to show, Mr. Gabriel and his partners started OD2 on a tight budget, built it into a digital delivery platform that retailers like Virgin used on their Web sites, and sold it in 2004 for $40.5 million.

“When most labels were banging their heads, he got it and saw the liberating value of Internet distribution to artists, and that’s what excited him,” says Mr. Grimsdale, a partner at Eden Ventures, of Mr. Gabriel. “He has a very good sense technologically of what’s going to work.”

OD2’s success also catapulted Mr. Gabriel, after decades as a top-selling artist, into a second career as a powerful player in the emerging online music industry, a move that once seemed more outlandish than the costumes he wore in the early 1970s as a singer for the rock group Genesis.

But Mr. Gabriel, the son of an inventor, keeps devising new ways for musicians and record labels to use the Web to control their work and to make — not lose — money.

His two newest Internet ventures — We7, an advertising-driven music site, and TheFilter.com, which offers personally tailored multimedia recommendations — have received strong financial backing and positive user reviews in early tests.

As an artist, Mr. Gabriel was quick to embrace new technologies like music videos, interactive CDs and high-definition television. His 1982 release featuring the popular single “Shock the Monkey” was among the first completely digital recordings.

“He’s very technically savvy,” says Tom Teichman, chairman of Spark Ventures, which is a partner with Mr. Gabriel on We7. “He carries all the latest gadgets, understands what the artistic involvement can be and is very clued up on the business model. That’s an extremely unusual combination, and he does it in a chummy way.”

Those attributes set Mr. Gabriel apart from most musicians and, indeed, from most record executives. “Technology has always shaped music,” he says, “be it 78s, 45s, LPs or CDs, it changes the shape of the music. With downloading, the artistic change hasn’t really hit yet. But it’s turned the economic model on its head. The major record companies have some smart people looking at digital models. But the question is, will the people at the top be willing to turn the business upside down?”

Mr. Gabriel is betting that they will have to make that leap, and recent record industry history seems to be on his side. Since the advent of Napster in 1999 made music file-sharing ubiquitous, the recording industry has been in a downward spiral: in the United States, from 1999 to 2007, annual CD sales plummeted from $13 billion to $7.5 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA.

Though the major record companies succeeded in shutting down Napster, their subsequent attempts to control online music proved fruitless, largely because the labels either lacked the skill or disliked one another too much to agree on delivery systems.

More recently, outside services like Apple iTunes, Amazon.com, eMusic and Rhapsody have succeeded to the point that paid digital downloads — which also include ring tones — now account for nearly 25 percent of record industry revenue, according to the RIAA.

That’s hardly enough to make up for the drop in CD sales. Moreover, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a trade group, says that freely traded music downloads still outnumber paid tracks by 20 to 1.

But encouraged by the growth of the commercial digital marketplace — and worried about the success a handful of established artists like Radiohead and Trent Reznor have had selling music online directly to consumers — the big labels are cautiously expanding the kinds of deals they’re willing to make. And they are trying a wider variety of new online models.

We7, which lets users choose between buying recordings and downloading a free version with a 10-second ad (which expires after a month), is one of the start-ups trying to ride that evolution to a position of prominence.

Twenty years ago, Mr. Gabriel says, the idea of tying a recording to an ad would have felt sacrilegious. “Today I have a different view: it’s a way to hold onto income for creators,” he says.

Royalties from downloads on We7 are paid to the record companies, which then pay a portion to the artists.

Though still in its test phase, the company, which is based in Britain, already has a licensing agreement with one of the majors, Sony Music Entertainment.

Mr. Gabriel say the interest from big labels is a welcome change. “With OD2, it took us 18 months to get a major fully engaged,” he said.

Not all his Web efforts have succeeded. In 2004, he and the musician Brian Eno proposed a cooperative, Mudda (for Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists), aimed at creating a Web site for artists to deal directly with listeners. The idea found few takers. “People were shy of upsetting the record companies,” he says.

If Mudda proved a failure, it still enhanced Mr. Gabriel’s reputation with other musicians.

“Peter approaches business the way he approaches his music: it’s not digital, it’s organic,” says Thomas Dolby, a musician who has enjoyed his own business success as the co-designer of the Beatnik ring-tone synthesizer, a utility included in more than a billion Nokia mobile phones. “I am impressed that he’s achieved so much in the business world.”

