Top tracks - Peter Gabriel

I was first aware of Peter Gabriel when 'Games Without Frontiers' was a hit when I was young.  It wasn't until the album 'So' was released in 1986 that I took serious notice of his talent.  That album and the videos produced, made Peter into an international star after a decade of solo releases that had provided success in Europe mainly.

There are a couple of things about Peter that are consistent: firstly, he is an musical innovator and secondly, he is a slow worker!  The long gaps between releases appear to partly be due to other work as well as his slow writing style.

As you may know, Peter was the original vocalist in Genesis and apart from his solo work, he has promoted world music, set up WOMAD, carried out humanitarian work, operated a successful studio complex and ran a record company.  His work on internet projects has also been highly successful and influential.  His website was one of the first artist sites and his software called 'Filter' that gave music recommendations based on an existing music collections has been copied many times.

Here are my favourite tracks - as his first 4 solo albums were all called 'Peter Gabriel', I have numbered them:

1. Solsbury Hill  (Peter Gabriel 1)
2. Games Without Frontiers    (Peter Gabriel 3)
3. Mother Of Violence    (Peter Gabriel 2)
4. Sledgehammer    (So)
5. Sky Blue    (Up)
6. Steam    (Us)
7. Big Time    (So)
8. In Your Eyes    (So)
9. Digging In The Dirt    (Us)
10. Red Rain    (So)
11. Downside-Up [Live]   (Hits)
12. Growing Up    (Up)
13. No Way Out    (Up)
14. Don't Give Up    (So)
15. More Than This    (Up)
16. I Grieve    (Up)
17. Shock The Monkey    (Peter Gabriel 4)
18. Come Talk To Me    (Us)
19. I Don't Remember   (Peter Gabriel 3)
20. Blood Of Eden    (Us)
21. Father, Son    (Ovo)
22. Kiss That Frog    (Us)
23. Flume    (Scratch My Back)
24. Shaking The Tree (Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats)
25. The Barry Williams Show    (Up)

You can see this list on iTunes and listen to clips here.