Peter Gabriel
Scratch My Back (Real World)

The new Peter Gabriel album—and what a rare phrase that has become!—is a most curious creation. An eclectic collection of covers from a fellow known for his original songwriting, it reimagines radio hits as modern-art music, full of shimmering orchestral effects and ethereal mood swings.

As Gabriel asserts in his remarkably un-copy-edited liner notes, Scratch My Back is the first of a series of records with top recording artists switching up each other's tunes. The veteran prog-rocker is, as he admits, borrowing as much from Steve Reich's minimalism and Arvo Pí¤rt's monastic introspection as from the spiral notebooks of David Bowie and Paul Simon, whose "Heroes" and "The Boy in the Bubble" get the CD off to a smart start. (The string arrangements, which include a choir as well as occasional churchlike brass instruments, are mostly from John Metcalfe.) The 60-year-old singer has never sounded stronger, and his approach is unfailingly intelligent. Taken as a whole, however, the Scratch effect is enervating, with Elbow and Radiohead sounding more dirgelike than ever, and Neil Young, Arcade Fire, and Lou Reed turned anthemic in ways they would never see themselves. Songs with even moderately brighter tempos and more uplifting chord patterns benefit in this context, and the Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love" and Talking Heads' "Listening Wind" are really lovely.

There are many wonderful cuts here, most of which would be better sprinkled through mixed playlists than swallowed whole at bedtime. If you're going to go for the whole package, get the deluxe edition, with a second disc that contains a sweetly lilting version of Ray Davies' classic "Waterloo Sunset". Of course, anyone could do that song and it would still sound great.

Download This: "Listening Wind"