I've been obsessed with Peter Gabriel's string of self-titled albums recently, and having just played along on guitar to his debut ("Car"), I've noticed how incredibly well-written his music is. If like me, you know about theory and love it when people break the rules but manage to keep it sounding great/even better, I guarantee you'll be surprised by looking at the chords and effortless modulations on his debut in particular.

Those first four solo albums - heck, add So and Passion to the equation, too - really outstripped what Genesis was doing at the time. Genesis did well, but Gabriel was flying over the moon.

I believe Gabriel's first album is underappreciated. Every track is different and the lyrics are as caustic as ever. Where else are you going to find 'Barber Shop' on a prog album? ( someone will tell me no doubt). Gabriel didn't completely abandon symphonic prog with Down The Dolce Vita showing he could write a bombastic loud tune better than anything Genesis ever did. Slowburn is the most underrated Gabriel track. Much of the album has a Spectorish fuzzy quality because of the production. I guess that alienates a few and might be some of the cause of negativity. I would happily though put this up against any Genesis album post 1975. After that Gabriel was searching for his 'voice' to some extent. Perhaps he found that with Melt adopting a harsh post punk approach and not letting Collins use his symbols! Yep it has some great tracks but the icey coldness is a bit off putting for me. I don't know if I will ever love that album.Some of the later stuff is okay especially Us and recently I purchased Up ( what is with these 2 letter titles .. so bloody confusing!!) . Those are way better than anything Genesis were doing at the time ( The Way We Walk and Calling All Stations don't offer much competition though)

Edited by richardh - March 23 2015 at 02:41

I'm not a great fan of Car, it's very over produced and schmultzy to me. The best song on it- Here Comes The Flood- is done better on Fripp's Exposure, and aside from that Solsbury Hill is the remaining highlight.

I love the four of them although like most people it seems, I find Scratch the weakest by a good margin. Melt and Security being my favourite, but Car is also great. It can not be compared to Genesis, neither pre nor post Peter's departure. It must have been one of the sharpest sudden shifts of style by a successful Prog musician, and while completely different to the music which brought him to fame, he managed to make some very interesting and Progressive music, in a way which was novel. I do not know how good a musician-instrumentalist was he at the time, sure enough he had always played flute but, perhaps mistakenly, at the time of his departure I thought he would have it hard writing solo music as I thought he was probably not very good at playing piano, guitar or other main rock instruments, but somehow he managed to do it.

I think his first album is his best. I don't care for the Hugh Padgham production of his later stuff. I know people think the first one is over-produced, but the 70's warmth is there, and the material is the most varied.

I like his first three solo albums the best....I had the 2nd and 3rd when they came out and they were very exciting musically at the time.  

chopper wrote: ghost_of_morphy wrote: 2 is sadly substandard.   I wasn't mad keen on PG2 when it first came out but over the last few years it's grown on me quite a bit, although the production on it isn't great. Overall, PG4 is probably my favourite, particularly "Wallflower".

Melt and Security is pretty strong stuff and, yes, the best was yet to come.

Pretty much everything BrufordFreak said.  I guess I still like “Car” the best, mainly because I found it the easiest and fastest to warm up to.

 

A bit of seemingly-forgotten trivia: the first thing credited to PG solo wasn’t “Car” but his cover of Strawberry Fields Forever, on the “All This and World War II” soundtrack.