Album: Various Artists <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Rogue's Gallery, ANTI

While working on the two sequels to Pirates Of The Caribbean, Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski became fascinated by sea shanties, and commissioned Hal Willner to research and record an anthology of them. The result is Rogue's Gallery, a vast double-CD of songs bawdy, bitter, drunken, lonely and lovelorn, recorded by a cast not only of folk singers like Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright III, but also left-field icons like Van Dyke Parks, Nick Cave and David Thomas, and pop stars such as Bono, Bryan Ferry and Jarvis Cocker. It's an extraordinarily diverse collection, ranging from the Tuvan-style drone of Baby Gramps's "Cape Cod Girls" through the laments of Ferry's "The Cruel Ship's Captain", to Wainwright's enthusiastic rendition of the obscene classic "Good Ship Venus". Besides the opportunity to hear some bizarre combinations (Ed Harcourt and Ralph Steadman; Ferry and Antony warbling together), it's a fund of educational fascination, not least in the punk-folk history lesson "Boney Was A Warrior".

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Cape Cod Girls', 'The Mermaid', 'A Drop Of Nelson's Blood', 'One Spring Morning', 'Mingulay Boat Song'