Perspective We start off with a pretty straight forward rock song, that to me at least reflects a lot of the upcoming alternative bands of the time, while still containing elements of traditional seventies rock music. This song isn't bad at all, but for the general Gabriel fan may be a little simplistic and repetitive. It has a very dense sound and perhaps that is where so many find it doesn't work for them. More often than not Gabriel shines in the spaces. This track seems to be a new take on the styling of Modern Love. Anyway, I like the song well enough, but it isn't top shelf Gabriel for me.
Perspective - I like the "Oh Gaia" part but the rest of it leaves me cold. It's like a really bad Bowie parody.
Easy Reference Guide The Gap Years 75-76 https://connyolivetti.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/gaabriel-prog.pdf thanks @fRa Before The Flood Peter Gabriel Album by Album Peter Gabriel/Car 1977 - Peter Gabriel Album by Album Peter Gabriel 1 - Car » Real World Galleries - thanks @Jeff Kent track 1 Moribund The Burgermeister Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 2 Solsbury Hill Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 3 Modern Love Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 4 Excuse Me Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 5 Humdrum Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 6 Slow Burn Peter Gabriel Album by Album alt. version Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 7 Waiting For The Big one Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 8 Down The Dolce Vita Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 9 Here Comes The Flood Peter Gabriel Album by Album from Exposure album Peter Gabriel Album by Album from Shaking The Tree album Peter Gabriel Album by Album live Growing up tour Peter Gabriel Album by Album Peter Gabriel Album by Album interview Montreal 1978 Peter Gabriel Album by Album Scratches 1978 - Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 1 On The Air Peter Gabriel Album by Album live 77 Peter Gabriel Album by Album live 09 Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 2 DIY Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 3 Mother Of Violence Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 4 A Wonderful Day In a One Way World Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 5 White Shadow Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 6 Indigo Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 7 Animal Magic Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 8 Exposure Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 9 Flotsam And Jetsam Peter Gabriel Album by Album track 10 Perspective Peter Gabriel Album by Album I Don't Remember 12" Peter Gabriel Album by Album
This is s really good song, but it's truly all about the guitar break, which is one of my favorites of Fripp's guest shots and perhaps one of my favorites of all time. It takes a very good song and puts it up over the top. Best song on that album. I only lament that there wasn't a good way to do it live. No one else plays like that.
Home Sweet Home This track starts off as a really nice piano ballad with an almost country flavour. I really like the song, but I don't like the vocal effect (chorus/flanger?) that is placed on the vocal. There is a sentimentality on this track that really works well as an album closer. We get a sax coming in to add some musical dimension to the song. In reality, although I don't like this album as much as the debut, I think it is a solid follow up and a great addition to the Gabriel catalog.
Always liked this track. A touching lyric delivered in a subdued and unsentimental voice at the story's most affecting parts. The sax nicely adds to the emotional component. As was pointed out earlier regarding the quicker production on this album, this song too feels a bit rough around the edges, and not the refined, tighter production we’d see in 3 and 4. But I like it in this track. Better that the narrator doesn’t have a tight grip; I feel the meandering despair of someone who lost his world, and then the upturn as he gets a partial, bittersweet measure of it back in the end.
Just now joining in on this discussion. I prefer the first album over the second. I am still always intrigued by this album even though I wish it was better. I love the album cover and it's an odd record that I think is weak, but I never completely give up on it. It does have a few tracks that would make a Peter Gabriel best of cd. My favorites are definitely D.I.Y. and Mother of Violence. I just don't think most of the material is very strong on this album, but I still want to love it. Maybe it's the strength of the album cover and the two albums that surround it? Even my two favorite songs are not as good as half of the songs on the first album. Moribund, Solsbury, Modern Love, Humdrum, and Here Comes the Flood rule.
