Peter Gabriel's Play

Veteran art-rocker Peter Gabriel has always held a keen interest in developing the myriad possibilities of the music-video medium, working with a variety of directors to present dynamic visual representations of his singular music. No surprises then that Gabriel is rightfully regarded as one of the bona fide pioneers in the field of conceptual music video-making, intrepidly exploring all the potential imagistic aspects of the craft to create a uniquely creative body of work that is still highly resonant and evocative today.

‘Play’ is a comprehensive collection of Gabriel’s video clips over the years, and can more or less be divided into three thematic categories: the arty and crafted, the zany and fanciful, and the just-plain-bizarre. Those that fall into the first grouping include the elegant CGI-based promo for ‘Blood of Eden’, the moody, slightly surreal film for ‘Mercy Street’, the subtly haunting clip for ‘Red Rain’ and the simple but effective video for ‘Don’t Give Up’. Also of note is the video for ‘Washing of the Water’, which is composed of calming, bucolic nature-themed footage, which works rather well, even without a single appearance from Gabriel.

Meanwhile, the assemblage of Gabriel’s more madcap clips here constitute the most stylistically interesting one, the prime example being the seminal, still evolutionary stop-motion animated video for the award-winning ‘Sledgehammer’, which is almost manic in its presentation of various visual oddities. Other promos that belong to this category include the hilariously sprightly claymation-centred film for ‘Big Time’, the psychedelic and colourful video for ‘Kiss That Frog’, and the energetic, kinetic flick for ‘Growing Up’, featuring some nimble CGI-enhanced human acrobatics.

Finally, we come to the third category of promos here, and it’s one that you’ll either love with a passion or hate with a vengeance, depending on how well you handle the more outlandish facets of the music-video experience. ‘I Don’t Remember’ has a video that possesses a decidedly nightmarish quality, with disturbing skeletal nude figures roaming around in a warehouse, while ‘Games Without Frontiers’ combines shots of Gabriel doing some weird facial contortions with footage of nuclear-bomb explosions and pie fights. ‘Shock the Monkey’, meanwhile, is a promo that could have been taken straight from a film shown in a first-year psychological lecture, with disconcerting images of manic, screaming monkeys, vicious, violent midgets, and Gabriel himself prancing around in African tribal face paint and a white tuxedo.

‘Play’ is an utterly brilliant and absolutely essential addition to your Peter Gabriel collection, or any serious rock-music library, for that matter. None of the clips here look remotely dated, and the entire package gets an exceptional sonic boost with the newly minted 5.1 surround-sound treatment, which successfully fleshes out all the minute instrumental and vocal nuances of the music. Fans will also be pleased with the highly informative full-colour booklet, which lists complete video and audio production credits for each clip, representative screenshots, and an illuminating introductory essay from Gabriel himself. All in all, a very necessary Gabriel work of art, and an item that’s bound to spend countless hours in your DVD player.

808 State's Lopez

Taking a brief respite from their usual thumping, propulsive stylings, acid-house pioneers 808 State in 1996 decided to venture briefly into the then-burgeoning trip-hop genre with the laid-back, chilled-out 'Lopez'. Featuring classic existentialist-angst lyrics from Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield (who also lent his distinctive vocals to this superior slice of electronic melancholia), evocative synth tones and a clean, precise drum n' bass-derived backbeat, 'Lopez' remains one of the more underrated gems in the veteran Mancunians' extensive repertoire. Check out the panoramic video clip, shot on location in an undisclosed, eerily deserted seaside resort somewhere in Central America.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Effortlessly transcending their parochial country-rock origins and bravely vaulting into the higher echelons of storied alternative rock, Wilco hit both widespread critical acclaim and commercial paydirt with 2002's masterful 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', which still arguably holds the record as the Chicago outfit's most artistically realised accomplishment. It's also one hell of a post-modern rock album, taking in assorted genres like ambient music, jangle-pop, gritty Springsteen-like balladry, power-pop and prog-rock, all held together by almost genius-level production values, courtesy of veteran, visionary studio wizard Jim O'Rourke.

