Various Artists: Alfie - Music From the Motion Picture : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The 1966 movie Alfie boasted Burt Bacharach and Sonny Rollins, a songwriting and a tenor-sax god, respectively. So it figured that Alfie's new producers either would commission something special for their 2004 remake or look foolish. On this collection of songs and scores written and produced by Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, nobody looks foolish. Their idea is that where Alfie originally played around with jazz in the background, now is the time for freshly minted Swinging London soul. Beautiful originals such as "Old Habits Die Hard" and "Let's Make It Up" soar, and Jagger sings them with a great tomcat tenacity. The Delta-voiced English teenager Joss Stone does the best work of her career to date here on "Wicked Time," a kinetic nod to hip-hop, and duetting with Jagger on the Mayfair/Muscle Shoals stunner "Lonely Without You (This Christmas)"; Stone's bluesy version of Bacharach's title standard climaxes the soundtrack. The Jagger-Stewart instrumentals, notably "Counting the Days," power along as commandingly as the songs. This is how to make a soundtrack.