Peter Gabriel/Melt Studio album by Peter Gabriel Released 23 May 1980 Recorded Spring–Summer 1979 Studio Bath and Townhouse in London Genre Art rock[1] new wave[2] progressive pop[3] post-punk[4] post-progressive[5] Length 45:32 Label Charisma (United Kingdom), Mercury (Original US LP pressing), Geffen (United States, Canada) Producer Steve Lillywhite Singles from Peter Gabriel "Games Without Frontiers" Released: February 9, 1980 "No Self Control" Released: May 10, 1980 "Biko" Released: July 1980 "I Don't Remember" Released: September 1980 Peter Gabriel is the third eponymous studio album by English rock musician Peter Gabriel, released on 23 May 1980 by Charisma Records. The album has been acclaimed as Gabriel's artistic breakthrough as a solo artist and for establishing him as one of rock's most ambitious, innovative musicians.[15] Gabriel also explored more overtly political material with two of his most famous singles, the anti-war song "Games Without Frontiers" (which became a No. 4 hit and remains his joint highest charting single in the UK) and the anti-apartheid protest song "Biko", which remembered the murdered activist Steve Biko. The album was remastered, along with most of Gabriel's catalogue, in 2002. This album is often referred to as Melt owing to its cover photograph by Hipgnosis. Gabriel's ex-bandmate Phil Collins, who succeeded him as Genesis' lead vocalist, played drums on several of the album's tracks. "Intruder" has been cited as the first use of Collins' "gated drum" sound. This effect, as created by Steve Lillywhite, Collins and Hugh Padgham,[16] was featured on Collins' and Genesis's recordings throughout the 1980s. The distinctive sound was identified via experiments by Lillywhite, Collins and Padgham, in response to Gabriel's request that Collins and Jerry Marotta not use cymbals on the album's sessions. "Artists given complete freedom die a horrible death," Gabriel explained to Mark Blake. "So, when you tell them what they can't do, they get creative and say, 'Oh yes I can,' which is why I banned cymbals. Phil was cool about it. [Marotta] did object and it took him a while to settle in. It's like being right-handed and having to learn to write with your left."[17] So significant and influential was the sound that it has been claimed by Gabriel, Padgham, Collins, and Lillywhite. It was cited by Public Image Ltd as an influence on the sound of their album The Flowers of Romance,[18] whose engineer, Nick Launay, was in turn employed by Collins to assist with his solo debut, Face Value.[18] Paul Weller, who was recording with his band the Jam in a nearby studio, contributed guitar to "And Through the Wire". Gabriel believed Weller's intense guitar style was ideal for the track. The album, produced by Gabriel and Lillywhite, was Gabriel's first and only release for Mercury Records in the United States, after being rejected by Atlantic Records, who handled U.S. distribution for Gabriel's first two solo albums and his last two albums with Genesis. Upon hearing mixes of session tapes in early 1980, Atlantic A&R executive John Kalodnerdeemed the album not commercial enough for release, and recommended Atlantic drop Gabriel from their roster. "Atlantic Records didn't want to put it out at all," Gabriel told Mark Blake. "Ahmet Ertegun said, 'What do people in America care about this guy in South Africa?' and 'Has Peter been in a mental hospital?' because there was this very weird track called 'Lead a Normal Life'. They thought I'd had a breakdown and recorded a piece of crap ... I thought I'd really found myself on that record, and then someone just squashes it. I went through some primordial rejection issues."[19] By the time the album was released by Mercury several months later, Kalodner – now working for the newly formed Geffen Records label and having realised his mistake – arranged for Geffen to pursue Gabriel as one of their first artist signings.[20] Geffen (at the time distributed by Atlantic sister label Warner Bros. Records) reissued the album in 1983, after Mercury's rights to it lapsed, and marketed it in the United States until 2010, when Gabriel's back catalogue was reissued independently by Real World Records. (Coincidentally, Mercury is now a sister label to Geffen after Mercury's parent PolyGrammerged with Geffen's parent Universal Music Group in 1999.) "I Don't Remember" was performed on Gabriel's 1978 tour for his second album.[21] An earlier studio version was to be the A-side of the first 7" single released in advance of the album by Charisma in Europe and Japan, but a Charisma executive thought Robert Fripp's guitar solos were not radio-friendly. This earlier version wound up as the B-side of the advance "Games Without Frontiers" single instead in those territories. To date, it has not officially been released on CD. The album version of this song appeared as the A-side of a 12" single in the United States and Canada. Peter Gabriel – lead vocals (all except 3); backing vocals (1, 5, 8); piano (1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10); synthesizer (3, 4, 7, 8); drums (10); whistle (7) Kate Bush – backing vocals (2, 7) Dave Gregory – guitar (4, 5) Robert Fripp – guitar (2, 4, 8) David Rhodes – guitar (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10), backing vocals (1, 4, 8) Paul Weller – guitar (6) Larry Fast – synthesizer (1, 2, 3, 7, 10), processing (2, 4, 8), bagpipes (10) John Giblin – bass guitar (2, 5, 6, 7, 8) Tony Levin – Chapman Stick (4) Jerry Marotta – drums (4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10), percussion (7, 8) Phil Collins – drums (1, 2, 6); drum pattern (1); snare (5); surdo (10) Dick Morrissey – saxophone (3, 5, 9) Morris Pert – percussion (1, 2, 9) Dave Ferguson – screeches (10) Steve Lillywhite – producer; whistle (7) Hugh Padgham - engineer; whistle (7) Side One 1. "Intruder" 4:54 2. "No Self Control" 3:55 3. "Start" 1:21 4. "I Don't Remember" 4:42 5. "Family Snapshot" 4:28 6. "And Through the Wire" 5:00 Side Two 7. "Games Without Frontiers" 4:06 8. "Not One of Us" 5:22 9. "Lead a Normal Life" 4:14 10. "Biko" 7:32 ---------------------------------------------- This is a fantastic album, and for me (as much as I like the first two) Gabriel's first absolute classic album. Here he has a uniformity to the sound and feel. The flow of the album is really good and every song is a winner. The first song I ever heard of Gabriel's was Games Without Frontiers and I always loved it, from the first time I heard it. I think the little whistling part is one of the most effective uses of whistling in a song as a hook. I didn't get this album straight away, it took me a few years yet, and I actually purchased the Plays Live album before this. Although when I first got this I was still very attached to the live versions more, this album grew to be a favourite. We have Gabriel and Steve Lillywhite creating a very forward thinking album that really did sit well within the New Wave, but also containing a sound and musical elements that would seem somewhat beyond the majority of the New Wave bands. This album has everything and some very interesting guests. I can't speak highly enough of this album. So anyhow ... What do you think of this album? When did you first discover this album? Has your opinion changed over the years? Please let us know anything and everything that this album is to you and we'll move into the first song tomorrow. Cheers, Mark
SACRED SONGS is an essential record for getting a handle on what Fripp was doing at the time. Taken as a singular body of work, EXPOSURE/PG/SACRED SONGS was an attempt to use the pop song format as a means of expression. “ I think it's a supreme discipline to know that you have three to four minutes to get together all your lost emotions and find words of one syllable or less to put forward all your ideas. It's a discipline of form that I don't think is cheap or shoddy". Jones, Allan (April 28, 1979). "Riding on the Dynamic of Disaster". Melody Maker. From that perspective, Fripp and his collaborators succeeded admirably in working within that framework to convey their vision. PG2 is probably the roughest around the edges of the three albums, and Fripp likely had less control over the project than EXPOSURE or SACRED SONGS. Nonetheless, it is still a fascinating document of where Peter was at the time and another step towards the masterpiece of PG3.
I just bought sacred songs recently and will be giving it a good listen over the next few weeks. Certainly spurred on by the information in this thread. So, thanks folks
Melt is Gabriel's first really great album. The first two were fine but Melt really shines like a beacon. Totally wonderful and unique. Gabriel finally gave us something that was unlike anything else ever created, and worthy of his mystique. Like mark, I heard Games Without Frontiers on the radio and went out and bought the album. I already had the first two albums. The things that made me scratch my head was 1) this was the third Peter Gabriel album with no title given to it 2) all three albums were on different labels 3) I always thought the first line of Games Without Frontiers was "She's so funky, yeah" until I listened at home and discovered it's a line in French (I was totally unaware of the European game show) 4) Another new production team. The label hopping and different producers made me wonder if Peter was having issues with his output, like he didn't know exactly what sound he was going for, and since his records were not exactly big hits, the labels dropped him after one shot. (In America PG1 was on ATCO, PG2 was on Atlantic and PG3 was on Mercury. The label and producer would also change with PG4, but we'll get there). I think my appreciation for this album has only grown over the years. Family Snapshot used to be considered a filler track, now I think it's essential. On the other hand, I like Wire less than I used to. I also used to think Biko was overlong and dull until I learned of the story it is based upon and now think it's one of Peter's most meaningful tracks. The theme of this album is very dark and the cover art really matches the idea of men deteriorating into a void - a criminal/pervert, a man with impulse issues, amnesia/mental instability, a man who shoots up his family, a rapist/sexual predator, a man caught in political upheaval, an outsider, someone rejected by society and a man imprisoned and killed by his own government.
I don't think the wikipedia entry is correct in making a connection between PG taking away cymbals and high-hats from the drummers and the use of gated reverb on the drums in Intruder. He and Phil both have describe this as a kind of fortunate accident having to do more with the sound of Phil's set coming through the monitors/mics in the control room, if I'm not mistaken. Once it happened Peter had Phil continue to play a pattern which he recorded. Both appreciated the revolutionary sound and Phil actually asked if Peter wasn't going to to use it, that he'd like to as well.
