Grab your things, I've come to take you home

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

22/05/77 : Peter Gabriel 1 (Car) - Peter Gabriel

Do you know what?  I don't think I've ever listened to this album - I'd better fix that immediately!

Well, there's not too many people who would call the opening track to their debut solo album "Moribund The Burgermeister", are there?  It's not my favourite track on the album and it isn't done any favours by being immediately followed by "Solsbury Hill" which is a stone-cold classic.  The variation in style and quality continues across the album - I really liked "Humdrum" and "Here Comes The Flood" (although it's not as cool as his stripped back live version).  "Down With The Dolce Vita" really shows up his prog roots but I could quite easily have lived without "Excuse Me" and "Waiting For The Big One" - they are both very odd.

Overall, I wouldn't say this was an immediate grabber - it certainly has potential but it's interesting to compare this with the recent offering from Leo Sayer because they're a lot closer than you'd expect from albums at very different ends of the coolness scale.  To be fair, I should point out that Pete wrote all of his songs though - there's no doubt he's a talented lad but it all feels a bit scatter-gun here.

We're at #17 in the charts this week on his twelfth week of a seventeen week run, with it having peaked at #7 in its first week.  The top five this week were ABBA, Eagles, The Beatles, 10cc and A Star Is Born and the highest new entry was Alice Cooper (#33) and I'm fine without having to suffer that.

Wikipedia tells us this is his debut solo effort but you might have guessed that from the name - he left Genesis in '75 and took a bit of time off with his family, but he was back recording in no time really (Mrs Gabriel probably got bored with him kicking around the house).  He had a decent set of musicians around him including Robert Fripp and Tony Levin, both of whom I saw playing live last year at the ripe old age of 76 - Bob with his missus and Tony still playing with Pete!

The car is, quite obviously, a Lancia 2000 owned by Storm Thorgerson, which tells us we've got yet another Hipgnosis cover here.  The critics were very nice about the album, although NME thought it was somewhat overshadowed by some of the other higher profile albums of the year.  It did well enough commercially though, getting into the top ten across most of Northern Europe and although it only reached #38 in the US, it still sold 500k units over there.

"Customers also listened to" Genesis, Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Steve Hackett - there's a not-so-subtle theme running through that list!  I found this an interesting listen but, at first listen, trying a few too many things to fully work for me.

15/05/77 - A most peculiar album
29/05/77 - Pretty forgettable