MR. GABRIEL, 58, was born in Cobham, a town in the English county of Surrey. His father, now 96, worked for Rediffusion, the pioneering British commercial television company, and was an early proponent of on-demand programming. But “his company never believed people would pay for television,” Mr. Gabriel says.

And while Peter inherited his father’s interest in exploring new technologies, he credits his maternal grandfather with his investment activities. “My mother doesn’t like me to say this, but her father was a bit of a gambler,” he says. “If you feel like you’re riding a wave that hasn’t hit before, that’s a great feeling.”

Friends and business associates say Mr. Gabriel has always been entranced by the lure of new ideas.

“In the early days, we’d go skiing together and Peter would have an idea every 30 seconds,” says the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group includes more than 200 companies. “We’d be sitting on the lift with me scribbling madly in my notebook, trying to get everything down. He’s worse than me.”

As a recording artist, Mr. Gabriel has always been hard to pigeonhole. Beginning his recording career with Genesis in 1968 while attending Charterhouse, the English boarding school, he and the band had theatrical, experimental twists and their albums were marked by lengthy and sometimes elaborate compositions.

Departing the band in 1975, he embarked on a solo career (sans such costumes) that has proved successful. His compositions often draw on ethnic and popular music traditions, yet the recordings themselves reflect state-of-the-art technology.

Early in his music career, he showed signs of being keenly aware of the business of being a musician. “He was the one that used to tout the tapes around and conduct the meetings with the agents, managers and record companies,” recalls Gail Colson, his former manager. “He seemed to be able to see the future of music and technology at least a decade before anybody else.”

Ms. Colson saw that Mr. Gabriel’s interest in technology could pay dividends when, in 1982, he signed with Geffen Records and, in contravention of typical practice, insisted on paying for his videos and retaining ownership.

“At that time, no one knew how important videos and MTV were going to be,” she says. But when a dizzyingly creative video that Mr. Gabriel produced for the hit song “Sledgehammer” in 1986 — using stop-motion, collage, clay animation and other special effects — became a popular and ultimately imitated piece of work, it also proved quite valuable.

“He used to sit and tell me how he saw the future,” Ms. Colson says. “We filmed a concert in high definition when there was hardly anywhere to show it in all its glory. He experimented with 3-D and foresaw the time when the public would be able to take music and mix it the way they wanted to hear it.”

Michael Large, an astrophysicist by training and a former lighting and studio designer for the BBC, is one-third of Mr. Gabriel’s current business management team, which also includes his lawyer, Michael Thomas. Mr. Large was hired to build a recording studio for Mr. Gabriel in 1984 and went to work for him full time two years later.

Mr. Large also helped Mr. Gabriel with two of the projects on which he flexed his entrepreneurial muscles: Real World Records and Womad, the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival.

Womad, a pioneering Western showcase for world music begun in 1982, currently presents annual concerts and workshops in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Real World’s expanding catalog of 150 albums from around the world also includes Mr. Gabriel’s “Passion,” the soundtrack he created for the film “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

“The mission became to take the music and content from artists without access to the Western music industry machinery and set it on an equal footing with Peter’s own catalog,” Mr. Large says. “It grew from that in terms of our own career into wanting to own as much of the industry as we could. It’s very important for Peter to have control over his own destiny.”

In 2005, Mr. Gabriel bought half of Solid State Logic, or SSL, a leading maker of high-end recording studio consoles. Mr. Large once worked for the company.

After that came OD2. The success of OD2 led directly to Mr. Gabriel’s investment and involvement with Mr. Grimsdale in We7 and TheFilter.com. So far they have invested $8.5 million in The Filter, which uses technology developed at OD2 to provide music, film and video recommendations based on user preferences.

“I don’t believe in the death of the major record companies,” Mr. Gabriel says. “But as an artist, I’d love to see them reinvented as service companies.”

Peter Gabriel. L’art n’est ni noble, ni pur, ni spirituel

Par Eric Mandel, l'hebdo (ch) Edition du 07.08.2008

Joe Strummer, Manu Katché ou Papa Wemba se retrouvaient autrefois dans les studios de Peter Gabriel. «Big Blue Ball» donne à entendre ces jams sans frontières.


