Line #31 Music/Melt


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3_melt.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''It's a knockout!\
3	If looks could kill, they probably will.'']]
4	->''I know something about opening windows and doors\
5	I know how to move quietly to creep across creaky wooden floors\
6	I know where to find precious things in all your cupboards and drawers\
7	Slipping the clippers\
8	Slipping the clippers through the telephone wires\
9	The sense of isolation inspires\
10	Inspires me''
11	-->-- "Intruder"
12
13	''Peter Gabriel'', also known by its AscendedFanon nickname ''Melt'', is the third album by the English ProgressiveRock musician [[Music/PeterGabriel of the same name]]. It was released through Creator/CharismaRecords in the United Kingdom, and Creator/MercuryRecords in the United States, on 30 May 1980. It would later be re-issued in the US by Creator/GeffenRecords in 1983.
14
15	This third SelfTitledAlbum marks [[NewSoundAlbum a radical departure in sound, style, and tone]] from not only Gabriel's previous output, but the direction of western popular music as a whole, combining his preexisting mix of progressive rock, art rock, PostPunk, and NewWaveMusic with WorldMusic in a radically unique manner. In hindsight, the combination was an inevitable one: the practice of mixing western and nonwestern musical styles had been in place since at least the exotica boom of the late '50s, and Music/TheBeatles particularly brought it to prominence in white rock with the use of sitar in songs like [[Music/RubberSoul "Norwegian Wood"]] and [[Music/RevolverBeatlesAlbum "Tomorrow Never Knows"]].
16
17	However, most invocations of this approach were generally regarded by critics and audiences as novelties at best and misguided experiments at worst. Gabriel, meanwhile, was one of the first Western acts to prove to listeners that this combination of sounds was more than just a novelty and that it could make artistically compelling music on par with that of already-established western giants, consequently thrusting what would later be known as "worldbeat" into the mainstream.
18
19	In the leadup to the album's release, Gabriel had developed an interest in music from sub-Saharan Africa and in new forms of technology that were becoming available to musicians, primarily drum machines and digital samplers like the Fairlight CMI. At the same time, Gabriel found himself still struggling to adequately separate himself from his past as the former frontman of Music/{{Genesis\|Band}}, with his first two records being closer to continuations of his material with the band than a genuine means of breaking apart as a solo act. Consequently, Gabriel took a far darker, more experimental approach to his third album, crafting an aggressive, cavernous sound with heavy emphasis on percussion.
20
21	To better consolidate this drastic shift, Gabriel enlisted the help of producer Steve Lillywhite, by then already a known name in the post-punk scene for his work with Music/SiouxsieAndTheBanshees and the first incarnation of Music/{{Ultravox}}. Melding Siouxsie's Gothic atmosphere with Ultravox's leftfield style and Gabriel's knack for general strangeness, Lillywhite worked closely with Gabriel and a large bevy of session musicians, including fellow Genesis alum Music/PhilCollins and young art pop innovator Music/KateBush, to bring together an album that was both abrasively dense and forebodingly hollow (in turn influencing the direction of Bush's subsequent material).
22
23	The album topped the UK Albums Charts, peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard 200, his highest chart placement at that date, and was certified gold by the BPI just three days after its release (later being certified gold in France and the U.S. as well), overall acting as Gabriel's BreakthroughHit as a solo artist in the UK. Additionally, lead single "Games Without Frontiers" peaked at No. 4 on the UK Singles chart and became the 54th best-selling single of the year in Britain. The song reached a respectable No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, but received heavy airplay on American rock radio before Billboard would launch a chart to track airplay on these stations the following year.
24
25	''Melt'' was supported by four singles: "Games Without Frontiers", "No Self Control", "Biko", and "I Don't Remember."
26
27	!!Tracklist:
28	[[AC:Side One]]
29	# "Intruder" (4:54)
30	# "No Self Control" (3:55)
31	# "Start" (1:21)
32	# "I Don't Remember" (4:42)
33	# "Family Snapshot" (4:28)
34	# "And Through the Wire" (5:00)
35
36	[[AC:Side Two]]
37	# "Games Without Frontiers" (4:06)
38	# "Not One of Us" (5:22)
39	# "Lead a Normal Life" (4:14)
40	# "Biko" (7:32)
41
42	!! ''I trope into the light'':
43	* AllLowercaseLetters: Like Gabriel's other three SelfTitledAlbum[=s=], the logotype for ''Melt'' is written this way.
44	* AlternateAlbumCover:
45	** Original European cassette versions had a regular color portrait of Gabriel on the cover.
