Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back
The album begins softly with David Bowie’s Heroes that builds into an aching crescendo. All the songs have a lush, symphonic, orchestral arrangements–strings, pianos, horns–and often to a repetitive degree. Sometimes this works, in covering the Magnetic Fields’ Book of Love, it becomes a tender ballad despite the odd lyrics. Paul Simon’s The Boy in The Bubble and Arcade Fire’s My Body is a Cage become soulless. He closes with Radiohead’s Street Spirit which goes out in a baritone drone.
Covering songs is always risky, and there are risks on Scratch My Back. They’re interesting choices, but none will reach the level of Johnny Cash remaking Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt.