Acoustic

It was always way optimistic to imagine that a double cd set including acts as well-known as Radiohead, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Aimee Mann, Mercury Rev, Doves, Coldplay, Dido and so on would be made up of acoustic versions of their often iconic songs, even if it was called 'Acoustic'. Anyway, that optimism having indeed proved to be misplaced, and the set instead being made up of the original recordings of these songs, I now find myself in possession of 36 songs' worth of polite, mostly contemporary cafe music, a solid one-third of which I already had in my collection, one way or another. Of the ones I wasn't already familiar with, only Grandaddy's "So You'll Aim Towards The Sky" and Morcheeba's "Part Of The Process" have really stood out, though the set as a whole tends towards homogeneity, so that I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more good ones buried amidst all the restrained strumming and gentle trip-hop beats.