46	** As was the case with with ''Music/{{Car}}'' (though curiously not ''Music/{{Scratch}}'' or ''Music/{{Security}}''), original CD releases increase the size of the "peter gabriel" logotype, this time moving it from the left corner to the right.
47	* {{Anadiplosis}}: "Games Without Frontiers" repeats names at the beginning and ends of consecutive phrases:
48	--> Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane
49	--> Jane plays with Willi, Willi is happy again
50	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Arthur Bremer shot Wallace during a rally at the Laurel Shopping Center in Maryland, not at a motorcade as "Family Snapshot" describes; there were also no other governors present aside from Wallace himself. Gabriel incorporated the motorcade imagery from the assassination of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, which was more familiar to a worldwide audience.
51	* AttentionWhore: True to the real Arthur Bremer's motivation, the narrator of "Family Snapshot" openly states that his assassination attempt is a ploy for immediate attention.
52	* AudienceParticipationSong: The wordless chanting in "Biko", accentuated by the music video for the 1987 live version, in which Gabriel dedicates each round of chanting to the victims of apartheid.
53	* BookEnds:
54	** "Biko" opens with a sample of Steve Biko's funeral procession, specifically the crowd of mourners singing "Ngomhla Sibuyayo"[[note]]a South African folk song that decries apartheid; the lines heard in the song are "Ngomhla sibuyayo, kophalal'igazi! Bakhala uVorster!" which translate to "On the day we return, blood shall be shed! Vorster will weep!" referring to John Vorster, then-president of South Africa and generally considered the man responsible for imprisoning UsefulNotes/NelsonMandela[[/note]] and features another sample of the same crowd singing "Senzeni Na?" just before the gunfire-esque drumbeats that close the song. On the single release, the closing sample is replaced with a recording of "Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika" (which by coincidence would later become the South African national anthem following the abolition of apartheid), with excerpts of the song both opening and closing "Biko" on the German-language version of ''Melt''.
55	** The booming sound of the drums that close out "Biko" also recall the gated drums that open "Intruder" at the start of the album.
56	* {{Bowdlerise}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SWMqzM_Sg The music video]] for "Games Without Frontiers" had to be considerably edited when it aired on Creator/TheBBC, removing scenes of Gabriel whistling among a group of children role-playing as classical European diplomats and Gabriel whistling while crawling against a backdrop of wind-up toy babies due to the higher-ups at the network deeming them obscene[[note]]nothing legitimately obscene actually occurs in the uncensored video; Gabriel would later quip in an interview that "[the BBC has] perhaps a more fertile imagination than I have"[[/note]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZmlUV8muY The censored version]] instead replaces these scenes with elaborate sequences of people moving in various patterns and additional sports stock footage; to this day the BBC cut remains the only one officially available through Gabriel's WebSite/YouTube channel.
57	* CarefulWithThatAxe: "I Don't Remember" opens with Gabriel screaming his head off.
58	* ConceptAlbum: The album was described by Gabriel in an interview as "the history of a decaying mind." While the description was meant to be joking, themes of insanity and amnesia feature heavily throughout the album.
59	* CutPhoneLines: The narrator of "Intruder" takes pride in his knowledge of stealthily cutting his victims' phone lines so they wouldn't be able to call for help if he was discovered mid-heist.
60	* DarkerAndEdgier: Far, ''far'' darker than anything Gabriel put out before, with an aggressively haunting musical landscape and lyrics about mental and social decay (to the point where his record company mistakenly thought he was undergoing a CreatorBreakdown). This even extends to the cover art, which features a good amount of FacialHorror that directly contrasts the comparatively tame artwork for ''Music/{{Car}}'' and ''Music/{{Scratch}}''. As for specific songs, "And Through the Wire" is probably the closest Gabriel ever came to recording a metal song, while "Intruder" is one of the darkest, most oppressive songs in his catalogue.
61	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The album cover, an intentionally ruined Polaroid re-photographed on black and white film.
62	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The album cover is a collaboration between Gabriel and Creator/{{Hipgnosis}}, in which they used styluses to move the dyes around in various Polaroids while they developed as a way of altering the image. The ones that Gabriel liked the best were then re-photographed with black and white film and used as the album art.
63	* DownerEnding: The album closes out with "Biko", a bleak dirge mourning the murder of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.
64	* EpicRocking: The 7:32 "Biko". The single release actually features the song uncut (resulting in 7" copies needing to be played at 33 1/3 RPM like an LP rather than the typical 45 RPM), allowing its mournful dirge to remain un-tampered across formats.
