Nursery Cryme

The band’s third album was the first to feature drummer Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett. It soars on the strength of Peter Gabriel’s voice and the band’s proggy stew of ornate musical arrangements and oddball narratives. Chest-reverberating bass and swelling mellotrons go lengths to uphold the album’s darker undercurrents, while song themes involve Greek sexual mythology (“The Fountain of Salmacis”), suicide (“Harold the Barrel”), and mutating weeds from the Victorian era (“The Return of the Giant Hogweed”). The opener, “The Musical Box,” is an opus of 10-plus minutes that swells beautifully on flutes and layers of guitars.