ein deutsches album

by

Peter Gabriel

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Ein deutsches Album (English: A German album), released in July 1980, is a German language version of Peter Gabriel's third album, Peter Gabriel (1980). The record was released in Germany two months after the standard English language version. The German market was given a foretaste of the album with a February 1980 single that likewise contained German language versions of "Games Without Frontiers" and "Here Comes the Flood."

The main difference between ein deutsches album and the international version of Peter Gabriel is mainly that Gabriel redid all of his vocals in German. Since the vocals were overdubbed on top of the instrumental and backing vocal tracks, there are few

other differences. However, alternate takes of some of the instruments seem to have been used occasionally, and the mix is somewhat different.

The German lyrics are more or less straight translations from the English. Two years later, Gabriel released deutsches album (1982), a significantly altered version of his fourth album Peter Gabriel (1982) (Security in North America).

The vinyl and CD versions do contain one minor anomaly, in that "Start" (the third track of the English language version) became the beginning of the German version of "I Don't Remember," rather than simply being the track that preceded it. Consequently, "Frag mich nicht immer" has the playing time of "Start" plus "I Don't Remember" from the English language version. In addition, the African song sung at the beginning and end of "Biko" is different from the English language version. The German version uses "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", what was then the ANC anthem, and is now the South African national anthem. The background vocals in "Biko" are different with an added, very noticeable, higher harmony than in the English version, that sounds more like a doubling with one harmony.

The album was released on LP in Canada, where it was often considered to be superior to the English language version.