Cocker's take on "All Time High" finds him whispering sweet some things and finding pots of melodrama in every word that Rita blandly ran through her Coolidge pipes in the original. Sadly, the tracks sung by women are too all-over-the-map to pull all the disparate elements together. The harmonium is a nice touch on Aimee Mann's "Nobody Does It Better," but her 'Who cares?' reading suggests she must have taken the title too literally. Yet even the best tracks leave me with a bad taste of Phil Spector in my mouth, which I soon learned is not so far off the mark -- Arnold likens Shaken and Stirred to Phil Spector's Christmas Album (yeah right!). He also says that "this album exists purely for the sake of the music." Bullshit! Like Danny Elfman, Arnold always has a movie playing in his head and, duh, these songs are from movies anyway.

So you thought maybe the electronicats would work overtime in this department? Ha! After a couple of great singles and a disappointing debut, Leftfield convince me that boredom is their mission on "Space March." LTJ Bukem's "James Bond Theme" sucks as much as everything else he's done, and judging from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," I'm pinning no hopes on electronica hopefuls Propellerheads. Too bad my man Sylvester ain't still around -- he would've shaken and stirred some disco heat while retaining the queer melodrama that is the most attractive thing about this album.