Product Description

This two CD set brings together tracks from Peter Gabriel'scareer since his eponymous solo album in 1977 and his departure from Genesis in 1976. Disc one includes four UK top tenhits including 'Sledgehammer', 'Games Without Frontiers', and 'Don't Give Up' while disc two, titled 'Miss', features tracks that didn't fair quite as well.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Solsbury Hill
2. Shock The Monkey
3. Sledgehammer
4. Don't Give Up
5. Games Without Frontiers
6. Big Time
7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down
8. Growing Up (Tom Lord-Alge Remix)
9. Digging In The Dirt
10. Blood Of Eden (Radio Edit)
11. More Than This (Radio Edit)
12. Biko
13. Steam
14. Red Rain
15. Here Comes The Flood

Disc 2:

1. San Jacinto
2. No Self-Control
3. Cloudless
4. The Rhythm Of The Heat
5. I Have The Touch (Remix)
6. I Grieve
7. D.I.Y.
8. A Different Drum
9. The Drop
10. The Tower That Ate People (Radio Edit Mix)
11. Lovetown
12. Father, Son
13. Signal To Noise
14. Downside Up (Live)
15. Washing Of The Water

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12037 in Music
• Released on: 2003-11-03
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
A judiciously-selected two-CD compendium of Peter Gabriel's finest moments, Hit offers a far more generous windfall than can be found on the only previous Peter Gabriel best-of selection, the 1990 Shaking the Tree. The devil, after all, is in the detail, particularly on the second disc (self-deprecatingly entitled "Miss"), which really traverses the whole gamut of Peter Gabriel's globally-visioned artistry. It includes recent soundtrack work (the haunting "Cloudless" from Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence), material from 2002's sterling Up ("Signal To Noise", featuring a compelling vocal from the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and some ominous string arrangements, really does sound like a thinking man's Massive Attack) and goes right back to that fourth album when marrying the reticence of cold, synthesised new wave with insistent African percussion seemed like a good idea (it was).

The first disc--including the MTV smash "Sledgehammer", anti-apartheid war cry "Biko", "Big Time" (interesting how the styles of Gabriel and his former group Genesis seem to converge at this time) and "Games Without Frontiers"--really speaks for itself, although with hindsight it seems the single-buying public-at-large had a particular taste for a certain kind of Peter Gabriel record. Universally excellent throughout, the collection is rendered even more desirable by the inclusion of three previously unreleased tracks: a live rendition of "Downside Up", a shorter version of "Blood of Eden" and "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", latterly included on a video game and initially earmarked for the Up album but jettisoned at the last minute. --Kevin Maidment

Customer Reviews

For god's sake..
...I have to say that it does make me laugh when you see all these people going on about "it's got a slightly different beat" or "the vocal is 2db lower than the album" or whatever.

Peter Gabriel has written some of the most important music of the last decade - hands down!

Yes...I agree. Go buy the albums and take them to pieces if you really have to but for £6 this is a good place to hear some well crafted and heartfelt music. "Mercy Street" is one of the best songs ever recorded. Listen to it in earphones and disagree...you can't.

If you have never heard PG (!!!) this is the place to start. You have been told.

Great Music - Bad Sonics
There are plenty of reviews about the music, so I thought I'd offer a review about the actual sound, speaking as someone who has many of these tracks where applicable on earlier issues of the albums (including the excellent remastered issues).

Well, here we have the tracks necessarily mastered again for this compilation album, by Tony Cousins. And unfortunately, he seems to have followed exactly the same route that just about all remastered music is being taken these days - the compression route!

It's just not quite as dynamic, doesn't quite pack the same punch as the earlier versions of the tracks. Compare the respective versions of 'Sledgehammer' to hear what I mean. The new one has a slightly deeper and louder bass end, but overall sounds flatter. The funky drums just don't have the same impact.

Ditto 'Rhythm Of The Heat'. The version on PG4 (Security) Remastered is excellent (improved upon the original IMO) with the much used tom tom drums really coming through. This later master seems to have taken things back a notch. Again, like all the tracks, it has more of a bottom end to it, but the drum rhythm doesn't punch through like before.

I find this state of affairs really sad, as I always hoped Gabriel was above this kind of crowd following - although to be fair, things such as mastering are usually out of the hands of the artists and under the control of the label (in this case EMI, the then parent company of Real World). It's still likely that this master was indeed approved by Gabriel though.

So there you go, in brief. I'm sure this review will annoy the hell out of a few people who don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm speaking as someone who until recently always looked forward to remasters or remixes as it usually meant some kind of sonic gain. In the last few years that seems to have changed; now it tends to mean louder and more compressed.
This album isn't the worst case that I've heard (far from it, to be fair), but it's still affected to a noticeable degree. All in the name of maximising the average volume of the disc.

a hit but for who
these lps are generally released to bring in joe punter
and are not for the purist
and this is clearly the case here
as it is really just a mish mash of pg's career
the running order is quite horrific-
solsbury hill, monkey and sledgehammer one after the other- ouch!
a true gabriel comp would have been a singles disc
and prob an album track disc- one or two also
and then a nice oddity/rarity cd maybe too- tho' thats 4 cds?
anyways all the good singles could have been gathered in- and in order 1977- release date,
solsbury hill then modern love, then diy then games- etc etc
the 2nd and 3rd cds could contain the epics
AND INCLUDE family snapshot certainly
any oddity cd MUST INCLUDE out out and walk thro the fire and songs of that ilk- cos you cant get these anywhere!!
you cant really knock the great man tho
the packaging is great
the hit n miss idea is clever- as always
and the songs are still brilliant
even if erratically selected and arranged
btw- the guy that says its a waste of money is mad
i bought it for 10 from ASDA and its a dble and there is a lotta lotta songs on this
he prob likes safety first music by numbers and a certain mr collins- tooo much