Various Artists: What The World Needs Now...: Big Deal Artists Perform The Songs of Burt Bacharach

It took guts to title an album What The World Needs Now…, when that decision invites the inevitable response, "…is not a hastily slapped-together label sampler disguised as a tribute to a suddenly hip lounge-scene icon." Fortunately, What The World Needs Now… justifies the decision from start to finish. It doesn't hurt that the collection, like Big Deal's roster, is dominated by power-pop bands, a genre to which Bacharach's complex, catchy, too-good-for-kitsch compositions are especially well-suited. Predictably, Shonen Knife's take on "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and The Absolute Zeroes' version of "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me" continue in a similarly enjoyable vein. It's with the third track, Splitsville's cover of "I'll Never Fall In Love Again"—arranged beautifully in a manner that somehow gets hookier as it goes along—that things become eye-opening. Turning out the furthest thing from a punky, irreverent cover, Splitsville has remained true to Bacharach's (and lyricist Hal David's) pop spirit, yet reworked the material in such a way that it sounds fresh. The same is true for nearly all of What The World Needs Now…, the highlights of which include Michael Shelley's tender reading of "Baby It's You," Cockeyed Ghost's angry version of "Walk On By," a haunting take on "I Say A Little Prayer" by Mitchell Rasor, and a cover of "(They Long To Be) Close To You" by Hannah Cranna that somehow rescues it from the hell reserved for overplayed wedding songs. The best tribute albums showcase contemporary artists while shedding light on their source material, and this one does both beautifully.