UNDER COVER - CHAPTER ONE

An album of Top-40 covers...from Tangerine Dream? An even better question might be: Why not? But the answer to the second question should be obvious after hearing only a few tracks. The project apparently began as a backstage joke. Expecting fans to pay for such a feeble punch line wasn't, however, very funny.

Some of the song selections almost make sense, at least on paper. Tangerine Dream covering PINK FLOYD ('Wish You Were Here') could have provided a fitting homage to one of Edgar Froese's earliest Space Rock role models. And Tangerine Dream playing KRAFTWERK ('The Model') should have been a slam dunk: one pioneering elektronische musik group paying tribute to another.

But the results are almost unrecognizable, and not in a good way. Nobody wants a cover song to be a karaoke copy of the original. But to render such lightweight commercial material even more insubstantial suggests a total collapse of aesthetic perception, unless the joke runs even deeper than I thought. The soft-focus schmaltz in every arrangement carries a hint of satire, with each song layered in enough synthetic sugar to frighten Hansel and Gretel. Need your fix of musical aspartame? Check out the soporific reading of the Eagles hit 'Hotel California'. Or the bombastic club mix of the Chris Isaak ballad 'Wicked Games'. Or the disco-fried 'Norwegian Wood'.

It can't be easy keeping track of Tangerine Dream's mammoth discography. But after a bite of this plastic turkey even diehard fans may not even bother anymore. File the effort in the 'What Were They Thinking' box: the porcelain one, with the tankful of water. And if it was truly intended as a parody of pop music fashions, the biggest laugh might be the album's ominous sub-title: 'Chapter One', a promise (or a threat) of more to come.