Capitol
2007
Forever Cool
About This Album
The concept of the artificially created duets collection -- in which newly recorded vocal or instrumental performances by an array of big-name contemporary artists are spliced with existing tracks from another artist, living or dead -- is hardly a new one. Now it's Dean Martin's turn: Capitol Records, Martin's home throughout most of the 1950s, follows the established format by taking vintage tracks by the late, beloved crooner and grafting onto them vocal takes by country star Martina McBride, neo-R&B diva Joss Stone, actor Kevin Spacey, jazz musicians Chris Botti and Dave Koz and others, to unsurprisingly mixed results.

The thing to keep in mind before diving in to Forever Cool is that Martin's coolness credentials have never been in question -- hence the title -- whereas just about anyone who would dare breathe in his airspace is relatively uncool by default. Spacey, for example, may be engaging on the screen, but pretending to banter with the monumentally überhip Dino on "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" and Roger Miller's "King of the Road" (which Martin cut for Reprise, his post-Capitol label, on 1965's (Remember Me) I'm the One Who Loves You album), only makes Spacey seem dorky and the whole exercise somewhat ghoulish.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,7,8,11 and 13)

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