Pionnier des musiques du monde et de la révolution internet, esthète pop et homme d’affaires éclairé, Peter Gabriel sort Big Blue Ball. Un album qui exhume les sessions d’enregistrements organisées en 1991, 1993 et 1995 dans son studio Real World avec la crème des artistes pop-rock (Sinead O’Connor, Billy Cobham, Joseph Arthur...) et de la scène world (Francis Bebey, Papa Wemba…). Rencontre avec le chanteur.

Pourquoi avoir attendu si longtemps pour sortir ce projet?

Nous avions accumulé une quantité vertigineuse de travail. C’était intimidant. Il a fallu faire le tri, procéder à des choix difficiles. Ces sessions ont sans doute été l’expérience la plus amusante de ma vie de musicien. Mon studio était devenu une sorte d’agence matrimoniale pour musiciens. Et nous avons célébré de beaux mariages.
Quand j’entends Papa Wemba, la star de la rumba congolaise, accompagné par Juan Canizares, un as de la guitare flamenco, je suis fier. Aujourd’hui, ce type de rencontre est commun, mais à l’époque, c’était plutôt radical. Iggy Pop et Joe Strummer étaient également venus pour assister à notre petite cuisine.

Joe s’était installé au sous-sol, dans une tente, pour jammer avec des musiciens. Malheureusement il est parti avec les bandes. La musique est définitivement un langage universel, ce projet le prouve. D’où le titre de l’album. Vu de l’espace, la Terre n’est qu’une grosse boule bleue, sans la moindre frontière.
Vous organisez toujours des sessions de ce type?

Non, pour des raisons bassement financières. Si elles étaient riches d’un point de vue artistique, ces rencontres nous ont également coûté très cher. Nous avons perdu de l’argent à chaque fois. Il fallait payer les voyages, payer les hôtels, payer les sessions d’enregistrement. Mais si ce nouvel album marche, peut-être pourrons nous recommencer. Et puis nous avons diversifié nos activités.

Comme je dispose d’un studio à la pointe de la technologie, je le loue pour le cinéma. Nous mixons d’ailleurs le son du prochain James Bond. Et comme j’adore le cinéma, cela ne me pose aucun problème… Enfant, je voulais devenir réalisateur, c’était mon rêve. Bon, maintenant il est un peu tard pour me lancer dans une nouvelle carrière, il me faudrait au moins dix ans de travail pour apprendre ce métier.

Vous avez également écrit un morceau pour la bande originale de Wall-E, le nouveau film d’animation de Pixar…

Oui, l’histoire d’un robot chargé de nettoyer la pollution humaine. J’ai trouvé le thème intéressant. La science-fiction m’a toujours passionné. Mais pour être franc, je suis prêt à collaborer à tous les films Pixar, peu importe leur thème, leur esthétique… Je suis un fan absolu des films d’animation et ceux de Pixar en particulier.

Après le projet collectif Big Blue Ball, à quand un nouvel album solo? Le précédent remonte déjà à 2002…

J’ai déjà une soixantaine de chansons en boîte. Mais je ne suis pas pressé, il sortira quand il sera prêt. Et puis je viens d’être papa d’un petit garçon. Je veux passer du temps avec lui, le voir grandir.
Durant votre carrière, vous avez absorbé différentes cultures musicales, un peu comme une éponge…

A la base, le rock est une musique noire. Et puis des musiciens blancs ont imité Chuck Berry ou Little Richard pour arriver à autre chose. Dans les années 20, Picasso a peint Les demoiselles d’Avignon après avoir visité une exposition de masques africains. Et ce fut le début du cubisme. Toute forme d’expression se nourrit de l’extérieur. La génétique ne dit pas autre chose avec la consanguinité: se reproduire en circuit fermé provoque fatalement un affaiblissement et des malformations.

Pure hypothèse de science-fiction: la Chine vous invite à chanter pour l’ouverture des Jeux olympiques de Pékin. Le militant des droits de l’homme que vous êtes accepte?

