Steve Fairclough reveals the story behind a classic album cover created by deliberately manipulating Polaroids…
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…
HIPGNOSIS
As it remains unknown as to who shot the front cover of the ‘Melt’ album it must simply be credited to Hipgnosis. The graphic art group was founded in 1968 by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and Storm Thorgerson (1944-2013), and was allegedly named by former Pink Floyd leader Syd Barrett. Arguably its most famous design is for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon LP. Hipgnosis created almost 200 album covers between 1968 and 1983, before disbanding to work on film projects. www.aubreypowell.com
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 – Peter Gabriel 1 and 2, known as ‘Car’ and ‘Scratch’ respectively – was created by design group Hipgnosis. For his third solo album cover, Gabriel again turned to the agency. By 1980, the Hipgnosis co-founders, Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, were legendary creatives due to their iconic LP cover designs for rock groups such as Led Zeppelin and Pink
