What started out as an exceptional idea and unique concept is not turning out quite as planned.
Peter Gabriel’s original idea was to record an album of covers. Scratch My Back was released in January and is available in music stores and online. Gabriel did covers of songs by artists including David Bowie, Lou Reed, Arcade Fire, Neil Young, Radiohead and Paul Simon.
The second part of the concept was for each of those artists to do a Peter Gabriel cover. The result would be an album called I’ll Scratch Yours.
Gabriel recently revealed he does not know whether Thom Yorke and Radiohead like his version of their song Street Spirit (Fade Out). He said they have never listened to it and he has heard no feedback from them.
Now it’s Arcade Fire. They were supposed to cover Games Without Frontiers but now say they won’t do it. Peter Gabriel does not know if they will pick another song or not participate at all.
David Bowie is definitely not taking part in the project. Gabriel did a cover of Heroes but now says, "Sadly, David Bowie is the only artist that said he clearly didn’t want to play with the song swap. I don’t think he’s doing much music at the moment." Lucky for Gabriel, Brian Eno is participating. He co-wrote the song with Bowie.