Dean Martin - Forever Cool

Deep in the vaults of the famed Capitol building in Los Angeles lay several reels of unheard recordings by Dean Martin, complete with comic asides and between-song banter. Then some idiot hit on the idea of dusting them off and grafting on the voices of 21st Century songsters to create a new series of “collaborations”. The result? The evergreen laconic drawl of the great Dino intermittently interrupted by the likes of Robbie Williams, Joss Stone and (God help us) Kevin Spacey. Twice. It’s not an especially new technique, as both Hank Williams Jr and Natalie Cole have scored big singing with their late fathers, but at least in those instances there was a kind of logic and purpose at work. Here it reeks of marketing gone mad, and shows little respect for the talent or legacy of the originator. Yes, Martin was forever cool, and it’s nigh on criminal to attach his name to something that should have been titled Forever Naff. Crass and pointless, an ill-advised autopsy on some once great sound recordings not so much performed by a producer as a ham-fisted pathologist. File under CSI: Karaoke.