On 12/12/2010 Peter Gabriel released his new studio album Scratch My Back.
It does not contain new Peter Gabriel songs, but it is part of a song swap project: Peter covers songs by other artists, and they cover one of his songs in return. This page offers all the information about the overall project. We also provide a comprehensive review of the album Scratch My Back.
Peter Gabriel had been working on two albums since 2005. One of them was I/O, which was to succeed Up (cf. The Making Of I/O), the other one was Son Of Ovo, a new interpretation of the songs from the OVO album. Son Of Ovo has been completed in the meantime, but it has not been released yet. Then lots and lots of ideas for other projects surfaced, mainly contributions for film soundtracks. In the end Peter Gabriel brought up the Another Tongue project, the simple idea behind that being that Peter Gabriel writes the music and others provide the lyrics. There has not really happened anything about Another Tongue yet. However, that idea spawned another idea that has now become Scratch My Back.
A couple of years ago Peter Gabriel asked his fans to vote on which songs would be suitable for a putative cover album. In the end he got it into his head to not only record an album full of cover versions but make it a kind of exchange project. Gabriel covers various artists and bands, and they will cover Gabriel songs. The project is called Scratch My Back And I'll Scratch Yours and Scratch My Back is its starting point.
Peter played two songs from the album when he played at the WOMAD festival last summer [2009]. One was The Boy In The Bubble (by Paul Simon), the other The Book of Love (by The Magnetic Fields). The latter song was released on the Shall We Dance? soundtrack a couple of years ago.
There was much speculation which songs Peter Gabriel might cover. His version of John Lennon's Imagine surfaced early on in the "phantom track lists", but it has not been included. Other names that have been mentioned are Bruce Springsteen and the Dave Matthews Band, who are very successful in the United States. The latest unconfirmed track list also mentioned Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, but none of these songs and artists have become part of the project.
This, then, is the official track list of Scratch My Back (CD1, original artists in brackets):
01 Heroes
(David Bowie)
02 The Boy
In The Bubble (Paul Simon)
03 Mirrorball
(Elbow)
04 Flume (Bon
Iver)
05 Listening
Wind (Talking Heads)
06 The
Power Of The Heart (Lou Reed)
07 My Body
Is A Cage (Arcade Fire)
08 The Book
Of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
09 I Think
It's Going To Rain Today (Randy Newman)
10 Apres
Moi (Regina Spektor)
11 Philadelphia
(Neil Young)
12 Street
Spirit (Radiohead)
The bonus CD has four bonus tracks:
01 The
Book Of Love (Remix)
02 My Body
is A Cage (Oxford London Temple Version)
03 Waterloo
Sunset (Oxford London Temple Version)
04 Heroes
(Wildbeest Mix)
PRE-ORDERING:
Scratch My Back (2CD
special edition): amazon | PLAY
Scratch My Back (CD): amazon | PLAY
Further formats (planned): Vinyl (140g LP), 24bit Download,
Deluxe Boxset, Super Deluxe Boxset.
Note: Apart from the special edition 2CD set there will be two versions of the standard CD. The first print comes in a Super Jewel Case (with rounded edges) while reprints will have the ordinary Jewel Case.
Which Peter Gabriel songs will be covered by others. Some of these are still speculation, but many cover songs are already known. A song swap pair will be released as an iTunes single every full moon.
01 Brian Eno (David Bowie)
- In Your Eyes
02 Paul Simon - Biko
03 Elbow - Mercy Street
04 Bon Iver - Come Talk To Me
05 Talking Heads - (tbd)
06 Lou Reed - Solsbury Hill
07 Arcade Fire - (tbd)
08 Stephin Merritt (The Magnetic Fields) - Not One Of Us
09 Randy Newman - Big Time
10 Regina Spektor - (tbd)
11 Neil Young - (tbd)
12 Tom Yorke (Radiohead) - Wallflower
Scratch My Back was recorded without Gabriel's rock band. An orchestra can be heard instead. John Metcalfe wrote the orchestra arrangements and Bob Ezrin, famed for his work with Pink Floyd, is involved as a producer and support. The album is produced and mixed by Tchad Blake, who has worked with Gabriel before. It is likely that Ezrin and Blake split the work between them. Richard Chappel is also part of the studio crew.
The album was recorded in the RealWorld studios but also in George Martin's Air Lyndhurst studios.
According the John Metcalfe the album will be "acoustic" without any guitars, drums and other "world instruments". It will have a full orchestra sound instead. Gabriel's old band mates like Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Richard Evans are therefore not involved this time.
NEW: A teaser for the new album is available as a podcast on iTunes. It is also available on Peter Gabriel's Website.
In summer 2009 Gabriel enigmatically mentioned the release of the album: "You will hear it soon. And when I say soon this time, then it's sooner than when I normally say soon". At first it was to be released on 02/10/2009, then the album was postponed to November. Then it was to come on on Virgin/EMI in the UK on 25/01/2010. February 12, 2010 has now been confirmed as the real release date (15/02 in the UK). The cover artwork has also been completed, as you can see above. It has also been confirmed that Scratch My Back will come out on vinyl, too, though only directly from Peter Gabriel's shop.
In one of the podcasts Peter Gabriel insinuated that he may continue this project "after my next album" - which, from a cynical point of view, gives us a putative release date of Scratch My Back 2.0 some time in 2023.
Peter Gabriel has planned nine shows with full orchestras in London, Paris, Berlin,
Montreal, New York and Los Angeles. More information about the tour here.
Scratch My Back - album review
Scratch My Back - forum discussion
The Making of I/O - background information about the album
Third soloalbum, contains contributions by Phi Collins and the Classics No Self Control, Family Snapshot, Intruder and Biko. Remastere-Version from 2002.
Review available
Super-Audio CD Hybrid - the complete Album in SACD Stereo, SACD 5.1 Surround Sound and CD Audio.
Album-Review available
SACD-Review available
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