The Songs Of Noel Coward

THAT PECULIARLY '90s MUSICAL category of the 'tribute' ­ be it band, album or concert ­ is rapidly becoming the genre that dare not speak its name. At this rate of depreciation, the word 'tribute' may well soon be found on the same page as 'Hooked On Classics' or 'Stars On 45' in the Rock Thesaurus.

Far too often the 'tribute' has been made to sound like a back-handed compliment, delivered by artists eager to prove their musical versatility, credibility and generosity and failing on at least two counts. So pop musicians interpreting the songs of a man whose musical oeuvre predates the invention of pop music by a good few decades is surely a highly hazardous project.

The profits are going to the Red Hot AIDS Charitable Trust, so it gives your reviewer no pleasure to report that our suspicions are largely confirmed by the star-studded line-up here.

To cut a long story short, Noël Coward is the pioneer of English posh, whether it be acting, writing, singing, painting, appearing on lightly satirical news-based quiz shows (not literally, but seeing as we're updating his legacy for a modern audience, think Richard Stilgoe and add talent and influence). You'll hear his songs repeated by elderly relatives, parodied and/or period by contemporary comedy and/or drama and strangely enough they were really very good.

Not that you'd know it from some of these toe-curling efforts. For example, on 'I've Been To A Marvellous Party' The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon continues to cheapen his own considerable talent with his comedy posh bloke act, once an affectionate parody of Coward-Sequa English's but now a very tired joke. Meanwhile, the 'rave' version of this song only serves to show that he doesn't like, or know, the music he's trying to satirise. Robbie Williams contributes an awful diet techno version of 'There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner', adopting a bizarre slurry Scouse accent, for reasons presumably best known to his chemist. Meanwhile, Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn's 'ambitious' reading of 'London Pride' sounds like a Christmas carol rearranged by Mike Oldfield as a present for a distant relative.

In contrast Paul McCartney, a man who has turned his hand to this kind of music before (see 'Honey Pie' off the 'White Album'), and Bryan Ferry fare better because they make no attempt at 'reinterpretation'. They sing the tunes in a fairly unadventurous, but suitably spirited style, and at least they've got the voices to pull it off, which is more than can be said for Tommy Scott of Space's attempt at a Sinatra-esque swing through 'Mad Dogs And Englishmen'.

Shola Ama and Craig Armstrong succeed in making 'Someday I'll Find You' sound impressively cinematic, and not out of place in the '90s, but by far the best track on this album is Suede's startling reading of 'Poor Little Rich Girl'. Sweeping Roxy-ish keyboard dramatics and our Brett's yearning, melancholic delivery seem to turn a wry social satire into a darkly epic tragedy. No, really.

No-one else comes close to successfully applying their own aesthetics or making something new or even contemporary sounding. Texas sound like Lisa Stansfield, Marianne Faithfull doesn't sound enough like Dinah Washington on 'Mad About The Boy', the Pet Shop Boys sound bland and generic, and Elton can't do Vegas these days. Meanwhile Sting, well he is, and will sadly always be, Sting, which has become an expletive in itself. At least Vic Reeves adds a certain maverick comic charm to 'Mrs Worthington', but that's his job.

Suede fans may wish to buy this album for their track alone in the knowledge that the money's going to charity. Otherwise we must reluctantly conclude once again that only mad dogs and musicians are foolish enough to make tribute albums.

Written By Johnny Cigarettes NME