Peter Gabriel confirmed his return to the rock world last month, and now the first track from his upcoming album has arrived. ‘Panopticom’ was written and performed by Gabriel, but other musicians also supported the rocker with different instruments. In his recent press release, he disclosed some details about the song’s background.
“The first song is based on an idea I have been working on to initiate the creation of an infinitely expandable accessible data globe: The Panopticom,” Gabriel said, reflecting on the song’s main theme. “We are beginning to connect a like-minded group of people who might be able to bring this to life, to allow the world to see itself better and understand more of what’s really going on.”
Gabriel hasn’t released any new music in about a decade, but he recently teased his fans about his next album ‘i/o.’ The forthcoming album’s first song, ‘Panopticom,’ was inspired by Oliver Stone’s 2016 movie ‘Snowden.’ ‘Snowden,’ as those who have seen it before may remember, was a film about the government’s illegal surveillance techniques.
The song’s title is a reference to ‘Panopticon,’ a conceptualization used to describe today’s surveillance society, which can be briefly summarized with Orwell’s famous phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you.’ But Gabriel re-interpreted the word by adding the ‘com’ ending to stress that data and the internet are becoming one of the most fundamental mediations for this surveillance.
We hear synth tones in the song, with Gabriel’s distinctive baritone voice standing out. The electronic tunes featured in the song, which is in harmony with its theme, came from Brian Eno. The piece looks promising both in content and sound and meets expectations when it comes to the excitement of not hearing Gabriel for a very long time with original material.