65	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: While not present to the same extent as its omnipresence on ''Music/{{Security}}'', ''Melt'' sees Gabriel start to experiment with the trope thanks to his excitement about the potential held by the Fairlight CMI following a visit from inventor Peter Vogel. Among others, "Intruder" features the sound of a glass cutter as part of the instrumental track (tying into the lyrics about burglary), and recordings of breaking bottles and bricks appear here and there as percussive trimming. In 1996, Stephen Paine, who was also present at Vogel's visit, recounted Gabriel's enthusiasm about the CMI and its implications for this trope as follows:
66	-->"The idea of recording a sound into solid-state memory and having real-time pitch control over it appeared incredibly exciting. Until that time everything that captured sound had been tape-based. The Fairlight CMI was like a much more reliable and versatile digital Mellotron. Gabriel was completely thrilled, and instantly put the machine to use during the week that Peter Vogel stayed at his house."
67	* FaceOnTheCover: As with Gabriel's previous two albums, ''Melt'' adorns itself with an edited picture of Gabriel, via a manipulated Polaroid re-photographed on monochrome film.
68	* FacialHorror: The cover art depicts half of Gabriel's face melted into an indistinct waterfall of ooze, the other half already starting to melt. This was accomplished by manipulating a photo of Gabriel from a Polaroid SX-70 instant film camera.
69	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: "Start" hard-cuts into "I Don't Remember".
70	* ForeignCultureFetish: The album's WorldMusic influences were the result of Gabriel developing a heavy interest in African cultures.
71	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Phil Collins' drum solo during the bridge of "No Self Control" is like a test run for the one he'd use for [[Music/FaceValue "In the Air Tonight"]] a year later; the sound was developed during the sessions for this album, and Collins liked it enough to bring over to his own solo debut.
72	* FranchiseCodifier: While ''Music/{{Car}}'' and ''Music/{{Scratch}}'' were mostly continuations of Gabriel's time with Music/{{Genesis\|Band}}, this was the album that established his template as a solo act, something that he himself agreed with. The WorldMusic-infused art rock sound and themes of mental decay and social protest would become key elements of his following output, and while the world elements eventually faded out in the 2000's, they still had a significant knock-on effect on his material.
73	* FreudianExcuse: "Family Snapshot" ends with a flashback to Arthur Bremer's troubled childhood, specifically the acrimonious separation of his parents, signaling it as a direct factor in Bremer's later decision to shoot George Wallace for clout.
74	* GratuitousFrench: Music/KateBush's part in "Games Without Frontiers" consists solely of her singing the title in French ''ad infinitum'', though it is frequently misheard; even native French speakers have reported difficulty understanding her pronunciation.
75	* GratuitousPanning: The guitar riffs that open and run throughout "No Self Control" jump between the left and right audio channels.
76	* GriefSong: "Biko", a dirge lamenting the death of the eponymous anti-apartheid activist.
77	* IdiosyncraticCoverArt: The single releases of "Games Without Frontiers" and "No Self Control" use alternate modified Polaroids from the photoshoot that created the album cover, with these ones being presented in full-color rather than black and white.
78	* IHaveManyNames: Like Gabriel's first, second, and fourth albums, this one is officially a SelfTitledAlbum. In the United States, it was released as ''Peter Gabriel III'', on Creator/GeffenRecords' CD release it was simply known as ''Peter Gabriel'', the 2002 remasters retitle it to just ''3'', and as of 2015, the FanNickname ''Melt'' is considered AscendedFanon by Gabriel.
79	* ImportantHaircut: In the first few years after leaving Genesis, already known for partially shaving his head while in the band, he often wore his hair close-cropped, sometimes shaving his head completely. ''Melt'' shows this the most clearly, with shorter hair on the cover after the first two showed him with SeventiesHair, signifying his belief that he'd found himself artistically.
80	* {{Instrumentals}}: "Start", a brief saxophone and synthesizer passage that serves as a lead-in to "I Don't Remember".
81	* InTheStyleOf: "Family Snapshot" is structured, both musically and lyrically, as if it jumped out of a Broadway musical, which makes it [[LyricalDissonance incredibly jarring]] when juxtaposing it with its subject matter about assassinating a governor for clout.
82	* LargeHam: While he toned himself down after leaving Music/{{Genesis\|Band}}, Gabriel still tends to let loose at multiple points on the album.
83	* LastChorusSlowDown: Done to chilling effect in "Family Snapshot" as a lead-in to Arthur Bremer's FreudianExcuse.
