Deutsche Grammophon
2001
For The Stars
About This Album
For the Stars is the kind of record rock critics tend to instinctively praise because they just aren't sure if they get it, and they're afraid to lay themselves on the line. If they pan it, well, they're just junk-addled boors. If they praise it, they risk seeming uninformed, since they don't really know if it works as a classical work or not. The thing to remember is, that these kind of rock/classical crossovers belong to neither realm. They exist outside of both worlds, which is their charm and their curse. This is what plagued The Juliet Letters, Elvis Costello's 1993 collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet, which managed to delicately walk the line between chamber music and baroque pop. For the Stars, a collaboration with opera vocalist Anne Sofie von Otter, is more accessible, yet it isn't as successful, largely because its mannerisms are front and center. This is a deliberately "classy" project, pitched squarely at the NPR audience -- the very audience that embraced Painted From Memory because it helped put Bacharach in the context of the great composers. This won't likely do the same for von Otter, because its execution is a little haphazard, even if it is exactly what the two planned.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and 13)

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