Peter Gabriel never fails to impress.Rewards repeat listening.

Great great cover album by visionary artist. Thanks once again Peter for this piece of art!!

Needs a couple listens, but very strong overall. Needs a couple listens, but very strong overall. His voice is out front on all tracks and deservedly so. It's still rich and warm and works perfectly overtop of the strings. There are many excellent choices of songs - especially the cover of Arcade Fire

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!

Gabriel's never recorded an album of covers so it's interesting to see he can actually make the songs his own.

I was at first skeptical about this release, but upon listening to it about a dozen times I am floored by what Peter has done. He has very carefully extracted the songs' essence and let the words and raw melody do the talking. Listening to the originals of Listening Wind, Apres Moi, My Body Is A Cage and others it is clear the original were way too over-produced.

The outstanding voice of Gabriel in the center of a flat, weak and boring performance.

Bad, bad, bad. A deception.

Very inglorious album. Gabriel did it bad.

I don`t like that record.

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"… Expand

Very boring.

Very very interesting spin on many of these songs, superb orchestration.