Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel III/Melt (1980) Genre: Experimental Rock and Prog-Rock

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel III/Melt (1980)

Genre: Experimental Rock and Prog-Rock

Here we are at Peter Gabriel’s artistic zenith, this album is incredible. It really pushes the limits of what you can do on a rock album..  

   

Vocals and Lyrics: Intruder is one of the sickest and darkest songs that  I have ever listen to, like most of the lyrics on this album are pretty intriguing, like “Family Snapshot” or the epic political anthem of Biko. 10

Instrumentation:

Guitar: Robert Fripp is on a couple of tracks, but the guitar in general takes second stage.

Bass: Effect heavy bass line of a “I don’t remember” is mind blowing, its actual played on a Chapman Stick by Tony Levin. 

Drums: Intruder and Biko have simple but incredibly effective drum playing on each one of these tracks. 7.8

Melody and/or Structure: A very dark but the songs mostly have a typical pop structure. 10

Sound, Production and Feeling: This album is dark, claustrophobic and innovative.  Songs like “Games without Frontiers” are very ahead of their time. And on the other hand  you have the simple but powerful protest song of Biko. 10  

Songs: Every song on this album is a classic. 10

The Bad: 

Originality: Peter’s brilliance just keeps growing, moving out farther and farther away from a traditional band structure, I can observe the direct influence of this album on artist like Trent Reznor. 10

Overall: 57.8