Peepshow (album)

Music journalist Parke Puterbaugh described "Peek-a-Boo" as a "collage of sound that incorporates a backward percussion track" with the voice bouncing from channel to channel. "The Killing Jar" opens with "a faint splash of reggae" and then the music dissolves into a trancelike drone in the style of Brian Eno. "Scarecrow" has a "Middle-Eastern feel" and the first side rushes to a climax in "Burn-Up", with cello and drums "simulating a train's mounting momentum".

The album was later remastered and reissued on CD with bonus tracks in October 2014.{{cite web |date=22 August 2014 |title=Siouxsie and the Banshees relaunch archival campaign, new reissues due out in October |url=https://consequence.net/2014/08/siouxsie-and-the-banshees-relaunch-archival-campaign-new-reissues-due-out-in-october/ |access-date=1 September 2014 |publisher=Consequenceofsound}} A 180g vinyl reissue, remastered from the original ¼” tapes and cut half-speed at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell, was released in December 2018.{{cite web |title=Peepshow_ black vinyl 2018 – Ireland |url=https://www.towerrecords.ie/product/SIOUXSIE_THEBANSHEES_PEEPSHOW/780586 |access-date=20 March 2024 |website=Towerrecords.ie}}

The record was a commercial success, peaking at No. 20 in the UK, and No. 68 on the US Billboard 200 chart in the week of 3 December 1988. It spent a total of 20 weeks on that chart.

The lead single "Peek-a-Boo" reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and "the Killing Jar" got the number two spot.

{{Music ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1Score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}{{cite web |url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/peepshow-mw0000200320 |title=Peepshow – Siouxsie and the Banshees |author=Ned Raggett |website=AllMusic |access-date=3 November 2011}}

| rev2= Q

| rev2Score= {{Rating|5|5}}

| rev4 = Record Mirror

| rev4Score= {{Rating|4.5|5}}

}}

Upon release, the album was critically acclaimed: praise centred around the unpredictability of the orchestrations and new nuances in Siouxsie Sioux's voice.

Q wrote in its 5 out of 5 star review: "Peepshow takes place in some distorted fairground of the mind where weird and wonderful shapes loom." Reviewer Mark Cooper hailed "Martin McCarrick's accordion that pokes its way into Peek A Boo{{nbsp}}... a carny piece of musical imagination". He noted that "the rest of the record bursts with similar acts of imagination", saying: "full honours go to the aforementioned McCarrick for all manner of shrewd decorations and drummer Budgie for endlessly inventive rhythm work that manages to pinpoint the tension inherent in each song without ever lapsing into an obvious beat".Cooper, Mark. Peepshow review. Q magazine. September 1988.

Melody Maker highly praised its first single, "Peek-a-Boo", and called it "quite the most astounding British record" of 1988, and "a brightly unexpected mixture of black steel and pop disturbance."Mathur, Paul. "Born Again Savages". Melody Maker. 9 July 1988. The paper also praised the band for the ballad "The Last Beat of My Heart". Chris Roberts said: "The infinite pinnacle is their one joint effort, the bravura hymn "The Last Beat of My Heart"". As Martin McCarrick's accordion and Budgie's directly intelligent rhythms underlie its pathos, this elegy is translated by Sioux with capital beatitude. It's the Banshees' most courageous arabesque in some time."Roberts, Chris. "Psalm Enchanted Evenings" [Peepshow review]. Melody Maker. 10 September 1988. "Peepshow is hesitantly hypnotic. It seduces you back. More than ever, the composition credits go to Sioux or Severin individually, this accounting for the suppliant proximity of their airs. Sioux's 'Turn To Stone' and 'Rawhead And Bloodybones' are simply disquieting, 'Burn Up' is flushed with Eros. Severin's 'Rhapsody' allows some stirring melodrama but the infinite pinnacle is their one joint effort, the bravura hymn 'The Last Beat of My Heart'. As Martin McCarrick's accordion and Budgie's directly intelligent rhythms underlie it's pathos, this elegy is translated by Sioux with capital beatitude. It's the Banshees' most courageous arabesque in some time. If they have enough majesty in their guts to put it out as a single we really will be witnessing a renaissance."

