My music playlist for today (July 11, 2012 edition)

As “renegade week” continues and I work my way toward the real “inspiration” for it on Thursday, I look at the progressive rock scene for today’s playlist and give it some thought and come up with … Peter Gabriel.

When I think back on the things that Gabriel has done throughout his career, I can’t think of a thing he’s done that hasn’t “pushed the inside of the envelope,” gone “against the grain,” made people sit up and take notice, gotten people talking, stirred up a bit of controversy.

How many people would be so involved in launching a band like Genesis, helping to push them onto a world stage, do wild things like wearing costumes the way he did and writing lyrics like he wrote for Genesis, and then step out onto his own just as the band is catching on to a growing audience?

How many people would launch a solo career and come out with music very different from anything they’d done with the band that helped propel them to stardom?

How many people would continue to put on the kind of creative stage shows that Gabriel has done in his solo career and continue to make them … breathtaking?

How many people would make their names bigger than ever before, and use that kind of celebrity to get across very powerful messages once he’s gotten his audience’s thought processes going so deeply?

Peter Gabriel would.