Classic Album Covers- Peter Gabriel

It’s Friday, May 30^th 1980. Your Dad’s eyes are glued to the TV to watch baseball. He’s probably watching that game where Minnesota Twins player Ken Landreaux ended his hitting streak after a legendary 31 games. Either way, he’s distracted. You and your friends decide to take his car. You take it out Record Town in Sangertown to pick up the new Peter Gabriel Album. This album is simply titled “Peter Gabriel”

Why would Gabriel title his new album with just his name? Gabriel refused to title any of his first four solo albums. All four were labeled using the same typeface, but featured different cover designs. In each of these albums Gabriel's face is obscured in some way. The first three solo albums often referred to as Car, Scratch and Melt. Let’s talk Melt.

The album contains two of Gabriel's most famous songs, the U.K. Top 10 hit "Games Without Frontiers" and the political song "Biko", about the late anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. The album was Gabriel's first and only release for Mercury Records in the U.S., 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. In 1989, the album was ranked #45 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Albums of the 80's". In 2000, Q magazine placed the album at #53 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.”

Side One

"Intruder"

"No Self Control"

"Start"

"I Don't Remember"

"Family Snapshot"

"And Through the Wire"

Side Two

"Games Without Frontiers"

"Not One of Us"

"Lead a Normal Life"

"Biko"