Since all the proceeds from this album go to help the war-torn children of Iraq, it goes without saying that you should buy Hope. Whether you'll want to play it very often, however, is a different matter. In fairness, for a charity record this contains a reasonably high number of decent tracks - amongst them a new dance-blues number from Moby, Paul McCartney's re-recorded version of 'Calico Skies' and superb vocal performances from Tom McRae and Beth Orton. Against all that, however, you have to balance Avril Lavigne's mawkish take on 'Knocking on Heaven's Door', Travis's typically bland new contribution and New Order's uncharacteristically trite 'Vietnam'. Meanwhile, the least said about Ronan Keating's excruciating Elvis impression on 'In The Ghetto', the better. War Child, the organisation behind Hope, certainly deserve full marks for good intentions - but next time, they really should choose their contributors a bit more carefully. Still, at least they left out Elton John.
