This one is tough. Taken individually, these tracks have much to offer. If Gabriel had recorded a normal rock album and then thrown in one or two of these amongst his regular songs, they would be standouts on the record as great contrast. But this is a matter of the whole being less than the parts. The premise of this project is that Gabriel selected songs to cover by artists that he admires, both old (Bowie, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, Randy Newman, Talking Heads, Neil Young) and new (Arcade Fire, Elbow, Bon Iver, The Magnetic Fields, Radiohead), and then each of these artists supposedly has agreed to cover a Gabriel song for an accompanying record to be released later. Hence the title. Cool song exchange concept. Further, Gabriel has decided to not use conventional rock instrumentation. No drums or guitars or synthesizers here. Just some piano and orchestration.
Gabriel teamed up with composer/arranger John Metcalfe to craft these arrangments. First, Gabriel does follow my cardinal rule if you are going to cover songs by other artists: do something different with them. He has certainly done that with these tunes. But there is a sameness about this effort. The tone is, overall, pretty somber and dark. On almost all of the tracks he slows down the pace, and some are offered as glacial dirges (like Radiohead's "Street Spirit"). Gabriel has always possessed one of my favorite voices in rock music. And this orchestral setting does allow his vocals' many tones and colors to come through.
Some of these tracks really are stunning reinterpretations. The opening two are my favorites. David Bowie's "Heroes" starts so quietly and whispered that it feels it will flutter away at the slightest touch. But Gabriel and Metcalfe masterfully build the tension and drama in a thrilling middle section. And I love what Gabriel does with Paul Simon's once jaunty "Boy in the Bubble." Here he turns the tune on its head, making it a melancholy piano ballad more akin to Sinatra's "One For the Road" as opposed to Simon's original musical vision of the song. But Simon's lyrics to the same song are shown in totally different and darker tones. This cover is transformative of the original. Not necessarily better, but transformative.
He reaches back to his prog roots a bit with a dramatic journey through Arcade Fire's "My Body Is a Cage," which is partially successful. On the other hand, his take on Randy Newman's great "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" is pretty conventional (not nearly as interesting as Joe Cocker's version from the 70's). And as intriguing as Peter Gabriel doing Neil Young could be, he picks the boring "Philadelphia" and basically redoes Neil's original yawn-inducing arrangement. One of Neil's dullest songs in his entire catalogue.
There are some individual triumphs here, but the project as a whole is a failure. I do not think I will ever listen to it again from start to finish, as there is a dull sameness that creeps in about halfway through. But I will return to some individual tracks many times.
**1/2 out of *****
1 comment:
From what I've heard, this sounds like a bit of a snoozefest. I'm curious about the Simon track, but I've heard one or two others that didn't do much for me.
Post a Comment