Durant l’apartheid, je faisais partie des artistes favorables au boycott de l’Afrique du Sud. D’autres artistes comme Youssou N’Dour ou Tracy Chapman étaient opposés au boycott. Au contraire, ils disaient : «Nous devons jouer en Afrique du Sud pour délivrer notre message contre l’apartheid.» Aujourd’hui encore j’ignore la bonne réponse.

Une chose est certaine: un monde avec une Chine isolée est bien plus dangereux qu’un monde avec une Chine intégrée à la communauté internationale. Il faut dialoguer avec les Chinois, avec franchise. Et fermeté. Même si les pays occidentaux, anciennes puissances coloniales, ne sont pas, du point de vue de la Chine, toujours les mieux placés pour donner des leçons de démocratie. Mais je n’irais pas chanter pour les JO à Pékin.

Vous avez publié huit albums solo en trente ans de carrière. Cela vous semble suffisant ou vous auriez aimé en produire plus?

Parfois, oui. Mais si j’ai quitté Genesis, c’est justement pour pouvoir m’impliquer dans différents projets en même temps. Je fonctionne ainsi. Bien sûr, je fais des choix. Entre reformer Genesis ou contribuer à la naissance du projet de Nelson Mandela pour les droits de l’homme (The Elders, ndlr), je choisis la seconde option, celle tournée vers l’avenir. Et non celle du passé. Je suis fier d’avoir créé en 1982 le Womad, le premier festival des musiques du monde ou d’avoir lancé la première plateforme de téléchargement (rachetée en 2006 par Nokia, ndlr) bien avant iTunes et Napster. Si je m’étais un peu moins investi dans mes différentes activités, j’aurais sans doute produit trois ou quatre albums supplémentaires. Mais ma vie aurait sans doute été moins passionnante.

Vous semblez concilier assez facilement vos activités d’artiste et d’entrepreneur…

C’est un héritage familial! Mon grand-père était joueur et un homme d’affaires doué. Pour moi, l’art et les affaires sont complémentaires. Youssou N’Dour possède à Dakar sa propre entreprise de cassettes audio. Regardez les rappeurs américains et leurs empires financiers. Je réfute l’idée selon laquelle l’art serait une forme d’expression noble, pure et spirituelle. Et le business une activité vile et bassement commerciale. La vérité est plus complexe. Le but n’a jamais été de faire de l’argent pour de l’argent, mais pour préserver ma liberté d’artiste. Et cela passe par l’indépendance financière.

Stopping Music Piracy

Slap on the wrist

The UK music industry has launched its biggest initiative against download piracy: a huge letter-writing campaign, targeting hundreds of thousands of illicit file-sharers with a mixture of appeals and vague threats. So far the business has concentrated on nailing the big peer-to-peer networks (most famously Napster in 2001) but the industry's efforts have had little effect: the average UK teenager now holds around 800 illegally-downloaded songs on his MP3 player.

This latest move attempts to jolt ordinary internet users out of that warm, fuzzy feeling of total anonymity. Legally, however, the record companies can’t actually lift a finger to stop them. With UK law skewed towards personal privacy above all else, and web providers unwilling to play policemen and sever any customer's internet connection (which would include the connection to their bank account), this new initiative isn’t likely to change much. Nor has the Digital Rights Management fiasco done the industry's moral stance much good.

A more realistic policy was suggested this week by former Genesis front-man Peter Gabriel, who called for a radical overhaul in the commercial structure of the music industry, with subscription and advertising replacing the increasingly unworkable pay-per-song system.

Posted by Jonathan Theodore, 28 July 2008

Peter Gabriel: "Ma vie est passionnante"

C'est le rendez-vous annuel des aficionados de musiques du monde: le Womad (World of Music and Dance), créé en 1982 par Peter Gabriel, quand le terme "world music" n'existait pas encore. Depuis vendredi et jusqu'à ce soir, plus de 20000 festivaliers - familles avec enfants, hippies sur le retour, jeunes branchés ou routards - vont investir le site installé en pleine campagne à une centaine de kilomètres à l'ouest de Londres.

Le tout dans une ambiance bon enfant, entre animations de kermesse et concerts (Rachid Taha, Orchestra Baobab, Seun Kuti...). Pour l'occasion, Peter Gabriel est venu présenter son nouveau bébé, Big Blue Ball. Rencontre avec un artiste multicarte, pionnier des musiques du monde et de la révolution Internet...

