Five years after his 1975 departure as the lead singer of prog rock superstars Genesis, Peter Gabriel was still struggling to be a solo star.
Despite the success of his 1977 single Solsbury Hill, Gabriel hadn’t yet made a massive commercial breakthrough. But his third album, aka ‘Melt’ due to its creative cover image, proved to be a hit thanks to a fusion of compelling songs with an unforgettable cover art package. Here’s how it came about…
Released in May 1980, Peter Gabriel 3 was the sound of a singer/songwriter who was finding his inspiration from dark places, with haunting tracks such as Games Without Frontiers, No Self Control, Lead A Normal Life and Intruder. The album’s cover art seemed to perfectly reflect the underlying darkness of the music thanks to a grotesque image of Gabriel’s melting face, which was created by manually manipulating colour Polaroids.
The artwork of Gabriel’s first two solo albums – and, known as ‘Car’ and ‘Scratch’ respectively – was created