I'm not altogether sure whether they originally recorded the cymbals, and then took them out, did a retake or what, but if someone has the facts, they would be appreciated
This link seems to be a balanced breakdown of the possibilities regarding the drums and sound Intruder by Peter Gabriel - Songfacts
Collins' recollection in an interview In 1980, Phil played on Peter Gabriel’s third album, which proved to be a new experience. “On that album, he didn’t want to use cymbals and I said, ‘Okay.’ I know Peter very, very well and I said, ‘I know you’re a man of princi ple, Peter, but there are times when cymbals are a necessity. You’ve just got to have a couple.’ He said, ‘No, no, no. I don’t want any cymbals. I don’t want any metal on the al bum at all.’ So, I thought, ‘Well, okay. I’ll go along with it; it’s your record.’ I still think that maybe there are a couple of instances where it wouldn’t have made much difference, but as a principle, I went along with it. “Most of the things that sound like synthesized drums are just drums that were treated. ‘Intruder’ was just my black kit in the live room at the Townhouse in London with compressors and noise gates. I wish I could actually put into words the way it happened, because it was quite amazing. It was the first time I ever met Hugh Padgham. Steve Lillywhite was the producer, Hugh was engineer, and Peter and myself were literally just mucking about. I was playing around my drums in this live room and Hugh was setting everything up. I went up and hit some and, because of the compression, it elongated the decay. It clips the top; it lengthens it. So, if you hit a snare drum, especially in a live room with a lot of ambience, then you get a gate to cut off. What I was doing was playing ‘dssshh, dssshh, dsssh, dssshh, dsssh, dssshh,’ which we called the ‘face hugger.’ So, it was mucking about with sounds like that, making them sound like synthesized sounds, but in fact they’re not. They were all played like that. They were all played at the same time as the sound, as opposed to not having that sound to play with. link Phil Collins - Modern Drummer Magazine
I think it’s an absolute masterpiece. I bought it on first week of release, mainly on the strength of the single, Games Without Frontiers, but I was already a fan of PG1, not so much 2. Intruder and Biko are my two favourites here. Biko is a pivotal track in Gabriel’s development, since it reveals his fondness for African music, and would be a direction he would follow on PG4, as well as the formation of his WOMAD music festival. I saw the tour for this album, and it was excellent, and it was obvious Genesis was a thing of the past, and he wanted to move forward. I think this was his last great album.
My favorite PG album (although I'd put PG4 just a hair behind). Easily one of the most essential albums of the 80s. Unlike so many of his 70s brethren, Gabriel is so forward-thinking here, and it's not a "trendy" sort of sound either. There's a reason this album barely sounds dated (which can't be said for a lot of Phil Collins and Genesis 80s input, or even PG's own So years later). I will say, I came to this album late. I'd never heard a song from it (not even Games Without Frontiers) until the release of Shaking The Tree in 1990. But that compilation made me a huge PG fan, and I made an effort to check out his earlier albums before So. Hearing PG3 in the 90s was a revelation. And I still revisit it all the time. (The Classic vinyl reissue is my go-to.) Oh, and I still love Wire!
PG's acquisition of the lease to a nearby manor-farm in 1979 meant that recording for a third album could be done at home, as it were, entirely away from the conformity and pressure of studio-world. Freedom of time and greater personal involvement with music approach produced a startlingly good third album, where the grandiose was finally replaced by a sense of individuality in songs about communication, barriers of mind more than matter, isolation, and social masks. "It's taken a while, but I think this third album has got a character to it that I'm much more pleased with, in a way that the first two didn't. There were certain things I was trying to do on the second album, in terms of sound, that I didn't get a chance to try until the third. Some of that is experimentation, and involves fiddling around using a five quid amp, which we put a lot of sounds through, for instance… That was just one 'thing' in a variety of processing that Larry (Fast) and I were working on. "The last album was definitely one where I was more confident of what I was doing, and I was able to make rules. Some of them may be stupid judgements, but they cause you to rethink what you do. I had a lot of arguments with the drummer, but in the end he was quite happy with the result; and I was very happy that the music didn't have all it's high space taken up with cymbals. Some of those things I want to carry through, and I want this next album still to be rhythm-based. But it's taken that long, really, to get something that's recognisably different." Gabriel interview in The Bristol Recorder [BR002], ca. Nov. 1980.
Peter Gabriel 3 At first I was disappointed but then it grown on me and now I think it's ok. Best sounding CD is the original non remastered Virgin/Charisma. Note: The drum sound that some later credit to Collins was in fact created here.
