Song · Peter Gabriel
“Modern Love” by Peter Gabriel
From the album Peter Gabriel (1977)
“Modern Love” by Peter Gabriel appears on 9 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 1989 and 2022. It was first released in 1977 on the album Peter Gabriel. Its best result is #392 on the WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1989). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #2,024 alternative song of all time.
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"Modern Love" comes off Peter Gabriel's self-titled 1977 album, and it's a rowdy, strutting rocker that Gabriel himself called a comic tale of a romantic lost in a world of machines. The words are loaded with innuendo and nods to Roman myth and old masters, the Mona Lisa and Botticelli's The Birth of Venus among them.
Producer Bob Ezrin wasn't having a polite vocal. When Gabriel's take on one line kept coming out too well-mannered, Ezrin had engineer Brian Christian haul him up a ladder and duct-tape him by the armpits to a pillar in the studio, then rolled tape while the singer flailed and howled. Released as the album's second single, it missed the charts entirely, but it went out on the road with him, and Peter Medak, whom Gabriel picked after seeing The Ruling Class, directed the video.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 392 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1989) | 500 |
| 1999 | 1014 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 2000 |
| 2000 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000) | 2001 |
| 2001 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001) | 2002 |
| 2002 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002) | 2003 |
| 2003 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003) | 2004 |
| 2004 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004) | 2005 |
| 2005 | 760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) | 1994 |
| 2022 | 698 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Colorado Sound Songs of All Time | 1055 |
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