Tina Turner: "Wildest Dreams" Parlophone, 373684 (58 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2081
Whatever about her fingers, too, often these days Tina Turner lets her fabulous legs do the talking. Or rather, the singing, with lyrics which imply that all every male, and maybe even every female, longs for is to get close, to her flesh: this is the theme of this, album's title track, In Your Wildest Dreams. Happily, when she sings songs which take her beyond this - reductive role Tina Turner still proves she has one of the most powerful - voices in pop, a talent that roars to the fore in tracks like All Kinds of People - and, paradoxically, Dancing In My Dreams.
However, the best track in this collection is undoubtedly Nellee Hooper's production of Bono and Edge's theme from the latest James Bond fantasy, GoldenEye. Unfortunately, for the rest of the album Hooper hands over the task of producing to other, more pedestrian console creepers like Trevor Horn, who even manages to fracture an otherwise beautiful take on Tony Joe White's On Silent Wings, which features Sting.
Celine Dion: "Falling Into You"
Epic, 483792. (76 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2191
Celine takes on Tina, and wins? Not exactly, but her take on Tina's River Deep. Mountain High and on Aretha Franklin's (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman on this album show that she sure aspires to stake her place among the elite of soul singers. Likewise, when she covers. However it is her chillingly emotional take on Eric. Carmen's All By Myself and newer songs such as I Love You, Seduces Me and the single Falling Into You which really prove that Celine Dion deserves her place among contemporary pop queens. Power ballads, which are usually uselessly platitudinous, don't come any better than this.
Cassandra Wilson: "New Moon Daughter"
Blue Note, 837183. (67 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2301
Startlingly magnificent. That's the first phrase that leaps into one's mind on hearing Cassandra Wilson's new album, particularly following the obviously more market led musings of Tina and Celine. Jazz rooted she may be, but when Wilson applies her other worldly voice to rock material like U2's Love Is Blindness it is as perfect a prayer as the Edge's guitar work on the original version of the same song. Equally, she makes the line "we'll have one more night together" sound as potentially transcendent as her plea of "let me take your physicality" in the languorous A Little Warm, Death. In Son House's Death Letter and Robert Johnson's 32-29 she makes even, death sound seductive.
If that's not strange enough, then check out what she does to I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. And if you're still standing after that, then find a chair and brace yourself for the wonders of her own songs, Find Him, Memphis and the biblical Solomon Sang. An astounding album, which proves that some of the most imaginative music in contemporary pop these days is being done on the periphery, rather than in the centre.
Pavarotti and Friends for the Children of Bosnia
Decca, 452 100-2 (78 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2411
Every home should have a copy of this live recording of last September's benefit concert of the same name, if only because "a significant contribution" of profits go to help "alleviate the suffering of children caught up in the horrors of war", to quote the sleeve notes. But after you've made that humanitarian gesture, what are you left with in the way of music? A mix that is often a mess, to tell the truth. Apart from the ever industrious Bono and the Edge, who perform Miss Sarajevo with Pav and Eno, and an orchestrally intriguing version of One.
Ireland is also represented by a rousing medley, Long Black Veil, from the Chieftains and a clearly ill focussed Dolores O Riordan ploughing her way through both Linger with Simon Le Bon and a positively embarrassing Ave Maria with Luciano. But don't despair, all other contributions do fade in the shade of Pavarotti's contributions, on those rare occasions when the man is allowed to sing. A worthy gig, a relatively worthless album. I guess you had to be there.
