The Night Thread Is So Much Larger Than Life 7/19

I’m on my way, I’m making it!

English singer-songwriter and notable humanitarian Peter Gabriel got his start by being the original lead singer and flute player for Genesis. He left the group in 1975 to launch his solo career and got to be known for helming some of the most iconic music videos of all time.

“Sledgehammer” is a far more notable video. That one won nine MTV awards and is the most played MTV video of all time. (Hey, remember when MTV used to play music videos?)

“Big Time”, though, is an evolution of the concept. Imagine you are wandering a museum, and you turn a corner you don’t expect to be turning. It’s an empty white and darkened room. Perhaps there are a couple rows of benches in there. And airing on the screen in front of you is a creepy stop motion video depicting evolution (where a hill grows a face/multiple faces), garish animation of 1960’s Motown singers, and bloody unexplained handprints left on the screen.

If you were seeing this in a museum, it would be backed with the haunting sounds of screaming, babies crying, and maybe an inappropriate John Philips Sousa march. This is a Peter Gabriel music video though. Instead, you’re going to hear one of his most gleeful tracks of all time, “Big Time” … and song so catchy that the WWE used it as their main theme for Wrestlemania 22.