Hey all, i'm gonna take a shot in the dark here and see if ANYONE around here other than me recalls this and may know where to hunt it down....

Wayyy back in roughly 1983 or so, I was in the now long gone record store chain Wee Three Records, and I CLEAR AS DAY remember seeing an 8'' Peter Gabriel laserdisc that contained "Shock The Monkey" and one other video (i'm 99% sure it was "Games Without Frontiers"). The cover was a shot from the "Shock The Monkey" video of PG sitting behind the film projector.

Now, this memory sticks out pretty clear for it being 30 years ago as the funny thing was I almost bought it thinking it was some kind of rare packaged 45 (the record store sales person informed me it was a video disc - hence, I didn't buy it when I found that out..I was only like 13/14 yrs old and didn't have a LD player naturally)

I know i'm not crazy or imagining things. I've searched high and low on the net to try to hunt one down or even find documentation that it ever existed, and notta..not even on Peter Gabriel fan collectible sites. Could I have stumbled across the ultimate PG rarity back in the day there and missed the boat? Any help appreciated!

What you stumbled upon was this and there is nothing remotely rare about it:
Peter Gabriel: CV (1987) [080 512-1]

No, it was NOT "CV" as I have the japan pressing LD (which is great BTW) and i've also had the VHS since it came out in '87. In 1983/84, the majority of the songs and videos on "CV" did not even exsist yet.

I would doubt if such an 8" Peter Gabriel LD exists from 1983. 8" LDs had only just gone into production back then and Peter Gabriel as an artist back in 1983 was certainly no mega star. His early work was not very commercial (although artistically very interesting) so I would be surprised if the record company would have released anything from this period of his career as a video compilation - it would have been commercial suicide! The only true hits from this period are Solsbury Hill and Games Without Frontiers. Shock the Monkey didn't even chart in the UK. With no confirmation anywhere of the existence of such an item I would say you are mistaken.

110% sure im def not mistaken (read my story - I recall the cover clear as day and how I almost bought it thinking it was a 45)...here in the US "Shock The Monkey" was his first big breakthrough hit (never knew it flopped in the UK - learn something new every day). It went top 20 on the Bilboard US pop charts and was number 1 on the Bilboard US rock singles chart.

MTV had just come on the air over here, and the video itself was a mega hit, then in light of this, he re-released PG3 (Melt) under the title "Games Without Frontiers" on his now new label over here Geffen (formally he was on Mercury) and the video for "Games Without Frontiers" started getting heavy rotation. So, over here...would not have been commercial suicide for an 8'' disc with those 2 vids on it. This is why i'm goin nuts as to why I can't find documentation of it and I really wanna get hold of it.

wow, i just have to add 2 things.
1 if laserdisc fan hasn't heard of it then it may not be out there, he has a TON of music LDs.
2 could it be possible that what you saw was the back cover of something??? or even the back cover of that CV??

just my 2 cents.

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the rein-o official signature:

Def not..."CV" didn't exsist at the time (this took place circa 1983/84 when I seen it and almost bought it thinking it was a 45). Someday this thing will turn up somewhere if I keep searching like mad, and if it does, I will be adding it to the lddb (and hopefully own it!). I'm not crazy or imagining things here...it's times like this I wish I could go back in time LOL

was it only 2 tracks on it or was that the tracks you remember ? Sounds extremly early for such a LD if you ask me, not many lds in 1983... I think the only chance that this was real is that it was some sort of either kareaoke disc or some kind of promotional new music ld, but in both cases it should be more than just one artist on it.

If laserdisc fan doesn't have it or know of it's existence, it never existed. End of story.

Elvis

It was 2 or 3 tracks on it. The cover was Peter Gabriel sitting behind a film projector (a still from the "Shock The Monkey" video). Here in America, 1983/84 was when those short 8'' music video LD's were all over the place. Sometimes they would even have a VHS or Beta counter release with em and be called "Video 45" or "Video EP".

Very few 8" LDs only featured 2 tracks. They nearly always featured at least 3 or more tracks because the format supported up to about 20 mins of video per side. So this again seems to suggest what you saw was more likely a vinyl single perhaps in fancy packaging which was larger than normal and contained two tracks.

I can't seem to find anything online about it. I also can't find any 10" singles or VHDs that might be confused with 8" LDs in someone's 30 year old memory.

It might have been a dream you had...

The whole point of me asking was because I couldn't find any documentation online and wanted to see if anyone round here may know...but as i'm seeing no one does.

The only possibility I can think of is that the record store sales person back then mislead me telling me it was a video disc and it could have been some fancy packaged rare 45 as laserdisc fan had suggested. Never the less, I will continue searching and maybe i'll hit paydirt one day and actually find it LOL

even if this is the case, you should search for a 45 with that sleeve aswell.

I've been collecting vinyl for many years long before I ever got into laserdiscs. The similiarity in packaging is quite staggering sometimes, particularly for 12" titles.

I can think of quite a few examples where even 7" limited edition vinyl singles were distributed in oversized cardboard sleeves which could easily be confused with 8" LD packaging. From memory I recall packaging like this for special editions of singles by Roachford, Texas, Deacon Blue, Prefab Sprout, Suede etc - the list is almost endless. It was a common marketing strategy in the 80's and 90's to do this. So I suspect the Peter Gabriel item you saw does exist on vinyl but not on laserdisc. Good luck finding it and let us know when you do.

Will def keep looking and also checking vinyl releases. If I ever crack this mystery, will def let everyone know