Various Artists - Acoustic Favourites (Warner Music Hongkong); Chaka Demus & Pliers Tease Me (Mango) TITLING Acoustic Favourites must have had the copywriters at Warner busy for weeks, but their toil is rewarded because they have put together a fine collection. What's more it doesn't pretend to be ''the latest'', in fact it takes a dramatic sweep over almost a decade of mellow plucking. Here we have some fine performances from k. d. lang with Constant Craving and Alannah Myles' Song Instead of a Kiss. The former gave a brilliant rendition of her classic number, when MTV unplugged her a while back (and let's face it Acoustic Favourites is hitching a freebie lift on that highly saleable format). Maybe MTV should poach some copywriters and rename their show with a zippier title; ''MTV Pure Music Magic'', perhaps. Tori Amos turns in Silent All These Years and Tanita Tikaram sounding like a hobo with a hangover, belches out Out on the Town. Continuing on the same theme Shane McGowan sounds the bells of Christmas with Kirsty MacColl Fairytale of New York. Nice timing, guys. Meanwhile, back in the 90s we are treated to the best thing the Chilli Peppers did, without a power feed from a small station to help them out, Under The Bridge. Total credibility lands in the lap of this fretful collection with the extremely acoustic version of R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion and the Smiths' Please Let Me Get What I Want. There aren't too many laughs on Acoustic Favourites apart from that supplied by Flim and The BB's and their join-the-dots lyrics on New Snow. However Jesus And Mary Chain and 10,000 Maniacs more than make up for that. Good try, worth having. And just in case you don't know what an acoustic guitar is, the CD cover reveals all. Chaka Demus and Pliers take us through something of a nostalgia trip with their finely mixed reggae cocktail Tease Me. Pushed along by Sly Dunbar's hip hop beats, this is a digitally clean and up-front pop-reggae mix that comes as a refreshing break to the ragga fad. Staying close to the essence of reggae genres like lovers' rock, ska, roots and dub, the pair manage to invent an excellent formula that only occasionally gets saccharine. Top of the pile is the title track Tease Me which is everything-and-the-kitchen-sink as far as reggae influences go, with a ska groove that pumps along tantalisingly, broken only by Demus and his sawdust-voiced chatter. Pliers perfects a full-range lovers' rock vocal, that turns the track into the pop success it is, currently lounging around the UK top five singles.