Peter Gabriel is the third solo studio album by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel, released on 30 May 1980 by Charisma Records. The album, produced by Steve Lillywhite, has been acclaimed as Gabriel's artistic breakthrough as a solo artist. AllMusic wrote that it established him as "one of rock's most ambitious, innovative musicians". Building on the experimental sound of his previous self-titled studio album, it saw Gabriel embracing post-punk and new wave with an art rock sensibility. Gabriel also explored more overtly political material with the anti-war song "Games Without Frontiers" (which became a No. 4 hit and remains his joint highest-charting single in the UK) and the anti-apartheid protest song "Biko", which remembered the murdered activist Steve Biko. In the US, the album was titled Peter Gabriel III. The album is also often referred to as Melt, owing to its cover photograph by Hipgnosis. Some music streaming services currently refer to it as Peter Gabriel 3: Melt. Recording and production Peter Gabriel hired his former bandmate in Genesis drummer Phil Collins for the recording sessions along with another drummer, Jerry Marotta. He gave them one specific demand. "Artists given complete freedom die a horrible death", he explained to Mark Blake. "So, when you tell them what they can't do, they get creative and say, 'Oh yes I can,' which is why I banned cymbals. Phil was cool about it. [Marotta] did object and it took him a while to settle in. It's like being right-handed and having to learn to write with your left." Collins played on several of the album's tracks. "Intruder" has been cited as the first use of Collins's "gated drum" sound. The 1980 Peter Gabriel album was when this effect first really showed its head in that form. The distinctive sound was identified via experiments by producer Steve Lillywhite, Collins and staff engineer Hugh Padgham, in response to Gabriel's request that Collins and Marotta not use cymbals during the album's sessions. Lillywhite explained: Gabriel "didn't want to use cymbals and I had been really experimenting with this ambience thing which actually started with [drummer] Kenny Morris with the first [Siouxsie and the] Banshees' album. When you listen, you can hear elements of this gated room sound, big compressed room sound that I did on the Banshees". "Padgham was my engineer when we did the Peter Gabriel album [...] but I had been pushing and