Record Mirror also particularly enjoyed that song when reviewing the album: "The highlight is the restrained 'The Last Beat of My Heart', where Siouxsie's voice explores new ground as she caresses a haunting melody." Reviewer Kevin Murphy concluded by saying: "Brimming with confidence{{nbsp}}..., Peepshow is the Banshees' finest hour."Murphy, Kevin. Peepshow review. Record Mirror. 10 September 1988 NME noted a change of approach in the musical direction: "Peepshow is the best Banshees record since A Kiss in the Dreamhouse because it's the Banshees deciding to be a pop band rather than a rock group".Shelley, Jim. "Ornament of Gold". NME. 24 September 1988.

Spin published a glowing review of the album in their November issue. Discussing "Peek-a-Boo", critic Tony Fletcher said that its "mood fell in perfectly with their beloved London's summer fascination with the sparsity and confusion that call Acid House, Psychedelic and how!" He described the music of "Peek-a-Boo" as "a crazed assortment of fairground accordions, abrupt horns, distant to-and-fro vocals-exotic, erotic, a dancefloor winner for sure and all of three minutes short." Fletcher also hailed the other tracks, noting "an almost lilting reggae feel to the beginning of "Killing Jar", a fragile, waif-like Siouxsie backed only by translucent guitar and a keyboard bass on the brief "Rawhead and Bloodybones", and a delightful, majestic ballad the likes of which it had been a safe assumption was beyond their reach on "The Last Beat of My Heart". [...] As Peepshow ends with the drawn-out "Rhapsody", Siouxsie's operatic flings seem to be a celebration of her reawakened capacity to thrill." Fletcher concluded: "She and the band sound as confident, abandoned and excited as when they started".Fletcher, Tony. "Peepshow" review. Spin magazine. November 1988. Page 92-93.

In Stereo Review, the album was published in the column "Best of the Month". Reviewer Parke Puterbaugh wrote that the record was "a fascinating plunge into the subconscious" and was "Dream-like" and "hypnotic", further emphasizing, "Peepshow brims with nonlinear logic, compulsive rhythms, and icy, crystalline textures." The critic concluded his review, qualifying it as an "utterly unconventional and thoroughly intoxicating album"{{nbsp}}... "a transcendent feat: They are not playing music, the music is playing them".{{cite magazine|first=Parke |last=Puterbaugh |title=Best of the Month: Siouxsie and the Banshees Peepshow |magazine=Stereo Review|page=101 |date=January 1989 |volume=54}} The readers of Best music magazine rated it the 6th best album of the year.{{cite magazine|title="Les Dix Disques de l'année 1988 pour les lecteurs de Best"|magazine=Best|volume=246 |date= January 1989}}
{{cite web|url=http://disques.de.l.annee.free.fr/best.html#1988|title=

1988 Le choix des lecteurs -Les albums|work=Disques de L'année|access-date=2023-09-12}}

Writing in the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Mark Coleman and Mac Randall gave Peepshow a rating of 2.5 stars out of five, saying that the album mixes "synthesizers and a lighter pop touch with the Banshees' trademark howl", but the combination "lacks spark".{{cite book|last1=Coleman|first1=Mark|last2=Randall|first2=Mac|chapter=Siouxsie and the Banshees|title=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide|editor1-first=Nathan|editor1-last=Brackett|editor1-link=Nathan Brackett|editor2-first=Christian|editor2-last=with Hoard|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|date=2004|isbn=978-0-7432-0169-8|pages=740–41}} A 2014 retrospective review in The Daily Telegraph praised the result, saying that "lush, folk-rock orchestration produced perfect pop".Bernadette McNulty, Neil McCormick, Helen Brown and Mark Hudson (9 December 2014). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11275835/Best-11-album-reissues-for-Christmas-2014.html "Best 11 album reissues for Christmas 2014"]. telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 29 December 2016