Pourquoi avoir attendu seize ans pour sortir un nouvel album?

Nous avions accumulé une quantité vertigineuse de travail. Je dois l'avouer, c'était intimidant. Il a fallu procéder à des choix difficiles. Ces sessions ont sans doute été l'expérience la plus amusante de ma vie de musicien. Mon studio était devenu une sorte d'agence matrimoniale pour artistes du monde entier. Et nous avons célébré de beaux mariages. Prenez la rencontre entre Papa Wemba, la star de la rumba zaïroise, avec un guitariste flamenco. Aujourd'hui, c'est commun, mais à l'époque c'était assez radical! Iggy Pop et Joe Strummer étaient également venus. La musique est définitivement un langage universel, ce projet le prouve. D'où son titre. Vue de l'espace, la Terre n'est qu'une grosse boule bleue, sans la moindre frontière.

Durant votre carrière, vous avez absorbé différentes cultures musicales, un peu comme une éponge?

A la base, le rock est une musique noire. Et puis des musiciens blancs ont imité Chuck Berry ou Little Richard pour arriver à autre chose. Dans les années 1920, Picasso a peint Les Demoiselles d'Avignon après avoir assisté à une exposition de masques africains. Et ce fut le début du cubisme. Toute forme d'expression se nourrit de l'extérieur. La génétique ne dit pas autre chose avec la consanguinité: se reproduire en circuit fermé provoque fatalement un affaiblissement et des malformations.

Depuis 2002 et Up, on attend toujours votre album solo...

J'ai déjà une soixantaine de chansons en boîte. Je ne suis pas pressé. Je suis depuis dix jours le papa d'un petit garçon. Je veux passer du temps avec lui et le voir grandir.

Vous êtes à la fois un artiste et un entrepreneur. Deux activités faciles à concilier?

Je réfute l'idée naïve selon laquelle l'art serait une forme d'expression noble et le business une activité bassement commerciale. La vérité est plus complexe. Avec l'argent gagné, j'ai pu créer mon label, monter mon propre studio d'enregistrement à la pointe de la technologie. En ce moment, nous travaillons d'ailleurs sur le mixage sonore du prochain James Bond. Le but n'a jamais été de faire de l'argent pour de l'argent. Mais l'indépendance financière permet de préserver ma liberté d'artiste.

A 58 ans, vous avez publié huit albums solos en trente ans de carrière. Cela vous semble-t-il suffisant?

Si j'ai quitté Genesis en 1975, c'est justement pour avoir la possibilité de m'impliquer dans différents projets en même temps. Bien sûr, je fais des choix. Entre reformer Genesis et contribuer à la naissance du projet "The Elders" pour les droits de l'homme, de Nelson Mandela, j'ai choisi la seconde option, celle tournée vers l'avenir. Et non celle du passé. Je suis fier d'avoir initié le Womad ou d'avoir créé la première plate-forme de téléchargement, bien avant iTunes et Napster, que Nokia a rachetée en 2006. Si je m'étais un peu moins investi dans mes différentes activités, j'aurais sans doute produit trois ou quatre albums supplémentaires. Mais ma vie aurait été moins passionnante.

Propos recueillis par Eric Mandel, à Londres pour Le Journal du Dimanche

The whole world in his hand

Peter Gabriel founded the WOMAD festival in the early 80s. We talk to the former Genesis frontman about his love of world music, who he's looking forward to seeing at this year's event, which takes place this weekend, and how the festival is about more than just music.

The World Of Music, Arts And Dance, or WOMAD as it's known, is an annual gathering which hosts, as its title might suggest, the very best performers from all corners of the globe.

The festival was pioneered by former Genesis frontman and world music aficionado Peter Gabriel and a group of like-minded friends, who staged the first WOMAD in 1982 in Shepton Mallet, Somerset and attracted 15,000 people.

The festival found a new home in Reading, Berkshire, not long after, and 2007 saw the nomadic WOMAD up sticks once again and move to Malmesbury in Wiltshire.

The latest site, argues Gabriel, will provide the festival, already the world's largest with events in more than 20 countries around the world, even more opportunity to grow.