84	* LastNoteNightmare: "I Don't Remember" ends with a low synthesizer drone, while "Biko" -- and by extent, the album -- ends with two echoing drumbeats that invoke the sound of gunfire; a common interpretation of the latter is that it represents the white South African government's violent oppression against the anti-apartheid movement, especially with how it abruptly cuts off a sample of Steve Biko's funeral procession singing "Senzeni Na?"
85	* LeftHanging: "Family Snapshot" cuts off the main narrative right after Arthur Bremmer pulls the trigger, instead shifting to a flashback to his traumatic childhood for the outro while leaving the aftermath of his assassination attempt up to the listener's imagination (considering that the attack was still in recent memory at the time, actually explaining what happens after the bullet fires might've been considered unnecessary).
86	* LimitedLyricsSong: "Lead a Normal Life", whose full lyrics are as follows:
87	-->''It's nice here with a view of the trees\
88	Eating with a spoon?\
89	They don't give you knives?\
90	'Spect you watch those trees\
91	Blowing in the breeze\
92	We want to see you lead a normal life''
93	* ListSong: "Games Without Frontiers" primarily consists of Gabriel listing phrases that could describe both children's games and warfare, with the juxtaposition intended to highlight the childish absurdity of war.
94	* LongestSongGoesLast: The closing track, "Biko", outpaces every other song on the album at 7 and a half minutes.
95	* LoudnessWar: Averted with the 2002 remaster; like Gabriel's other self-titled albums and ''Music/{{So}}'', the remaster of ''Melt'' clocks in at an average dynamic range of 11.
96	* LyricalDissonance: "Family Snapshot", a mostly triumphant-sounding song about the shooting of Alabama governor George Wallace; given that the song's narrated from the perspective of his attempted assassin, it's likely an InvokedTrope.
97	* MetalScream: "I Don't Remember" opens with a Tarzan-like holler that rapidly approaches CarefulWithThatAxe territory.
98	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Melt'' marks a shift to a dense blend of ProgressiveRock, PostPunk, NewWaveMusic, and African-inspired WorldMusic that would inform the direction of Gabriel's following work and the rest of popular music as a whole in the ensuing decades.
99	* NightmareFuel: Done in-universe with "Biko", where during the second verse the narrator describes how he was so thoroughly traumatized by the titular activist's murder that he "can only dream in red."
100	* NonAppearingTitle: "Family Snapshot"
101	* NumberedSequels: In the vein of ''Scratch'' before it, ''Melt'' was initially released in the US as ''Peter Gabriel III''.
102	* OneManSong: "Biko", about the slain South African activist Steve Biko.
103	* OneWordTitle: "Intruder", "Start", "Biko"; ''Melt'' is also a single word, albeit the product of a popular FanNickname.
104	* ProtestSong:
105	** "Biko" is probably one of the most successful examples of all time, given that it directly contributed to the end of UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica by singlehandedly kicking off western interest in the anti-apartheid movement.
106	** "Games Without Frontiers" uses a popular game show as a roundabout metaphor for [[WarisHell the absurdity and futility of war]].
107	** "Not One of Us" is a more vague one, attacking general tribalism and exclusionary rhetoric rather than anything as specific as apartheid.
108	* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
109	** "Family Snapshot" was directly inspired by ''An Assassin's Diary'', a memoir by Arthur Bremer that detailed his motives for shooting infamous pro-segregation Alabama governor George Wallace, an attack that both permanently rendered the politician paraplegic and led to him renouncing his white supremacist views.
110	** "Biko" was famously inspired by the death of Steve Biko, a black anti-apartheid activist who was beaten to death by white police officers while in their custody.
111	* RearrangeTheSong: Gabriel re-recorded "Biko" with 25 other artists from around the world to commemorate Black History Month 2021.
112	* ReCut: 8-track releases reshuffle the tracklist to conform to a four-program configuration. On these releases, the running order is "Games Without Frontiers", "Family Snapshot", "Intruder", "And Through the Wire", "Lead a Normal Life", "Start", "I Don't Remember", "Not One of Us", "No Self Control", and "Biko". Additionally, "Intruder" is split into two parts thanks to it overlapping with the changeover between programs 1 and 2.
113	* SanitySlippageSong: ''Melt'' can be thought of as a Sanity Slippage '''Album''' with its heavy lyrical dedication to themes of mental decline. "No Self Control", "I Don't Remember", and "Lead a Normal Life" particularly stand out in this regard, and the latter was actually mistaken by Creator/AtlanticRecords executives as a CreatorBreakdown song (which contributed to the label's decision to drop him).
114	* {{Scatting}}: Gabriel indulges in this throughout "I Don't Remember".
115	* SelfTitledAlbum: The third in the ''Peter Gabriel'' series, with fans referring to it as ''Melt'' based on its cover art.
