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Scratch My Back
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 33 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: EMI
Release Date: 02 March 2010
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Pop
Summary
"Scratch My Back" is Peter Gabriel's first album in eight years--and the first in a series of releases--in which Gabriel covers the works of his favorite artists in exchange for his own collection of covers by those artists in the forthcoming album, "I'll Scratch Yours." The tracklist includes Arcade Fire's "My Body Is a Cage," Bon Iver's "Flume," David Bowie's "Heroes," Lou Reed's "The Power of the Heart," Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble," and Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" to name a few.
Also By This Artist: Long Walk Home: Music From The Rabbit-Proof Fence Up
Also On The Web: Last.fm Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
BBC Music
The result of this is that many songs here, like Elbow's Mirrorball, are fairly modern, and Gabriel rarely dips into the obvious rock canon (Heroes aside). And the sparseness of the arrangements around the singer’s tender vocals makes this a thing of beauty.
Read Full Review >Uncut
But perhaps the most effective retread is Talking Heads' "Listening Wind": Gabriel removes the funk, parks the dance, and leaves the words to do the work.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
He slows the songs' tempos and sets them to string arrangements that range from filmic and lush to something approaching the icy screech essayed by John Cale on Nico's Marble Index.
Read Full Review >Spin
Drum and guitar free, with stark string orchestration, this imaginatively selected and sequenced collection achieves such a haunting consistency of tone that its spell lingers long after the speakers fall silent.
Read Full Review >Mojo
An album to make you happy feeling sad, Scratch My Back gets better with each play; it might just turn out to be the best surprise present of the year. [Mar 2010, p.88]
Q Magazine
As a covers album, this is about as good as it gets. [Mar 2010, p.104]
Entertainment Weekly
No individual rendition improves notably on its source material, but taken together they form a nicely melancholy suite.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times
These songs deserve Gabriel's serious consideration, as do all of his choices--there's not a dud among them. Yet it's impossible to not pine for some rhythm here and a chance for this outstanding ballad singer to also show off his intact talent for soulful whooping and wailing.
Read Full Review >Billboard.com
It may take listeners a while to wrap their heads (and ears) around Scratch My Back, but it will undoubtedly polarize an audience that has long awaited something new from Gabriel.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
In spite of the lack of original material, Scratch My Back is as rewarding an experience as a brand-new studio album could be, as it stands as a potent display of Gabriel’s power as a performer.
Read Full Review >Observer Music Monthly
Mostly, it works well. Intriguingly, Gabriel fares better with more recent material.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
Ultimately this is not the artistic disaster it could have been, for despite some uncertainties it is clear Peter Gabriel has plenty of original thoughts to add to these songs.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
It's a decent enough, darkly-shaded mainstream pop album, but the concept is distracting.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe
His voice, still a dynamic instrument that can leap from meek to menacing, is very much out front, prowling over spare, sometimes lugubrious reworkings. At the album’s best, the results are head-spinning....At its worst, a few songs feel plodding and insular.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune
Gabriel’s decision to pay homage to the core essentials underpinning these songs is a noble one, he also sacrifices many essential ingredients: rhythmic drive, dynamic surprise, harmonic and textural variety. As experiments go, Scratch My Back ranks as a well-intentioned dud.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
This tribute to 12 of Peter Gabriel's favorite songwriters is a cool idea that turns into a stone bore.
Read Full Review >No Ripcord
Is this the groundbreaking work we'd perhaps hoped for during the album's initial release, an effort worthy of that preliminary giddiness? Sadly, no. Is it an interesting mix of tracks that confronts listeners with reimaging of songs so deeply tied to our heart strings we have no choice but to carefully imbibe and evaluate each note? Sure.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
Much of this material feels beneath him. What doesn't initially is brought down to that level by an absence of any real idea of how to give these songs a distinctive cast.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scratch comes off like a ponderous exercise in re-branding--an uncomfortable place to be for one of pop’s great innovators.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Every song on Scratch My Back, regardless of its original tone or meaning, is flattened out and turned into this one melodramatic and depressing thing, often with Gabriel whispering half the words to go with the ultra-slow tempos.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
As with all covers records, the crucial issue is whether these renditions bring anything new to these songs. The answer is a resounding no.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 33 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tom B gave it a1:
There is not a single song on this album that was made better by the voice of Peter Gabriel! I always thought that the man could do no wrong...and then he released this schlock! Simply HORRIBLE!
Craig P. gave it a10:
Peter Gabriel never fails to impress.Rewards repeat listening.
Jet S gave it a7:
An orchestral covers album from an aging prog rocker? Not surprisingly, "Scratch My Back" is, by turns, brilliant and odd. It's a sparse, stark, elegiac album of minimalist compositions that deliberately takes the listener out of his comfort zone. With Peter's cracked, soulful vocals hanging on John Metcalfe's sharp, aural landscapes, "Back" wears its concept like a fragile exoskeleton. It's a mournful and sometimes-thrilling performance that sacrifices synth for strings, easy hooks for meditation and gloss for exposure. It's an effect that works stunningly on the album's most transformative tracks -- Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" and Talking Heads' "Listening Wind." The instruments simmer and soar under, not over, the rhythmic gravel of Peter's voice. In fact, "Cage" probably deserves comparison to Johnny Cash's "Hurt" in terms of passion and performance. No longer a tale of youth-fed angst, the song becomes an explosion of aged apprehension and disquiet. Peter's voice is so clear and fearlessly imperfect that he could be singing in a dark, haunted wood or in your own hallway. Yes, the concept here is tenuous, but "Back's" successes are many. "Mirrorball" and "Book of Love" are gorgeous and lush, and "Heroes" is a wonderful, slow burn. The album's biggest revelation, though, might be "The Power of the Heart." A mostly unknown and beautifully written Lou Reed song, "Heart" was ripe for discovery. Once you've heard Peter's rendition, you'll wonder why you've never heard it before. But the album's imperfections are hard to ignore. It's difficult to sustain an entire disc of mostly-morose chamber music. In fact, I guarantee that many of these songs will reveal themselves most fully when thrown onto a mix tape, shuffled into a playlist or featured among the rock and electronica on a movie soundtrack. And it doesn't help that the last two songs, "Philadelphia" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," seem less like thread-bare confessions and more like off-key whimpers. Only in the final 8 or 9 minutes of this stunning, one-hour album does the exoskeleton finally start to buckle. For every person who calls "Scratch My Back" moving, meditative and poignant, there will be someone who calls it overwrought, ponderous and contrived. You may absolutely adore these lovely bones, or you might resent them. Just do yourself a favor and shuffle a few of these tracks into your playlist. You might be surprised. BEST TRACKS: "My Body is a Cage," "Listening Wind," "The Power of the Heart," "Mirrorball"
Raymond L gave it an8:
Very very interesting spin on many of these songs, superb orchestration.
Oscar V gave it a1:
Very inglorious album. Gabriel did it bad.
Angela B gave it a1:
Very boring.
Federico A gave it a1:
I don`t like that record.
