There is a certain heir of novelty attached to any covers project—be it Johnny Cash’s American series or anything record by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. The idea is to offer up a little something for everybody, to satisfy the diehard fans and rope in some new ones. While this concept is best used for Kidz Bop compilations, when an artist as internationally adored as Peter Gabriel announces an album of symphonic reinterpretations of popular recordings, he is owed the benefit of the doubt.

Scratch My Back, Gabriel’s first studio recording since 2002’s Up, is the first in a two-part song swap collaboration dreamed up by Gabriel and Bob Ezrin (who also produced Peter’s eponymous debut), on which Gabriel tackles orchestral and piano-only overhauls of music by artists like David Bowie, Neil Young, Lou Reed, The Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, and Radiohead. The yet-to-be-recorded second installment, appropriately titled I’ll Scratch Yours, will challenge the aforementioned to return the favor by covering material from Gabriel’s own extensive catalogue.

The concept is, at the very least, unique, and is as innovative as any project Gabriel has been attached to in his 40-plus years of making music, but with innovation comes risk. Absent here are the collaborative efforts of guitarist David Rhodes and bass player Tony Levin, whose nearly 30 years with the prog-rock pioneer have made them as much a part of the Peter Gabriel sound as the man himself. Instead, Gabriel has turned to composer John Metcalfe’s stark, emotional arrangements to provide the sonic glue for the record, which are beautiful, but often times too bold for covers of three-minute pop songs.

While the grandiose nature of the project aids the more baroque of numbers—as is the case with Elbow’s “Mirrorball” and Regina Spektor’s “Apres Moi “—Gabriel’s redux of The Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a Cage” turns an already doom-laden piece of music into a full-on masochistic opus—and it’s gorgeous. Stripping the original track of its gated drums (Win Butler stole them from “Biko” anyway) and roaring pipe organ, Metcalfe utilizes the inherent complexities of an orchestral setup to add depth to the harrowing lament found on the original. The soft oboe and piano melodies give way to outbursts of strings, organs, and flutes that seem to be simultaneously working for and against one another, all while Gabriel’s authoritative voice whispers and howls in both ecstasy and grief. “My Body is a Cage” succeeds in this particular milieu because this manic-depressive motif is something Gabriel has incorporated into his work since 1994’s Us. At times, it feels as though he had a hand in writing the original version.

Other songs range from true-to-the-original nods (Randy Newman’s “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today”) to melodramatic makeovers (Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble”), but all share a Gabriel-branded authenticity that, for the most part, eases the listener through Scratch My Back’s minor blemishes.

Whereas Gabriel’s post-Genesis sound has largely been characterized by his world music-influenced production, fans of the artist outside of So megahits will note that many of the compositions on Scratch My Back actually feel right at home in his catalogue. Pete’s take on Neil Young’s “Philadelphia” and David Bowie’s “Heroes” for example, aren’t so aurally farfetched from OVO’s “Father, Son” and “The Time of the Turning.” And is “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” really so different from Up closer, “The Drop”?

Gabriel’s rendition of The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love” has been floating around since 2004, first appearing in the Richard Gere romantic comedy, Shall We Dance. And, while many of Gabriel’s interpretations on this release are much darker and pensive than their source material, Gabriel’s “The Book of Love” adds a great deal of levity to the original (that line about some music being transcendental and some of it being really dumb never sounded so good). The track features sublime background vocals by Gabriel’s youngest daughter, Melanie, who has performed with her father on the road since 2003’s Growing Up tour. Aside from being the only guest vocalist on the record, Melanie is said to have introduced her father to the music of many of the newer artists covered on Scratch My Back, namely Bon Iver, whose “Flume” is given an uplifting piano and brass treatment here.

Initially, an album of orchestral covers may not sound like the logical next step for the 60-year-old art-rocker, but a look at Gabriel’s evolution as a performer clearly suggests otherwise. From costumed frontman to international pop sensation, film composer, and humanitarian, Gabriel’s creative contributions have influenced all of popular media and then some. Love it or hate it, Scratch My Back isn’t just the latest record from Peter Gabriel—it’s an open dialogue with a new generation’s musical community. Hell, if Roger Waters can pen operas based on the French Revolution, can’t Peter Gabriel have a sing-a-long?