File under "Brilliant Disasters." Dwight Yoakam, streetwise countripolitan crooner, attempts to do what David Bowie, one-time Spider from Mars, did on his own brilliant disaster, Pin Ups. Like that 1973 oddity, Under the Covers is a collection of wildly divergent, idiosyncratic interpretations of some old chestnuts. The result – which is par for the course on albums like this – is that about half the songs kick butt and the other half are absolute stinkers.

Let's begin with the butt kickers. Yoakam comes out from Under the Covers with a faithful, gritty rendition of Roy Orbison's "Claudette" that succeeds because the singer puts something of himself into the song, substituting his own edgy, high-lone-some twang for Orbison's flawless croon. Yoakam's interpretation of the Clash's "Train in Vain" replaces that band's punk-funk drive with a jaunty bluegrass hoedown that, amazingly, works. So does his campy duet with Sheryl Crow on Sonny and Cher's "Baby Don't Go"; his rugged, chugging cover of Johnny Horton's truckers' anthem "North to Alaska"; and the album's "hidden track," a cool, spare reading of Jimmie Rodgers' "T for Texas."

In between those songs, Yoakam's ambition goes hog wild. For instance, what could be more inappropriate than a Sinatra-esque big-band interpretation of the Kinks' "Tired of Waiting for You"? And why Yoakam would follow Bowie's wonderfully overblown Pin Ups version of Them's "Here Comes the Night" with a discombobulated, reggaefied rendition is a total mystery. He also tosses off a pedestrian, bar-band cover of the Stones' "The Last Time" and slaughters the Beatles' "Things We Said Today" with a tediously slick, contempo-rock production that sucks the life out of the song.

The dilemma for artists on projects such as this one is whether to go completely over the top throughout (as Bowie did on Pin Ups) or remain relatively faithful to the originals (as Bob Dylan did on his Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong). It's a mighty thin line to walk; if Yoakam were doing a drunk-driving test, he'd be in the jail house now. (RS 769)

MARK KEMP