Lulu: Together

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

As with Tom Jones, here comes the career revival duets album for 53-year-old Scottish pop scorcher Marie McDonald McLaughlin just chock full of those hot young artists — Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Elton John, Sting and Cliff Richard. Yep, to Sirs, with love. It has a smattering of boy bands (Take That, Westlife and refugee Ronan Keating) for Aunty Lulu to engage in some curious sexual tension with, despite the asinine songs.

The hippest this gets is Phunk Phoolin' with dance duo Kerphunk, which happily apes off the retro-styled Shirley Bassey-reviving Propellerheads track History Repeating.

Actually, the treatment of Sir Paul's Wings-era song Inside Thing (Let'Em In) is quite inspired, and her romp with Sir Reg Dwight on Womack & Womack's Teardrops isn't far behind. But the same can't be said of her match-ups with Sir Cliff (Reunited) while The Prayer with bellower Russell Watson is the sound of a terrible mix-up at the pop veteran dating agency.

Label: Mercury