Security

After three eponymous discs noteworthy for their thematic richness and musical experimentation, Peter Gabriel yielded to conventional wisdom by actually titling this 1982 successor. In every other respect, however, Security was another stride beyond the progressive-rock terrain Gabriel had explored from Genesis forward. Most crucially, he goes deeper into the heart of world music and further investigates the African sources first invoked on the prior album's magisterial track, "Biko." Security is steeped in polyrhythms, sculpted with synthesizers, and detailed with percussive textures set to a low boil beneath Gabriel's yearning vocals. Its themes of transcendence and identity, and contrasts of modern isolation with primordial community, reverberate through "Lay Your Hands on Me," "I Have the Touch," "The Rhythm of the Heat," and "San Jacinto." And in "Shock the Monkey," the set's initial hit, Gabriel portentously stands dance rhythms on their head in a troubling, funny riff on the mammal within. --Sam Sutherland