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Editorial Reviews

Why Peter Gabriel chose to release two of his solo albums -- his 1980 release and its 1982 follow-up (also known as Security) -- in versions with all-German lyrics can only be explained by his notorious quirkiness and desire to make his music as universal as possible. After being dropped by Atlantic in 1979, he decided to focus his energies on Europe and consequently resolved to make multilingual versions of all of his albums for his European fans. He then approached the international divisions of his record labels and offered to redo the vocals of his albums in all European languages. Only the Germans agreed, and as a result, both his third and fourth solo albums were released that way. What's significant about Deutsches Album, the German version of his fourth album, is that although the backing tracks are similar, the sequencing and mixes are different. Granted, the differences are slight (mainly emphasizing different vocal and synthesizer tracks), but they do make this a different listening experience for fans who are very familiar with this album. The biggest difference, however, will be in the way that the German language sounds when matched with the music. Some songs, especially "San Jacinto" and "Mundzumundbeatmung" ("Mouth-to-Mouth Respiration," or "The Kiss of Life") actually work very well in German. The translation of "Wallflower" ("Nicht die Erde Hat Dich Verschluckt," or "The Earth Has Not Swallowed You"), by contrast, actually detracts from the mood of the song, since the harsher German words fit poorly with the music. Similarly, "Schock den Affen" ("Shock the Monkey") not only sounds clumsy with its different German lyrics, but in order to fit the rhyme scheme, Gabriel and his translator, Horst Konigstein, were forced to make the lyrics even more nonsensical than the English version, which does violence to the song's meaning. Deutsches Album can be an interesting listen for Peter Gabriel completists or German-speaking listeners, but casual fans can pass it by. Victor W. Valdivia, All Music Guide

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