Bloc Party later praised "Peek-a-Boo", which their singer Kele Okereke described: "It sounded like nothing else on this planet. This is just a pop song [...], but to me it sounded like the most current but most futuristic bit of guitar-pop music I've heard."{{cite web|url=http://herenb.canadaeast.com/music/article/418500 |title=Talking Bloc during Harvest Jazz – Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke talks life, love, music and Ultimate Fighting. |author=O'Kane, Josh |work=[Here] New Brunswick |date=18 September 2008 |access-date=17 March 2012 |quote=With the new record, he said he was inspired by a song written years ago by Siouxsie and the Banshees called Peek-a-boo. "I heard it for the first time, and it sounded like nothing else on this planet. This is just a pop song that they put out in the middle of their career that nobody knows about, but to me it sounded like the most current but most futuristic bit of guitar-pop music I've heard. I thought, that'd be cool, to make music that people might not get at the time, but in ten years' time, people would revisit it." |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708113554/http://herenb.canadaeast.com/music/article/418500 |archive-date=8 July 2011 }} DeVotchKa later covered "The Last Beat of My Heart" at the suggestion of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler.Frenette, Brad. [http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/03/07/devotchka-finds-joy-in-the-sadness/ "DeVotchKa finds joy in the sadness – interview"] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20140122153054/http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/03/07/devotchka-finds-joy-in-the-sadness/ |date=22 January 2014 }}. Nationalpost.com. 7 March 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2014. "We were playing in Montreal, and Arcade Fire stopped by, back in the earlier days. We were doing this covers album and Win [Butler] recommended that we record The Last Beat of My Heart" Colin Meloy of The Decemberists also mentioned "The Last Beat of My Heart" as one of his favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees songs.Meloy, Colin. [http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6433-decemberists/ Decemberists interview].Pitchfork.com. 15 September 2006. "The Last Beat of My Heart" : "It's one of my favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees songs". Peepshow was also one of the albums Nic Offer of the band !!! ("Chk Chk Chk"), listened to the most during his formative years.{{cite web |first=Trent |last=Moorman|title=Sound Check !!!'s Nic Offer Talks Celebs, Acid Trips, and Ratt |url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/sound-check/Content?oid=17606069 |work=Thestranger.com |date=28 August 2013 |access-date=8 February 2017}} Emel Mathlouthi recorded a rendition of "Rhapsody" as a one-off for French Television, saying that the lyrics were close to her.{{cite web|title=Emel – Rhapsody (Siouxsie and the Banshees cover)|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYhxAqe81Fg|publisher=France.tv La Blogothèque on YouTube|date=23 December 2020|access-date=4 January 2022}}

{{Track listing

| all_music = Siouxsie and the Banshees

| headline = Side one

| title1 = Peek-a-Boo

| lyrics1 = Siouxsie Sioux

| length1 = 3:12

| title2 = The Killing Jar

| lyrics2 = Steven Severin

| length2 = 4:04

| title3 = Scarecrow

| lyrics3 = Severin

| length3 = 5:06

| title4 = Carousel

| lyrics4 = Siouxsie

| length4 = 4:26

| title5 = Burn-Up

| lyrics5 = Siouxsie

| length5 = 4:32

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = Side two

| title6 = Ornaments of Gold

| lyrics6 = Siouxsie

| length6 = 3:50

| title7 = Turn to Stone

| lyrics7 = Severin

| length7 = 4:05

| title8 = Rawhead and Bloodybones

| lyrics8 = Siouxsie

| length8 = 2:29

| title9 = The Last Beat of My Heart

| lyrics9 = Severin/Siouxsie

| length9 = 4:30

| title10 = Rhapsody

| lyrics10 = Severin

| length10 = 6:23

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = 2014 CD remastered reissue bonus tracks

| title11 = El Dia De Los Muertos

| note11=Espiritu Mix

| lyrics11 = Siouxsie

| length11 = 5:36

| title12 = The Killing Jar

| note12=Lepidopteristic Mix

| length12 = 8:06

| title13 = The Last Beat of My Heart

| note13=Live Seattle Lollapalooza, 1991

| length13 = 5:32

}}

;Siouxsie and the Banshees

• Siouxsie Sioux – vocals
• Steven Severin – electric bass
• Budgie – drums, percussion and harmonica
• Martin McCarrick – cello, keyboards, accordion
• Jon Klein – guitar

;Additional personnel

• Mike Hedges – producer, engineer

{{Certification Table Top|caption=Certifications for Peepshow}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|artist=Siouxsie & the Banshees|title=Peep Show|award=Silver|type=album|relyear=1988|certyear=1988|id=5041-1019-2|date=1 November 1988|access-date=16 October 2021}}

{{Certification Table Bottom|nosales=yes}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Bennett |first=Samantha |title=Siouxsie and the Banshees' Peepshow (33 1/3) |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date= October 2018 |isbn= 978-1501321863}}

{{Siouxsie and the Banshees}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Siouxsie and the Banshees albums

Category:1988 albums

Category:Albums produced by Mike Hedges

Category:Polydor Records albums

Category:Geffen Records albums