SO

I'll start this review with a personal note - when this came out, my buddy Claude (yeah, same name), were at that age stage where young males are into the party scene, where "rawk" music rules, and deviations from that rule don't get much play time. We'd both purchased PG's 3rd album after seeing his video for "Games Without Frontiers", but we weren't prog heads or even Gabriel fans apart from that one album. But when this came out & Sledgehammer hit the "Video" charts, it wasn't long that we had it bought it. And I'll tell you folks something - the next 6 months playlists were dominated by this, Paul Simon's Graceland, Georgia Satellites debut, Accept's Balls to the Walls, & a mix of music we grew up on (which included AC/DC, Rush, Sabbath,etc...). Please excuse the "rawk" cliches, but for a bunch of rockers, this certainly got more than its' fair share of play time. Obviously, the hits were the first to draw our attention. Sledgehammer & Big Time were described at times as Progressive Motown music, i.e. intelligence AND feeling. And again for hard rockers, Red Rain, Don't Give Up & In your Eyes (this was before it appeared in a Jon Cusack film) got their share of of our listening. Is it Progressive ? Well, for the intelligence in the lyrics, the differences from the era's "commercial" output, I relate to it as I do when comparing Genesis' Selling England by the Pound & Genesis (self Titled). Same artist, different place in time. But end result, fine music, period.