''Peter Gabriel'' is the second studio album by English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, released on 3 June 1978 by

Charisma Records Charisma Records (also known as The Famous Charisma Label) was a British record label founded in 1969 by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith. He had previously acted as manager for rock bands such as The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van der ...

. Gabriel started recording the album in November 1977, the same month that he had completed touring in support of his debut solo release. He employed former

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

guitarist

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

, who was part of Gabriel's early touring band, to produce the album and incorporated his use of

Frippertronics Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

effects on the co-written "Exposure". The album was released in the US as ''Peter Gabriel II''. It later became known informally as ''Scratch'', referring to the album's artwork by

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black Sabbath, UFO, 10c ...

. The album reached No. 10 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

and No. 45 on the US ''Billboard'' Pop Albums chart.

Background

The influence of producer

is evident in the use of

on the track "Exposure", which Fripp and Gabriel cowrote. Fripp recorded a version of the song as the title track of his 1979 solo album '' Exposure''.

Critical reception

In the ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' in 1978,

Nick Kent Nick Kent (born 24 December 1951) is a British rock critic best known for his writing for the '' NME'' in the 1970s, and his books ''The Dark Stuff'' (1994) and ''Apathy for the Devil'' (2010). Early life Kent, the son of a former Abbey Road S ...

wrote: "Its brazenly left-field veneer left me cold at first, and it's only now that its strengths are starting to come across ... once past the disarming non-focus veneer, there's a quietly remarkable talent at work – quiet in the manner of the slow fuse burn of 'Mother of Violence' with Roy Bittan's piano work outstripping anything he's turned out for either Bruce Springsteen or

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

. Closer to the root of the album, there's a purity, a strength to the songs individual enough to mark Gabriel out as a man whose creative zenith is close at hand."

Track listing

Notes

* On original LP pressings of the album, the audio of "White Shadow" (the last song on Side One) continued into a

locked groove The overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes (7, 10, or 12 inches), playback speeds (33, 45, or 78 RPM), and appearance (round black discs). However, since the commercial adoption of the gramophone record (ca ...

. * Some editions of the cassette release had a different running order. "A Wonderful Day in a One-Way World" was track 11, "Home Sweet Home" was track 5, and "White Shadow" was track 4. * The original B-side of the single "D.I.Y." is a longer version of "Perspective" edited for the album and all subsequent releases.

Personnel

* Peter Gabriel – vocals; Hammond organ on 11; piano on 2; synthesizer on 5, 7 *

– electric guitar on 1, 3, 5, 10; acoustic guitar on 5; Frippertronics on 8 *

Tony Levin Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer, specializing in electric bass, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (since 1 ...

– bass guitar on 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11;

Chapman stick The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines ...

on 2, 4, 9;

string bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar ...

on 6; recorder arrangements on 6, 9; backing vocals on 1, 4, 7, 10, 11 *

Roy Bittan Roy J. Bittan (born July 2, 1949) is an American musician best known as a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Professor", Bittan joined the E Street Band in 1974. He plays the piano, organ, accordion and synthe ...

– keyboards on 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11 *

Larry Fast Lawrence Roger Fast (born December 10, 1951) is an American synthesizer player and composer. He is best known for his 1975–1987 series of synthesizer music albums (''Synergy'') and for his contributions to a number of popular music acts, inclu ...

– synthesizer, treatments on 1, 2, 5, 7, 10 *

Jerry Marotta Jerome David Marotta (born February 6, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a drummer and composer. Career Marotta was a member of the bands ...

– drums on all except 3; backing vocals on 1, 4, 10, 11 *

Sid McGinnis Sidney Foster "Sid" McGinnis (born October 6, 1949) is an American musician and guitarist, best known for his work on the CBS television show ''Late Show with David Letterman'', as part of the CBS Orchestra. The Pittsburgh-born guitarist made h ...

– electric guitar on 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11; acoustic guitar on 2, 3; steel guitar on 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11; mandolin on 2; backing vocals on 7 *Bayeté (

Todd Cochran Todd Cochran (born September 3, 1951) is an American pianist, composer, keyboardist, essayist and conceptual artist. Early in his career he was also professionally known as Bayeté. Cochran started his career as a teenager with saxophonist John H ...

) – keyboards on 2, 4, 6, 7 * Tim Cappello – saxophone on 10, 11 *George Marge – recorder on 6, 8, 9 *John Tims – insects on 3

Charts

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control Peter Gabriel albums 1978 albums Albums with cover art by Hipgnosis Albums produced by Robert Fripp Atlantic Records albums Charisma Records albums