Music Review | 'Scratch My Back'

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Peter Gabriel
Scratch My Back
(EMI, 2010)

Peter Gabriel, one of the music industry’s most prolific contributors, will release a new album later this month. Scratch My Back is a collection of cover songs originally penned by some of the most famous stars of the last twenty years, including David Bowie, Bon Iver, Talking Heads and Regina Spektor.

If every musician that had success in the late-70s and early-80s continued to pursue their career as doggedly as Gabriel has, the market would be saturated, world music would most likely be considered pejorative, and the earpiece microphone never would have been laid to rest. It is almost as if he failed to consider such a thought, or just didn’t care, when setting his career trajectory.

Thankfully, these descriptors fail to encapsulate Gabriel’s donations to his craft. Scratch My Back resounds in the universe in a uniquely Peter Gabriel manner, featuring only the acoustic instruments typical to the symphony orchestra and piano.

Choosing to cover such a broad swath of artists on a single album poses a real challenge in seeking overall unity. The original versions are stylistically diverse, each artist having gained acclaim from different pockets of the music industry—you would be hard-pressed to find both Lou Reed and Arcade Fire on any other LP. Despite the obvious challenge wrapped up in this effort, Gabriel’s choice to create an album with unique orchestrations and bizarre source content makes this one stand apart.

While still colored by that good, old fashioned feeling that is innate to the likes of the Genesis/Tony Banks sound machine, Scratch My Back successfully avoids the schmaltz that is often associated with the powerful pop vocals and songwriting a la "Red Rain" and "Sledgehammer."

On “Flume”, Gabriel covers Wisconsin indie darlings, Bon Iver. When Bon Iver released For Emma, Forever Ago, it was met with rave reviews both here and in the UK. The immense amount of feeling wrapped up in this music is what skyrocketed it to the top of the charts, and thankfully this feeling is not lost in Gabriel’s reinterpretation. Gabriel’s voice is tinged with the achy timbre of a long career, but in some way that has made his ability to reshape “Flume” into an equally poignant and moving aural experience.

Not all of Gabriel’s re-articulating is as enjoyable as his work with “Flume”, however. Sometimes the orchestrations are heavy on the lush side, such as the cover of Magnetic Fields' “The Book of Love." Erring on the side of soundtrack-y is a stereotype that most people will agree Gabriel has to own up to. Thankfully, the successes on Scratch My Back outweigh some of its overly fulsome undertones.