Live Blood (Live in London, 2011)

Peter Gabriel's third official live album came at a time when hardcore Gabriel fans were hoping for a new studio album of all new material. Yet Gabriel couldn’t be rushed, and his fascination with his reworking his own catalog—along with covering the works of others—spills over from the New Blood album of orchestral reinterpretations that he'd been working on at the time of this concert and Scratch My Back, the collection of covers that appeared in 2010. Recorded at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in March 2011, this live album is Gabriel at his most subtle, with the most jarring moments smoothed over by an orchestra’s mild weave. Fans who consider the original versions of “Intruder,” “Biko,” “Solsbury Hill,” “In Your Eyes," and “Don’t Give Up” to already give them everything they need will take time to warm up to this reinvention of their memories. For this reason, it’s not uncommon to hear fans instead praise the arrangements of Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble,” The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love,” or Gabriel’s later works “Signal to Noise” and “The Drop.” Once preconceptions are voided, the music comes together beautifully.