The highlights on 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' are wonderfully multifarious, and come fast and hard. Opener 'I Am Trying to Break Your Heart' is epic, layered drone-pop of the highest order, incorporating logical bits from mid-1970s progressive rock and post-millennial avant-garde dissonance. The intentionally obtuse 'Radio Cure' rides along on distorted acoustic-guitar riffs and some skewed synth-pop qualities, while 'War on War' is filtered, digital-era country psychedelia with appropriate sonic twists.

Meanwhile, both the subdued but blissful 'Kamera' and the nostalgic and effervescent 'Heavy Metal Drummer' are bouncy pieces of jangle-pop that supply the album's pop-smarts quotient. The emotionally wrenching 'Ashes of American Flags' is arguably the record's most fervent instance, with its veiled allusions to 9/11, while the elegiac grace inherent in 'Jesus Etc' is spiced with some slide-guitar musings and violin keenings. The band also pays sly tribute to one of their original heroes with the spiked, stuttering 'I'm the Man Who Loves You', which bristles with the ragged-but-right spirit of early-era Neil Young.

The home run of the album is distinguished by two absolutely jaw-dropping epics. First up is the mutated chamber-pop of 'Poor Places', which seethes with wistful acoustic-guitar strummings, graceful piano chords, hypnotic ambient noise and somewhat spooky found-sound samples, all secured together by an off-kilter time signature. Appropriately enough, the proceedings end with the nearly eight-minute 'Reservations', a greyscale-toned, classic existentialist-angst meditation, whose ostensibly laborious tone-poem structure belies a vivid pop-informed melodic essence.

As it stands, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' is an ingenious opus that is absolutely breathtaking in its artistic breadth and inventive depth, making it one of the true musical standouts of the early 21st century. Proudly bearing stunning creative sensibilities and stylistic complexities that are becoming increasingly rare in modern-day rock music, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' strongly corroborates the belief that Wilco are the once and future standard-bearers of American experimental rock. Long may they reign.

OK Computer

The majestic 'OK Computer', despite being released more than a decade ago, remains Radiohead's indisputable magnum opus and most artistically realised work. This 12-song masterpiece, which did not contain a single dud, was a brilliant, awe-inspiring mixture of classic prog-rock, space-rock, trip-hop, post-punk and guitar-rock, armed with an astonishing number of hitherto undiscovered sonic textures. Elaborate, intense storms of guitars are ably supported by an ever-inventive rhythm section and a magnificent array of piano and keyboard textures, all contributing towards the making of a perfect and certified rock classic.

The syncopated, multi-part 'Paranoid Android' was the big single from here, although the mockingly blissful 'No Surprises', the paranoiac 'Karma Police' and the snarling guitar-rocker 'Airbag' also made significant ripples on charts everywhere. Meanwhile, the despairing 'Exit Music (For a Film)' remains the band's most accomplished Gothic ballad, and the despairing 'The Tourist' is the band's highly disturbing vision of earthly apocalypse.

Elsewhere, 'Let Down' is a blissful lamentation for the loss of innocence amidst the pressures of modern life, while 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' is glistening sci-fi blues, an alien-abduction parable with a twist. The deceptively pleasant, music box-like lullaby 'No Surprises', the roaring, aggressive 'Electioneering' and the menacingly paranoiac 'Climbing Up the Walls' comprise the rest of this masterpiece's flawless running order.

Radiohead will never construct a masterpiece as complete and consummate as 'OK Computer' again, nor can they even try to, especially given the more electronica-oriented direction they have been leaning towards in recent years. This monumental album represents the absolute pinnacle of Radiohead's achievements, and the sound of unadulterated genius at work. If you don't have it, you're missing out on one of the greatest pop-cultural phenomena of recent times.

