BEATLES WEEK: Lavigne & Lennon?

Green Day covering Working Class Hero? Majestic. Avril Lavigne warbling Imagine? Majestically tone deaf.

Released tomorrow, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur is a double-disc charity compilation of pop hotshots paying tribute to John Lennon. The entire 23-track CD will cost you about $22. But this is the iPod age, and drastically uneven collections such as this were made for picking and choosing. So here’s a download-friendly guide to the disc's best and worst:

Instant Goodness
• The Flaming Lips, (Just Like) Starting Over (Singer Wayne Coyne’s spacey sweetness soars over laser-gun synth. Go hug somebody. Now.)
• Regina Spektor, Real Love (The Moscow-born singer will flat-out floor you with this vaguely baroque, chilly take on an overlooked gem.)
• U2, Instant Karma (Too easy, too obvious for the Dublin Four? Maybe. But Bono was born to sing “Well we all shine on!”)
• Corinne Bailey Rae, I’m Losing You (British neo-soul chanteuse nails the smoldering desperation in this classic take on romantic breakdowns.)
• Green Day, Working Class Hero (Billie Joe Armstrong’s everyman rallying cry swells to an epic, rumbling finish. Using Lennon’s voice in the finale is yet another stroke of genius from a band that can do no wrong.)

Cold Turkeys
• Aerosmith featuring Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Give Peace a Chance (Makes me want to declare war on Steven Tyler.)
• Snow Patrol, Isolation (When comparing snoozy, self-important Brit-pop bands, Snow Patrol makes Coldplay sound like the zany life of the party. That ain’t easy, kids.)
• Lenny Kravitz, Cold Turkey (This is right in Lenny’s wheelhouse. That said, Lenny’s wheelhouse is overflowing with cheap, slimy knockoffs of his heroes.)
• Avril Lavigne, Imagine (We could be really mean here. But remember: John Lennon preferred women who couldn’t sing a lick.)

Comments

[Uncle Crappy]

When you mentioned this record a couple of weeks ago, you left out the part about the Flaming Lips cover. I'll be adding to my iTunes bill as soon as I get home tonight...