I have listened to William Shatner's new album, called "Seeking Major Tom". I'm going to talk about it. It is available via all your usual legal or non-legal channels.

Some things to know:

1) It's entirely composed of space-themed covers, with songs influenced by David Bowie's Major Tom character providing the thread that ties things together.
2) There's about 600 guest artists here, with Bootsy Collins, Dave Davies and John Wetton being my favorites (I mean, I know who they are...)
3) Most of the songs end with a callback/repeat of a snippet of an earlier song. I think this is to give credence to the idea that this is more conceptual than being just a covers album. In particular, you hear parts of Shatner's rendition of Space Oddity at the end of the next 5 songs that follow it on the album.
4) The album is about 3 hours long. (It's actually about half of that, but still. Robert Johnson's entire recording output is not nearly this long.) It's a bit much.
5) Most of the songs are done in Shatner's usual spoken word delivery. But there are your exceptions. For instance, he actually sings on Iron Man... (I'm not sure if it's better or worse than what it would have been in his normal style, but it's still entertaining enough.)



6) In general, the performances other than Shatner sound pretty much like what they are: bad cover version. But, the main attraction is Shatner here. And for the most part, he delivers. I thought it was going to be a case where the songs you like were bound to be your favorite covers, but my favorite coming in (Space Oddity) has a pretty straightforward reading, and doesn't really feature any the usual overly dramatic bombast.

7) His version of Bohemian Rhapsody certainly delivers, though.



8) Other highlights include a spirited (drunk?) version of Space Truckin', a more melancholic version of Rocket Man than his famous live rendition, a funk(!) rendition of She Blinded Me With Science featuring Bootsy Collins, and a healthy dose of bombast in Struggle, the only original here.
9) Bootsy throws out a shoutout to the mothership connection in the middle of She Blinded Me With Science, which made me make a list of other space-themed songs that should have been included here.









All of these would have provided more intriguing covers than most of the stuff on the back half of the album.

Oh well. Maybe you can hold out hope for a sequel...