"It's about twice the size of the old place, particularly with the extra land we've been given this year, so we are able to do more things," explains Peter.

"There will be more workshops, more stuff happening with the food, more stalls and better camping too. This year, we've also got a bit of a spa happening too, so you can either relax or clean up," he says, smiling. "It's growing and the new site is a great place for us to be based. There are more opportunities, even though the people in Reading were great partners."

Like most other festivals last summer, WOMAD suffered from appalling weather but at Charlton Park this year, campsites will be on higher ground and a track has been built allowing access for all vehicles.

"We were renamed WOMUD last year because we were drowning in the stuff but with a few new provisions this year, we should be in good shape, even if we are hit by the weather. We're hoping very much that lightning won't strike twice and it hasn't rained as much this year in general, so the underlying land won't be as soggy," he adds. The site is such a beautiful site, with the trees and the big house there. It's going to be a great home for us."

As in past years, this year's festival has a wide and diverse mix of music on offer, from disco godfathers Chic and critics' favourite Martha Wainwright, through to Dengue Fever, who are a group of Cambodian rockers based in Los Angeles and Senegalese singer Wasis Diop.

"There are lots of people I'm looking forward to seeing but I was introduced to a band called Speed Caravan earlier this year and think they're brilliant," says Peter.

"Mehdi Haddab from Speed Caravan is a bit like the Jimi Hendrix of the (11-stringed pear-shaped Arabic instrument, similar to a lute) oud. He really is unbelievable. (an Algerian-French singer) has a similar vibe but he's less about the playing, really, and Rachid TahaSharon Shannon who has a great Irish big band featuring Shane MacGowan," he continues, enthusiastically."Chic are also playing. I've seen them before, they did a benefit concert for us a while back, and I've known Nile Rodgers a long time. He's an amazing groove player and their set will be chock full of hits. That's just Friday night! Shall I keep going?"

Other big names on the bill include dub pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry, reggae singer Eddy Grant, reformed new-wavers Squeeze, American singer songwriter Devon Sproule and Mercury Prize-winner Roni Size And Reprazent, all of whom will be playing alongside relatively unknown artists from all over the world.

"The idea is that there's a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar," explains Peter. "We're making much more of the food element at the festival this year too. There'll be a 'food of the world' kind of thing, so you can taste all these amazing, new flavours while hearing amazing new sounds," he continues, before talking about the family-oriented nature of WOMAD - a mission statement he and the other organisers outlined from day one. Families are a big part of what we do and we're proud that parents can feel safe to let their kids play on the site, which they don't often do at a lot of festivals. People are happy with there not being so many people out of their heads as well," he says.

"One of our main goals has always been about introducing the kids to new things. If children get used to being introduced to different flavours from around the world, and different sounds and cultures, then they'll hopefully be comfortable in whatever world they find themselves in when they're older and retain that curiosity, enthusiasm and open-mindedness. I think it was a passion for the music that got us going in the first place but now more than anything else, the festival is about unity and just shows the stupidity of racism."

Now in its 26th year, WOMAD in the UK is undoubtedly a successful enterprise, with spin-off workshops and summer schools taking place in Bath, where children and adults can learn various musical styles from experts.

More than 20 countries, including the USA, Spain, New Zealand and Australia, where it's the nation's largest outdoor event, have staged their own WOMAD festivals, while the organisation was involved in their own Live8 concert - Africa Calling - and the Sri Lankan Festival Of The Drum. The WOMAD brand has now staged or been involved in more than 150 festivals since it began.

Aside from organising the festival, Peter, while maintaining his boundary-pushing solo career, has also established his own Real World Studios, which offers artists from developing countries the chance to record in a state-of-the-art studio and have their music distributed in ways otherwise impossible for them.

He also worked hard to spread the word about musicians such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who last year made Time magazine's list of all-time Asian heroes, and Grammy-winning Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, who shot to fame after his hit single 7 Seconds with Neneh Cherry.

"When we started WOMAD, I think we were just young people exploring our dreams and we were planning to take over the world," he says. "The fact it managed to survive through potential disaster, and that we've managed to keep going and build it in so many countries, is just wonderful."

By Andy Welch, Dudley News