Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
1977
Album Summary
Peter Gabriel is the debut studio album by the English singer-songwriter and producer Peter Gabriel, released on 25 February 1977 by Charisma Records. After his departure from the progressive rock band Genesis was made public in 1975, Gabriel took a break to concentrate on his family life. In 1976, he began writing material for a solo album and met producer Bob Ezrin, who agreed to produce it. Gabriel hired several additional musicians to play on the album, including guitarist Robert Fripp and bassist Tony Levin. The album was later known as Peter Gabriel I or Car, referring to the album's artwork produced by Hipgnosis. Upon the album's release, it peaked at No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 38 on the US Billboard 200. It has since reached Gold certification in both countries for selling 100,000 and 500,000 copies, respectively. The song "Solsbury Hill" was the first single which peaked at No. 13 in the UK. Gabriel supported the album with a tour of Europe and the US through 1977, featuring a seven-piece band including Fripp and Levin. The album was remastered in 2002 and 2011.
WikipediaThis is one of the most eclectic albums I've gotten so far. Every song felt like peter gabriel just decided to pick a random genre and do his version of it. However, I wasn't super engaged by the album which might be more because it was on in the car while I was driving but nonetheless I didn't find too many of the songs enjoyable by themselves. The smooth jazz one was decent but other than that I already don't remember too much about it
A pretty good debut, solo album. Clearly, Peter was trying to find a sound, and I think it’s obvious that it’s songs like “Solsbury Hill.“
This was enjoyable, a bit chaotic at times, but there were some very pleasant moments as well. He seems to enjoy contrasting sweet gentle melodies with sudden loud and harsh, almost zombie-like emotion-stiffling spells. There were times when I heard inventive musical arrangements and that is always a plus when someone creates a sound that has not been heard before. A lot of contrasting darkness and lightness, sound-wise, not entirely sure about lyric-wise. Solsbury Hill is a very sweet song and to my surprise I recognized that one.
Oh, how clever, he just names all of his albums "PETER GABRIEL". This is the one with his best song, which has been co-opted too many times in mediocre movies and movie trailers. It's also the album where he sound like Randy Newman on a couple of songs. Frankly, I like my Bob Ezrin produced albums to be a little more coked out than what we get here. Especially one from the 1970's.
A rather incohesive collection of overly eccentric songs. Lucky for us, Peter Gabriel's solo music improved vastly as his career progressed. Let's just say I wouldn't have picked this particular album of his into this list.