ANKA, PAUL

Paul Anka follows up 2005's Rock Swings, his popular collection of covers done classic Vegas-style, with another collection of unlikely pop and rock songs. One of the most familiar tricks could be termed the reverse stunt: Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," for instance, is speeded up into a fingersnapping brassy strut. (On Rock Swings, Anka had famously done the exact opposite with "Smells Like Teen Spirit," slowing it down to a loungy pace.) Anka is in fine vocal form and he sure knows how to sing against the big-band arrangements. Once again, the best songs are the most unexpected, like the strutting take on the Killers' "Mr. Brightside," the triumphant read of Foreigner's "Waiting for a Girl Like You," which gradually builds up, the super-lush cover of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World," and the strutting "Walking in Memphis." Note that Anka actually picked from his own oeuvre for the albums's two duets: Michael Bublé joins his onetime mentor on 1958's "You Are My Destiny," while Bon Jovi helps out on "My Way" (a song Anka adapted from a French original).

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