Peter Gabriel V1

In 1977, two years after leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel emerged as a solo artist with the first of three records entitled PETER GABRIEL. He was anxious for a change of musical direction, but after years of fronting one of the foremost art-rock outfits of the era, he hadn't exactly lost his taste for the dramatic. On his own, Gabriel was free to explore his own personal obsessions. Consequently the work is rife with images of isolation, paranoia, and the apocalypse. Aided by the London Symphony Orchestra and the cavernous production of Bob Ezrin (Kiss, Alice Cooper), the record reaches dramatic peaks of symphonic rock.
Musically, Gabriel was clearly in experimental mode. The collection opens with the cheery yet menacing "Moribund the Burgermeister" (which sounds like a twisted fairy tale), followed by the hit "Solsbury Hill", a lilting acoustic ballad which obliquely addresses Gabriel's departure from Genesis and is an enduring fixture on FM radio. "Modern Love", with its larynx-shredding vocal, rocks as hard as anything Gabriel ever recorded. The just plain odd "Excuse Me", Gabriel's sole foray into barbershop quartet territory, has old-world charm, and "Here Comes the Flood" is Gabriel at his doomiest.|