Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (Car)(1977)

“Peter Gabriel” by Peter Gabriel (1977)

Release Date: February 25, 1977
Produced by Bob Ezrin
Genre: Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Prog Rock
Label: Charisma, Atco
Chart Positions: #1 (Holland), #5 (Norway, France, Italy), #7 (UK), #8 (Sweden), #9 (Germany, Netherlands), #10 (Austria), #25 (Australia), #30 (Canada), #38 (New Zealand, US)
Certifications: Gold (UK, France, Germany)

Singles: “Solsbury Hill” #3 (France), #9 (Poland), #11 (Holland), #13 (Austria, Netherlands, UK), #14 (Belgium), #16 (Germany), #45 (Australia), #68 (US), #92 (Canada), “Modern Love” (No chart data)

Peter Gabriel is the first studio album by English rock musician Peter Gabriel and the first of four with the same eponymous title. Released on 25 February 1977, it was produced by Bob Ezrin (Ezrin is best remembered for producing Alice Cooper’s classic albums through the 1970s and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”). Gabriel and Ezrin assembled a team of musicians, including King Crimson main-man Robert Fripp, to record the album. Upon the album's release, Gabriel began touring with a seven-piece band under his own name.

The album was recorded in the wintertime in Toronto where Bob Ezrin was based at the time. Gabriel got to know the area by riding a bicycle from place to place.

This album is often called either Peter Gabriel 1 or Car, referring to the album cover by London artist Peter Christopherson when he was associated with the London artists group Hipgnosis. The car was a Lancia Flavia owned by Hipgnosis founder Storm Thorgerson. One of the first ideas Gabriel had for the cover was to use mirrored contact lenses. It took him a while to find someone that would make the lenses for him. Gabriel said, "They were painful to wear, but the effect was fantastic."

“Peter Gabriel 1 - Car” (Click Here)

Peter Gabriel's first self-titled album served as his creative exodus from Genesis (no pun intended ... OK, kinda). It's a purposefully eclectic, anything-flies approach to songcraft, venturing from hard-hitting rock ("Modern Love") to quirky art-rock (the vastly underrated "Moribund The Burgermeister") to pastoral folk-pop (the lovely "Solsbury Hill," which serves as a thinly veiled kiss-off to his former band) to, umm, barbershop quartet crooning ("Excuse Me"). No other Gabriel album is quite so diverse in stylistic content. Overall, Car is a fascinating first chapter.

Peter Gabriel commented on his website: “I really wanted the first record to be different from what I’d done with Genesis so we were trying to do things in different styles. A bit of barbershop, which Tony Levin helped with, there were more bluesy things, a variety of songs and arrangements that were consciously trying to provide something different than what I’d done before.”

Peter Gabriel’s debut solo single was “Solsbury Hill,” Gabriel has said of the song's meaning, "It's about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get ... It's about letting go." Former bandmate Tony Banks acknowledges that the song reflects Gabriel's decision to break ties with Genesis, but it can be also applied in a broader sense. The song was a huge hit in Europe having reached the Top 20 in France, Poland, Holland, Netherlands, UK, Belgium and Germany. In the US the song only reached #68.

"Solsbury Hill" (1977)

Built around an acoustic guitar riff, this song is much more simple and toned-down from his extravagant work with Genesis. At one point Gabriel was going to leave the song off of the album but in the end decided to include it. Gabriel considers “Solsbury Hill one of his favorites. It's almost always included in his live shows. Solsbury Hill is located near Bath, England, where Gabriel would often walk or jog.

The second and final single, the surging rocker “Modern Love, ” failed to chart anywhere despite a music video that was made to promote the song. The video was shot in a shopping mall that was in the process of being built. Most of the video is filmed on a moving escalator (which Gabriel felt was very “in the future” at the time).

One of the album’s popular cuts “Slowburn” takes Peter Gabriel back to familiar ground with elements of his earlier orchestral work with Genesis.

