I was having my bowl of heart-healthy cereal this a.m.whilst perusing the online New York Times when I came across an article on Peter Gabriel in the business section. The not-very-compelling headline was "An Old Rocker Gets Digital" which turned out to be rather inaccurate, too. Gabriel has been digital at least since the wholly digital "Shock The Monkey" back in the 1980's.
As it happens, yesterday, one in a series of rainy days here in cottage country, I had the local FM station,"The Moose," tuned to a syndicated music show in which an aspect of the background of classic rock music is highlighted each week by the engaging Steve Downs. He spoke about Gabriel and his Genesis departure and how both the band and Gabriel went on the have more fame and fortune than they'd had together. I found it interesting that Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" explains his sudden departure from the band that he founded. So I was primed to read about what Pete has been up to of late and it turns out what he's been doing has been very intriguing for many years now. He sums it up in the last line of the article with,
“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.”
Within the two-page article, the likes of Richard Branson, Thomas Dolby and astrophysicist Michael Large comment on their admiration for Gabriel from business, technological, and artistic standpoints. Branson: "In the early days, we’d go skiing together and Peter would have an idea every 30 seconds,” says the British entrepreneur, 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.”
Thomas Dolby: “Peter approaches business the way he approaches his music: it’s not digital, it’s organic,” says the 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.”
With so much praise being heaped upon a guy I already admired I had to read the whole article and after doing so, I wholeheartedly agree that that Peter Gabriel is a nice guy with heaps of talent, loads of foresight, and an outstanding business sense. Plus, I want to watch one of his 20th Century videos again.
But Peter Gabriel the "old rocker"? I don't think the word "old" and Peter Gabriel belong in the same sentence.
"While major record companies have spent heavily on the Internet with relatively little to show, 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.
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