I do not normally buy recordings of musicals by pop artistes. The only such recording that I have in my collection is Aida, but even that was bought by my brother and not me. The reason is that such albums generally cost the same price as an original cast recording of a musical for fewer tracks and a usually inferior contemporary version of songs. Original music from musicals are distorted to give it greater "mass appeal". In most cases, I find the musical arrangements of songs on these albums vastly inferior to the ones on original cast recordings. There are some exceptions such as Tina Arena's Whistle Down The Wind and Elton John and LeAnn Rimes' Written In The Stars which provide a fresh alternative to the originals but these remain the exceptions rather than the norm.

For a CD with only twelve tracks and costing the same price as any other single disc cast recording with two times the number of songs, it was always certain that I would never get "Songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber And Jim Steinman's Whistle Down The Wind". Then Virgin Megastore's summer sale of 2004 in London started selling a limited number of this CD for 99 pence (USD$1.81) and this settled the issue.

This CD features a wide range of mainstream pop and rock artistes. The list of pop and rock artistes performing on the album include Tom Jones and Sounds of Blackness (Vaults Of Heaven), Boyzone (No Matter What), Everly Brothers (Cold), Meat Loaf (A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste), Boy George (Try Not To Be Afraid), Sounds Of Blackness (Wrestle With The Devil) and Bonnie Tyler (Tire Tracks And Broken Hearts). Unfortunately, all of them sound rather mediocre with the exception of Tire Tracks And Broken Hearts which Tyler does a very good cover of.

Then there are the musical theater/pop artistes like Tina Arena and Donny Osmond who do covers of Whistle Down The Wind and When Children Rule The World respectively. As previously mentioned, Arena's version of the title song is refreshing and more up-tempo than the version done in the original cast recording. Many other recordings by musical theatre artistes such as John Barrowman have followed the musical arrangement in Arena's version, rather than the one from the cast recording.

This album contains three songs from musical theater artistes as well. Elaine Paige sings If Only and Lottie Mayor (who is incidentally the lead actress in the Original London Cast Recording) sings Whistle Down The Wind with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the piano. However, the delightful surprise on this CD has to be Michael Ball's fantastic Unsettled Scores. His version is probably as good, if not better than the version by Marcus Lovett on the Original Cast Recording, although the musical arrangements and some lyrics have been modified in Ball's version.

Songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber And Jim Steinman's Whistle Down The Wind is an interesting listen but it is not something that I will recommend getting because it simply is not worth it. For the same price, there are many other cast recordings that I would choose over this and if you want to listen to the songs from Whistle Down The Wind, I would definitely recommend the double-disc Original London Cast Recording over this.

Reviewed on 21 June 2004

Track Listings

1. Vaults In Heaven - Tom Jones With Sounds Of Darkness
2. Whistle Down The Wind - Tina Arena
3. No Matter What - Boyzone
4. If Only - Elaine Page
5. When Children Rule The World - Donny Osmond
6. Cold - Everly Brothers
7. A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste - Meat Loaf
8. Try Not To Be Afraid - Boy George
9. Wrestle With The Devil - Sound Of Blackness
10. Tire Tracks And Broken Hearts - Bonnie Tyler
11. Unsettled Scores - Michael Ball
12. Whistle Down The Wind - Lottie Mayor With Andrew Llyold Webber

(No libretto or lyrics is included)