Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel, born in 1950 and hailing from Cobham, England, was the costumed, theatrical frontman of Genesis, the band he co-founded as a schoolboy at Charterhouse in 1967. He sang and wrote most of the words on the prog-rock sagas of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound, but by the time of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway relations inside the band had soured, and after the tour he walked out in 1975, leaving the microphone to Phil Collins.

What came next was stranger and better. Gabriel put out 4 albums all simply called Peter Gabriel, in 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1982, and together they ranged across progressive rock, new wave, post-punk and rhythms from far beyond Britain. The first carried "Solsbury Hill", a gentle, lilting tune with a spring in its step. The third was bleak and brittle, with the chilly "Games Without Frontiers" and "Biko", a protest against apartheid in South Africa. "Shock the Monkey", from the fourth, was jittery, twitchy funk. In 1982 he helped launch the WOMAD festival to bring world music to wider ears.

So, in 1986, was the breakthrough, and it turned him from a cult hero into an international star. "Sledgehammer" is a brassy, sweaty soul workout, and its video swept up nine MTV awards. "Big Time" is all strutting funk, "Red Rain" rolls in on a dark swell, and "In Your Eyes" builds and builds until it fills the room. That same year he headlined Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope tour, the start of a long run of human rights work.

He later founded Real World Studios and the Real World Records label, took a Grammy for Best New Age Album in 1990, and followed up with Us in 1992, home of the slinky "Steam" and the grimy "Digging in the Dirt", and Up in 2002. Scratch My Back in 2010 found him singing other people's songs. He has entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with Genesis and once on his own.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.