(Maverick) The most grievous sin committed on this album, of course, is Madonna's covering of Don Maclean's American Pie. It's not the first time the song, one of the few in the pop music canon with which it is heresy to tamper, has been rehashed and insulted - a band called Chupito also covered it - but Madonna, the artist formerly known as original, boils it down to little more than a lame karaoke number with all the emotion of a multi-storey car park. And what is it doing here anyway - a tribute to Buddy Holly on the soundtrack to a film about a woman (Madonna) who has a baby with a gay man (Rupert Everett) and becomes embroiled in a custody battle as the child grows up? Is it there - shock, horror - simply to sell records? It's not the only classic song brought low by the curse of this album's mediocrity. 10CC's I'm Not In Love gets the same treatment, courtesy of Olive. Meanwhile, Beth - that's Beth Orton - sings something insipid, and Christina (Aguilera, the latest here-today sensation) contributes some watery funk. One of the record's strongest imprints is that of regular Madonna collaborator William Orbit, who produced both her tracks. Hers is the most distinctive voice too, and as a convenient movie sell-through it should prove a nice little earner: it's also on her label.
