My weekend got thrown out of whack, but here I am blessing your feed with vinyl goodness. This week, the randomizer gives us Peter Gabriel's massive 1986 LP, So. This album has been with me from the start, but this particular copy I'm playing was purchased nearly 10 years ago. Half-speed remaster 180g reissue blah blah blah. This thing was everywhere. Sledgehammer. Big Time. Red Rain. Mercy Street. In Your Eyes. Kate Bush makes an appearance for the gorgeous duet, Don't Give Up, and Laurie Anderson turns up as well (This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)).
I still love this album and feel it's flawless. So I might be a little biased when I say this album, with these songs and production techniques, still sounds great 40 something years later. The videos for Sledgehammer and Big Time were MTV staples and hugely groundbreaking at the time. They still look pretty cool now. In Your Eyes was a monster hit thanks to its inclusion on the Say Anything soundtrack and being featured in an absolutely pivotal and iconic scene in the film. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. It's been parodied at least a million times by now.
I personally prefer his third album, the one with his melty face on the cover, but one could make an argument for So being his masterpiece. In case you didn't know, his first four albums all have the same title (Peter Gabriel), but are distinguished by a brief album cover descriptor (Car, Scratch, Melt etc). Security is the only one that doesn't make sense, but that's a different discussion.
In short, dude could have stopped making music after this album and his legacy would have been cemented. Legendary album that's well worth the time.