Wallflower
No, this is not about Jakob Dylan. It’s about a solo, well, with piano accompaniment, in the studio take of one of the most precious, ingratiating, infectious songs off Peter Gabriel’s fourth solo album, his first on Geffen, entitled against his wishes "Security".
Gabriel fans are a cult. They’re not wishy-washy regarding their hero, they’re positively passionate. Like Peter himself. And I know all of them would love to see this video. But I bet you very few have. Because Peter Gabriel, for all his vaunted tech wizardry, is about half a decade behind the curve, and the person it’s hurting most is himself.
1. You must have constant contact with your fans. It must be a dialog. It’s not that they forget you if you’re absent, it’s that they’re overwhelmed with the detritus of life. We live in the opposite of the seventies rock star paradigm world. It’s not about coming down from the mountaintop every two or three years with tablets, otherwise known as a ten to twelve track LP/CD/album. Now you’re the village minstrel. You may not live in the center of town, but you’ve got to walk through every day. At least every other day. Sure, you can take a vacation, assuming you come back, assuming your audience knows you’ll walk amongst them soon. The era of just putting up a Website and believing people will find you are done. If for no other reason that most artist Websites have been updated so sporadically that most people rarely go there anymore.
2. You must cross-post. This incredible performance is not available on YouTube, at least I couldn’t easily find it. That’s where people go for video clips. To only host your clips on your site is to try to make it by only exhibiting your videos on your home television set in the 80s. They needed to be on MTV! YouTube is the new MTV. And since everything is available, the key is to make your fans stick. You don’t do that by infrequency of interaction.
3. It must be you. Do you have someone else type on your BlackBerry/iPhone? Do you print out your e-mails? Then why in hell can’t you do your own Tweeting, your own posting.
Peter Gabriel does have a Twitter account. Entitled "itspetergabriel". Only it’s not. IT’s some twit named Dickie in the studio. Who posts like an engineer. Just information. The kind that makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. Can you at least utilize a bit of creativity? Not that it requires much. Compare Steve Lukather’s Twitter feed to Peter Gabriel’s:
Luke feels no pressure to be clever. But he’s totally honest and it’s him. I read all his tweets, it makes me feel connected. Why isn’t Peter Gabriel following in Luke’s footsteps?
4. Facebook. Gabriel does have a presence there:
But once again, it’s that same chap from Twitter posting, Dickie. I don’t care about him, I want Peter! And I want the video from the Website cross-posted. But it’s not.
5. Editing. I’m interested in Peter’s rap, marginally. Then again, this tends to be done better in print than video, you can scan if you’re not interested, now you have to wait interminably for the music to begin, and this inhibits not only playability, but repeatability, and didn’t we learn eons ago that the way to make fans is endless repetition? Why would you work against this? There should be a video, easily accessible/findable everywhere, that starts with the music. In this case, the video doesn’t even use an elapsed time counter, but time left…huh?
6. Too many old acts are the same. They think it’s the same way it used to be. But it’s not. Just check SoundScan. Or iTunes. Sure, people are stealing, but with so many diversions, it’s hard to get mindshare. You’ve got your catalog, your good will, but if you’re sitting on your stardom, thinking the old way is still gonna work, you’re wrong. You’ve got to get down in the pit, to mix metaphors, in bed with the people. You’ve got to make it easy for them to be fans. It’s no longer about mystery, unavailability, leaving people wanting more. Now it’s exactly the opposite, it’s about a plethora of material, too much for everybody, only your biggest fans will consume everything.
But the bottom line is to see Peter Gabriel alone in the studio singing "Wallfower" is just about as magical as watching Steve Winwood play "Can’t Find My Way Home" in front of his hearth. At least Winwood put his clip on YouTube, but both have gotten anemic views and for this I blame the artists themselves, not even their handlers. Don’t rely on others to tell you what to do, you’ve all got computers, delve into them. Stars have been removed for too long. That paradigm is dead. Now we’re all equal. But we still love you. And your music.
And that’s why I’m writing this. To alert all you Gabriel fans to this clip. Because you’ll love it. And I bet almost none of you have seen it. And for that, I blame Peter.
Go to: http://www.petergabriel.com/Click on the first video, "Peter December 2010 update" (if you Google it, it’s the fifth entry, how messed up is that?)
Hit the play button.
The video loads pretty fast.
You can listen to Peter, but he gets pretty boring.
But you can drag the slider to 4:55 remaining to hear "Wallflower". And you should.
