RECORDINGS Quick Spins

GET THE PARTY STARTED

Dame Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey once seemed destined to fade into the sort of genteel obscurity reserved for singers of mid-period James Bond themes and retired Supreme Court justices. But after an unlikely career resuscitation courtesy of the Propellerheads, who used her vocals on their 1997 hit "History Repeating," the 71-year-old Bassey has, like Tony Bennett, become the sort of old-timer whom hipsters find cuddly.

"Get the Party Started," a curious combination of primer, remix disc and covers collection, makes an aggressive case for Bassey as a club/camp icon. "Party" sets loose remixers like the Glimmers and Bugz in the Attic, who roam freely among new and catalogue tracks but don't do too much damage, adding subtle elements of dub and heaping helpings of drum machines but frequently leaving the arrangements fairly intact.

"Party" omits such Bassey Bond classics as "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever" (too sacred -- or too expensive?), substituting instead a particularly fiery version of Nancy Sinatra's Bond theme "You Only Live Twice." Standards like "Big Spender" and "I Who Have Nothing" are given boisterous electro-makeovers, and, like most everything here, are constructed in a way that emphasizes the essential archness, the vaguely disapproving dame-liness, of Bassey's delivery. A sludgy, buzzy cover of Lionel Richie's "Hello" is perfect for the chill-out tent, and the title track (a cover of the Pink hit) manages to be endearingly awkward, off-puttingly regal and slightly terrifying, all at the same time.

-- Allison Stewart

DOWNLOAD THESE:"Big Spender," "Slave to the Rhythm"

TROUBLE IN DREAMS

Destroyer

Aglam rock aura has persistently dogged Dan Bejar, the 35-year-old Canadian who's recorded as Destroyer for over a decade. Yet Bejar has always been more bookish rock-and-roll historian than sexy space man. His ninth album, "Trouble in Dreams" offers more cherry-picked moves from a knowing collector of quotations with a vast library of vintage psychedelic folk.

Bejar's precious taste in the prog end of pop history can get queasy. But he's often a good enough bricoleur to excuse his affectations. On "Trouble in Dreams," "good" means drowsy tunes such as the opener, "Blue Flowers/Blue Flame," which drifts on lonesome tremolo guitar and cascading piano. Bejar's best songs pick up at the moment when the Summer of Love's rainbow bubble popped and rock went both wistful and outsize. And though he shines when mopey, moments like the downcast guitar heroics closing out "Rivers" suggest those '70s rock epics he studies so intently are not necessarily beyond his grasp.

Except Bejar's at his worst when it comes to songs like the needlessly baroque "Shooting Rocks (From the Desk of Night's Ape)," where he warbles somewhere between a Lloyd Webber lead and a character in a "Monty Python" sketch mocking post-hippie pretentiousness. Such lyrics as "I'll tell you what I mean by that/Maybe not in seconds flat/Maybe not today" suggest the sort of songwriting philosophy that attracts a fervent cult. The question for new fans might be whether they'll struggle through Bejar's pinched delivery to get to goods like the breakneck piano/guitar duel on "Plaza Trinidad."