I/O

With the release of this song, the fourth single anticipating his eponymous next album, Mr. Gabriel reveals that i/o stands for input / output, and with that ubiquitous bipolar tag he was trying to create a metaphor for the interconnectedness of everything in today's world. And accordingly, the atmosphere of the song results far less paranoid than, let's say, Panopticom, his first single release anticipating the new album.

The song begins with the singer asserting in first person his identity as an individual, and a part of everything, at the same time. That initial vocal lines come over a minimal piano arpeggio, simple but not simplistic, inviting to the honest, good natured confession that follows. And I think that's the best part of the whole affair. Then it comes the massive entry of the group, which sounds truly fantastic, of course, but it also sends us back to that well-known recipe of ethnic (african, to be more precise) flavor so present in his middle-eighties solo output. It's a nice melody, and a marvellous arrangement, but the true enjoyment you can have depends entirely on how good had you survived the saturation of the airwaves in that particular epoque. Maybe you are young, or you liked it, and now are ready for more, so it won't be a problem. I, personally speaking, have had enough of that, so the feeling I get here is rather mixed: the song opens better that it closes, for me at least.

This is really good, but I feel it fells a bit short for excellence.