Passion (Peter Gabriel album)

Passion was originally composed as the soundtrack album for Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but Gabriel spent several months after the film's release further developing the music, finally releasing it as a full-fledged album instead of a movie soundtrack. The album was released in June 1989 (almost a year after the theatrical release of The Last Temptation of Christ in August 1988) as a vinyl double album and a 1-disc CD.


Passion is seen as a landmark in the popularisation of world music, and won a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album in 1990. It was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002.

Overview[edit]

Peter Gabriel's first film soundtrack, Birdy (1985), contained instrumental rearrangements of songs from Gabriel's earlier albums. Passion, on the other hand, contained music entirely original to Gabriel's catalogue.


To record the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ, Gabriel used the resources of WOMAD, an organization he founded, to bring together musicians from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South Asia. He worked with them to create music meant to enhance the mood of the film, but he also added a modern ambient musical touch to the original pieces, producing a musical work that has influenced many musicians. Passion introduced many listeners to such artists as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Youssou N'Dour, L. Shankar, and Baaba Maal. N'Dour and Shankar had provided contributions to Gabriel's previous album, So (1986); Passion also features other musicians who had worked with Gabriel before, including David Rhodes, Manny Elias, David Bottrill, and Manu Katché.


Later in the year a companion album was released, Passion – Sources, featuring additional songs on which Gabriel does not perform. Gabriel described this album as "a selection of some of the traditional music, sources of inspiration, and location recordings."


The cover art for the album, Drawing study for Self Image II (1987), is a mixed media composition by the artist Julian Grater.^[12] When re-released, the album was titled Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ due to "legal barriers" according to Gabriel in its liner notes.^[13]

Reception[edit]

Upon its release, Passion received generally positive reviews from critics. Reviewing Passion for Rolling Stone, Jimmy Guterman wrote that "Gabriel’s journey is just as deeply felt as Scorsese's... [Passion] stands as a testament to the breadth of Gabriel's interests, as well as his talents." Noting songs which "successfully accommodate third-world melodies and cross-rhythms in a Western pop context," Guterman claimed, "Passion is stirring, stunning stuff: You won’t hear it on the radio like you heard ‘’Sledgehammer’’ or ‘’Big Time’’, but if you do search it out, you'll find a piece of work by an artist who remains idiosyncratic without being obtuse."^[14]