In the song "Down The Dolce Vita" Gabriel introduces the characters Aeron and Gorham who set out on a journey across the sea. They would become part of Gabriel's story of Mozo, a mercurial stranger who would come and go, changing people's lives. Mozo would show up again in "On The Air," "Exposure," "Red Rain" and "That Voice Again."

One of the most interesting songs, lyrically, is "Here Comes The Flood." Gabriel is speaking about a mental flood, "a release, a wash over the mind." He presents an image of a society where people can read each other's minds. Gabriel says the song was inspired by a dream he had.

Peter Gabriel Advertisement (March 5, 1977)

Peter Gabriel (1977) Mirrored Contacts

Link to “Peter Gabriel 1” (Click Here)

PETER GABRIEL

Roxy Music - Siren (1975)

“Siren” by Roxy Music (1975)

Release Date: October 24, 1975
Produced by Chris Thomas
Chart Positions: #50 (US), #4 (UK), #8 (Sweden), #9 (Netherlands), #15 (Norway), #3 (New Zealand)
Certifications: Gold (UK)
Singles: “Love Is The Drug” (#30 US, #2 UK, #3 Canada, #9 Netherlands, #15 Belgium, #18 Australia, #24 New Zealand, #39 Germany
“Both Ends Burning” (#25 UK)


“Siren” is the fifth studio album by English art-rock band “Roxy Music. This is the album that put Roxy Music on radio stations across the US due to their hit “Love Is The Drug.”

"Siren" by Roxy Music (Click Here)

“Siren” was well received by critics upon it’s release with many of them putting it amongst the best of the year. In the 1975 Pazz and Jop critics poll it was voted the 13th best album of 1975. Cream Magazine music critic, Dave Marsh, rated the album as the 4th best album of 1975 in his Book of Rock Lists. The album was ranked number 371 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The cover features band member Bryan Ferry's then-girlfriend, model Jerry Hall, on rocks near South Stack, Anglesey. Graham Hughes, working during August 1975, took the cover photo directly below the central span of the bridge on a south-side slope. He worked from sketches produced by Antony Price; with photography featuring Hall striking various poses. The idea for the location was Bryan Ferry's, after he saw a TV documentary about lava flows and rock formations in Anglesey, in which South Stack was heavily featured. Hall' recalled in her autobiography, Tall Tales that the blue body paint she wore to look like a mythical siren would not wash off. According to the model, Ferry took her back to his house to help her remove the paint. Jerry Hall left Ferry in 1978 to date Mick Jagger.

Producer Chris Thomas has worked with the most popular British musicians including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend and a host of others. Thomas produced a total of five albums for Roxy Music including “For Your Pleasure,” “Stranded,” “Country Life,” “Siren” and the live album “Viva.” Thomas met Bryan Ferry during recording sessions for Procol Harum.

The first single “Love Is The Drug” originated as an Andy Mackay instrumental which later Bryan Ferry added lyrics. The song was an instant hit in the UK where it zoomed up the charts to #2. It was kept off the top of the UK charts by a re-release of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” “Love Is The Drug” was their first song to bring attention to Roxy Music in the US where it received a good amount of airplay on progressive rock radio stations and eventually jumping over to Top 40 radio. The song peaked at #30 on the US Billboard chart.

"Love Is The Drug"

The second single “Both Ends Burning” was not nearly as successful but did manage to squeak out a #25 peak position on the UK singles chart. Singer Bryan Ferry recalled to The Mail on Sunday June 28, 2009: "We were on a punishing world tour schedule in 1975 and there were a lot of late nights to get the Siren album finished on time. I guess this was the inspiration behind this song.

Other album highlights include the Bryan Ferry/Phil Manzanera written “Whirlwind” and the Bryan Ferry/Eddie Jobson written “She Sells,” the latter a quirky song that is reminiscent of earlier classic such as “Do The Strand” and “Editions of You.”

Roxy Music (1975)

Roxy Music Siren (Alternate Album Cover 1975)

Link to “Siren” (Click Here)

ROXY MUSIC