It’s Time for Peter Gabriel to Embrace His Past

Peter Gabriel kicked off 2026 by telling fans he is going to drop one song from his upcoming album o/i every full moon throughout the year: He started with “Been Undone” on Jan. 3’s Wolf Moon. It’s a clever move that Gabriel has used before — in 2023, to roll out i/o — and gives every song an opportunity to shine for a full month. It also provides firm release dates for the notoriously deadline-averse artist.

The problem is that i/o, despite being truly fantastic, generated very little noise in the pop culture universe outside of Gabriel’s devoted fan base. Many people under the age of 40 know him only for “In Your Eyes” and “Sledgehammer,” presuming they’re aware of him at all. That’s partially due to the fact that Gabriel released just three albums of new material since his 1986 commercial breakthrough So, and took off an absurd 21 years between 2002’s Up and 2023’s i/o. But, even more so, it’s because the singer-songwriter has focused hardly any energy on promoting, or even managing, his legacy.

Look at Bruce Springsteen, Gabriel’s old Amnesty International touring buddy. The New Jersey icon continues to record new albums and tour behind nearly all of them. At the same time, however, Springsteen always keeps an eye on the past. He’s written a memoir, personally overseen deluxe re-releases of his albums, paired many of them with new documentaries, filmed special shows where he plays them straight through, released shelved albums that sat in his vault for decades, and even cooperated on a major Hollywood biopic about his life. And when these projects are released, they arrive with a lot of fanfare.

It all helps ensure that Springsteen’s achievements aren’t forgotten, and are discovered again and again by new generations. A similar thing has happened with Bob Dylan, even though he has far less direct involvement with his documentaries, movies, and archival box sets. Most importantly, he doesn’t stand in the way of them happening. (Like Dylan, Bing Crosby was a titan in his day too, but ask anyone under the age of 75 to name a song of his beside “White Christmas.”)

Of course, Dylan and Springsteen are two Mount Rushmore figures in rock history, so let’s talk about another artist closer to Gabriel on the fame/innovation axis: David Byrne. The parallels are rather striking. Both Gabriel and Byrne fronted highly influential 1970s art-rock bands, utilized costumes and choreography in their live shows, quickly grew frustrated by the creative constraints of a democratic group, and released one final album with the band where they called nearly all the shots. They also both worked with Brian Eno, incorporated world music into their solo material, became unlikely MTV stars in the Eighties thanks to quirky music videos, and saw their careers cool significantly in the Nineties due to the alt-rock revolution and structural changes at MTV and rock radio.

By 2000, they were arguably at the same level of fame. (If anything, Gabriel was a bigger name because he had genuine solo hits; Byrne did not.) As the years ticked by, however, things started to change. Byrne toured heavily and wasn’t shy about playing his old band’s classic songs, essentially reclaiming them for himself. He stayed aware of new artists and trends, teamed up with hip acts like St. Vincent, wrote a book, and staged a glorious Broadway musical packed with Talking Heads gems. Unlike Gabriel, he didn’t vanish for years at a time.

Byrne also put aside years of intense acrimony, made peace with his Talking Heads bandmates to work with them on a remastered version of the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, which they plugged at film festivals, talk shows, and public screenings across the country. It helps explain, in part, why Byrne can elicit the type of rapturous response he did when he walked onstage at Governor’s Ball with Olivia Rodrigo to sing “Burning Down the House” last summer.

Meanwhile, Gabriel hasn’t performed a complete Genesis song in concert since 1983. We admit, of course, that it’s a little crazy to compare Talking Heads to Gabriel-era Genesis. During Gabriel’s time in the band, they didn’t have a single song like “Burning Down the House” or “Once in a Lifetime” that normies can recognize in an instant. And Rodrigo isn’t going to add “The Chamber of 32 Doors” into her festival set and bring Gabriel out to play it with her.

But Gabriel’s work in Genesis is still revered by prog aficionados all across the planet. Tribute acts devoted strictly to those albums fill 2,000-seat theaters on a nightly basis. Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett makes a very good living playing the music at packed halls in Europe and North America. Gabriel, however, has done everything possible to abandon it besides occasionally cooperating on a project like the recent ATMOS remix of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Nor has he written a memoir, commissioned a documentary about his life, released a box set, or done just about anything necessary to remind the world of his massive accomplishments (aside from an under-the-radar So anniversary tour in 2012). On Gabriel’s infrequent tours, he offers up the same mix of songs from So and Us that he’s been flogging for more than 30 years while neglecting his first four solo albums almost completely. And fans have taken notice: His most recent tour of American arenas in 2023 saw soft sales in some markets, with several venues curtaining off the upper sections.

So before he hits the road again, we humbly suggest Gabriel consider something drastically different. Maybe start by re-releasing his first four albums in super deluxe packages: Each one is brilliant in its own way, and they’ve been ignored for far too long. He should also consider an under-play tour of theaters. Perhaps four nights at the Beacon in New York, four nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, and four nights in the Wiltern in Los Angeles? He’s one of the most dazzling performers of the rock era, and people just need the chance to see it for themselves.

The shows would create incredible buzz, a mad scramble for tickets, and place Gabriel in the spotlight for the first time in a very long time. He should also consider writing an autobiography, and hire a great director to make a documentary about his life. (A biopic feels like a stretch, but we could imagine ones about his final year in Genesis and the start of his solo career, or maybe the tumultuous period in the Eighties where his marriage collapsed just as he was becoming a superstar.)

And yes, he should also do a Genesis reunion tour with Hackett, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Nic Collins, and maybe a guest appearance by Phil Collins, if he’s up for it. But at this point, it’s clear that any Genesis regrouping is likely never going to happen. So… at the very least, Gabriel can remind music fans of, or introduce them to, the groundbreaking solo work that came after Genesis. It’s not too late.