116	* ShoutOut:
117	** "I Don't Remember" opens with Peter Gabriel pulling a MetalScream that is very clearly a nod to the SignatureRoar of Franchise/{{Tarzan}}. The {{scatting}} Gabriel performs is also a noticeable nod to Music/DavidByrne's singing style; Gabriel was a known fan of Music/TalkingHeads, which Byrne was the frontman of at the time. Fittingly, Byrne would cover "I Don't Remember" for ''And I'll Scratch Yours'', a 2013 tribute album organized by Gabriel as a companion piece to his 2010 CoverAlbum ''Scratch My Back''.
118	** "Games Without Frontiers" was named after the Europe-wide game show also named ''Jeux sans Frontières''; the British spin-off is ''It's a Knockout'', which Gabriel also sings several times in the song.
119	* SopranoAndGravel: Music/KateBush's airy vocals on "No Self Control" and "Games Without Frontiers" contrast Gabriel's deeper, huskier voice.
120	* SpecialGuest: Oh boy, where to begin?
121	** Music/PhilCollins, Gabriel's former bandmate in Music/{{Genesis\|Band}}, performs drums on "Intruder", "No Self Control", "Family Snapshot", and "Biko".
122	** Music/KateBush provides backing vocals on "No Self Control" and "Games Without Frontiers". Bush's contributions on this album would introduce her to the Fairlight CMI, which she would enthusiastically incorporate on her own material throughout the decade.
123	** Paul Weller of Music/TheJam plays guitar on "And Through the Wire".
124	** Music/KingCrimson leader Music/RobertFripp plays guitar on "No Self Control", "I Don't Remember", and "Not One of Us".
125	** Future Music/KingCrimson bassist Tony Levin provides Chapman stick parts on "I Don't Remember". Fripp and Levin have an association with Gabriel that stretches back to his debut album.
126	** David Gregory of Music/{{XTC}} plays guitar on "I Don't Remember" and "Family Snapshot".
127	* SplashOfColor: Most releases of the album include Gabriel's name written in the corner in yellow lettering, contrasting the otherwise DeliberatelyMonochrome cover art.
128	* StudioChatter: "Not One of Us" opens with Gabriel muttering "go on, go on" and repeating a high-pitched "Huh? Huh?"
129	* TextlessAlbumCover: Later reissues have omitted the logo, in keeping with reissues of the rest of Gabriel's back catalog.
130	* TitleOnlyChorus: "No Self Control", "Not One of Us".
131	* TragicVillain: "Family Snapshot", narrated from the perspective of would-be George Wallace assassin Arthur Bremer, ends with a flashback to his unhappy childhood.
132	* TranslatedCoverVersion: Gabriel re-recorded the entire album in very broken German as ''Ein Deutsches Album'', later doing the same with ''Security''. While the incredibly bad grammar is a source of amusement for German audiences, among listeners who don't speak a lick of the language, the inability to understand anything being said is considered to add to the songs' appeal rather than subtract from them.
133	* UnbuiltTrope: Despite being the first song to use gated reverb as we know it, "Intruder" is far different in how it makes use of that sound. It's not meant to accentuate the beats and make the song more danceable, but rather do the exact opposite: it's incredibly foreboding, with its cavernously gunshot-esque booms adding to the dread that permeates the song both musically and lyrically.
134	* UncertainDoom: We never learn whether the assassin's bullet in "Family Snapshot" hits its mark.
135	* UncommonTime: The verses of "And Through the Wire" are in 7/4.
136	* UnconventionalFormatting: The reason that the percussion parts on this album are so striking. Gabriel forbade his drummers from using cymbals when recording the album, a standard he'd follow in most of his later work (barring a cymbal intro on [[Music/{{So}} "Red Rain"]]).
137	* VillainProtagonist: "Intruder" and "Family Snapshot" are respectively narrated by an experienced burglar and assassin Arthur Bremer.
138	* WarIsHell: The central subject of "Games Without Frontiers", where Gabriel describes war like a series of children's games to point out how utterly absurd and pointless something as violent and grueling as war is.
139	* WorldMusic: Alongside Music/TalkingHeads' ''Music/RemainInLight'' five months later, ''Melt'' is credited with making popular music more open to non-western musical influences.
140	* YouCannotKillAnIdea: "Biko":
141	-->''You can blow out a candle\
142	But you can't blow out a fire\
143	Once the flames begin to catch\
144	The wind will blow it higher''
145	----
146	-->''And the eyes of the world are watching now, watching now...''

Context Music / Melt