The Joshua Tree

Has there been a more representative record of the quintessential U2 sound than the iconic ‘The Joshua Tree’ from 1987? While some quarters might argue that 1991’s ‘Achtung Baby’ takes the crown as the Irish rock giants’ most innovative and groundbreaking album, there is no denying the fact that it was ‘The Joshua Tree’ that really put their name on the map, through its meticulously epic production values (courtesy of veteran studio hands Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois), straight-from-the-heart, mature songwriting and brilliantly realised playing from all four members. And put their name on the map it did, becoming chart-toppers in every market imaginable, selling a massive 25 million copies worldwide, and garnering the much-coveted Album of the Year honour at the Grammy Awards in 1988 (back when the Grammies still mattered as real indicators of artistic achievement).

It was on ‘The Joshua Tree’ that U2 genuinely took their musical love affair with America seriously, incorporating choice elements of folk, blues, country and gospel into their basic pop-rock template. Earlier albums like ‘War’ and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ had seen the band dabbling in the abovementioned, distinctly American musical forms, but it was on ‘The Joshua Tree’ that the band, with the help of Eno and Lanois, streamlined and expanded the textures, and adopted a more anthemic, earnest approach. This inevitably resulted in an album that has absolutely no other sonic parallel in U2’s vast catalogue, even when measured against the bold dance-rock and Euro-electro patterns of ‘Achtung Baby’.

‘The Joshua Tree’ couldn’t ask for a more perfect opener than the breathtakingly widescreen, intensely cinematic ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, surely one of the all-time great opening tracks of any album ever. A few bars of slightly ominous organ chords eventually give way to The Edge’s familiar guitar arpeggios, blossoming into a veritable wall of sound that is anchored by Adam Calyton’s trenchant bass line and Larry Mullen’s instinctive drumming. Bono has also rarely given a more virtuosic performance here, with an astonishing number of vocal timbres spread out across its five-and-a-half-minute structure.

The following ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ (a number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart) is a different beast altogether, a soaring, gospel-inspired number that bristles with The Edge’s restless, jangly guitar overdubs. Here, Bono’s voice practically crackles with spiritual yearning, with matching search-for-salvation lyrics to boot. However, the subsequent ‘With or Without You’ (another Billboard number one) is a study in contrast with the rousing structure of ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, a moody, bass-anchored humdinger that could well be U2’s equivalent of any of notorious reclusive Scott Walker’s chamber-pop set pieces. It also illustrates one of the best instances of The Edge’s use of the difficult Infinite Guitar, a device that allows a guitar note to be sustained indefinitely.

‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ is arguably the most strident number on ‘The Joshua Tree’, a muscular, menacing denunciation of the Reagan administration’s military interventions in Central America, marked by a basic but powerful drumbeat, screeching guitar slides and snarling, admonitory vocals. ‘Running to Stand Still’ provides a breather of sorts from the relative sturm and drang of the preceding tracks, a reflective, folk-influenced elegy for a heroin addict enhanced by some ruminative slide-guitar runs and thoughtful synth chords.

‘The Joshua Tree’ then goes into topical mode again with ‘Red Hill Mining Town’, a sympathetic portrait of the 1984 British miners’ strike brought about by the union-breaking tactics of the Thatcher administration. ‘In God’s Country’ is a rollicking, country-informed foot-stomper that wryly describes the contemporary cultural landscape of America, while ‘Trip Through Your Wires’ is a blues-based, swaying melody that is fired by Bono’s surprisingly competent harmonica riffs.

Elsewhere, the towering, brooding ‘One Tree Hill’ easily takes the prize as the album’s most emotional moment, a heartfelt eulogy for the late Greg Carroll, Bono’s personal assistant and a close friend of the band, killed in a recent road accident. This is followed by the severely bleak, coldly forbidding ‘Exit’, a wildly crescendoing track about a serial killer haunted by psychotic delusions and traumatic memories, possibly the least accessible song on the album. Things are brought to an appropriate close by the tear-jerking ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’, a cheerless, overcast tribute to the thousands of victims of the 1970s military coups in Argentina.

