Release Date: Sep 28, 2004
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Pop
Record label: Sanctuary
Music Critic Score
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The bad isn't really too bad -- just kind of predictable. Little Steven's "Baby Please Don't Go" is a generic '60s-style rocker that Nancy delivers in a Ronnie Spector croon and almost pulls out of the fire. "About a Fire," by her bandmembers Tom Lilly and Lanny Cordola, is a bland and slick alterna-tune, the kind of over-produced, underwritten material one might expect on a record like this.
By no means the mish-mash that generally results when an icon is dragged out of mothballs by well-meaning famous fans, here's a late-period album that actually stands up with the best of a much-loved artist's work. Most of these collaborations fit like exquisite kid gloves. Where else, in particular, do you imagine Nancy Sinatra living if it isn't in Calexico's luminous, dustblown American dreamscape? Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley's two songs are clearly the work of fans who haven't just played the records a thousand times, they live inside them.