In short, any self-respecting rock aficionado should count ‘The Joshua Tree’ amongst his of her collection of classic rock records, if only for its sheer historical value. Simultaneously a useful lesson in atmospheric creative sonics and an all-out great rock album, ‘The Joshua Tree’ has never been bettered or improved by anything U2 has released since then.

The Ataris' Boys of Summer

Ingenuously updating a 1980s radio staple for the post-grunge era, punk revivalists The Ataris in 2003 did successfully reinvent Don Henley's ageless "The Boys of Summer" as an angst-ridden anthem designed to convey the frustrations of a disenfranchised, and by-then mature Generation X still shell-shocked from the social and cultural upheavals of the 1990s. The Ataris' take on this piece of adult-contemporary history is a decidedly different one from Henley's version, casting it in a more immediate, aggressive mould, a distinctly different proposition from the laidback, pathos-filled demeanour of the original. The abnd also made a slight alteration in a key referential phrase in the third verse of the song to better reflect Generation X's cultural values, as opposed to Henley's baby boomer allusions. Check out the kaleidoscopic, knowingly assertive video clip.

Starfish

Veteran Goth-rockers The Church have never been more commercially successful than they were in the late 1980s, when they shifted temporarily to the decidedly alien surroundings of Los Angeles to lay down tracks for what would become the 'Starfish' album from 1988. Up to that point, the outfit had only tasted cult success in their native Australia and a few other limited markets, with a handful of modestly charting singles that consolidated their reputations as competent exponents of psychedelic rock. However, it was 'Starfish' that constituted their real breakthrough in the all-important American market, managing to reach the Billboard Top 40, with the lead single 'Under the Milky Way' creeping into the Top 20.

'Starfish' also marked a noticeable change in the band's basic sound, moving from their usual jangly-guitar template to a wider canvas of various sonic colours and wide-screen production values. The band also tightened their songwriting focus, laying some of their most engrossing and engaging tunes on record, a discernible break from the hazier textures of their preceding efforts. This translates into a wonderfully dynamic and resonant record that successfully bridges the gap between critical acclaim and commercial achievement, while greatly improving the band's creative sensibilities.

'Starfish' opens with the expansive 'Destination', which detailed a disquieting journey through a harsh and surreal landscape. 'Destination' also helped to set the pace for the rest of the album, which seemed to be a musical travelogue of the band's American sojourn. But it was the next number that was the indisputable highlight, the uneasily dreamy but highly atmospheric 'Under the Milky Way' (complete with a synthesised bagpipe solo as a middle-eight). This well-constructed and elegant tune was a surprise entry into the American Top 40, and remained The Church's signature song.

The rest of 'Starfish' doesn't let up for a minute. The quietly menacing 'Blood Money' practically brimmed with cunningly concealed venom, while the assuredly charging rocker 'North, South, East and West' showed off the band's electric-guitar riffing skills to considerable effect. 'Reptile' was another standout, being as sinuous and snaky as the title suggested. Rhythm guitarist Peter Koppes laid down a rhythm-guitar riff that slithered stealthily, punctuated by lead guitarist Marty Willson-Piper's quick lead-guitar stabs, which sounded like the musical equivalent of a serpent's bite.

Elsewhere, 'Antenna' was a sea-shanty guitar waltz that danced along at a stately pace, while the whimsical 'A New Season' is a mid-tempo number with wailing seagull-guitar effects. The closing 'Hotel Womb' was another winner, a confident rocker garnished with ringing guitar riffs and carefully modulated synth effects that detailed the end of the journey started in 'Destination'.

It's no overstatement to say that 'Starfish' has truly stood the test of time, even more than 20 years after its initial release. The performances here are uniformly excellent, and the band has never sounded more artistically confident than on here. Truly the work of a band at the virtual height of its powers, and arguably the Church's most commercially realised record.