It's somewhat ironic that one of this country's finest rock n' rollers, Mr. Rod Stewart, has enjoyed the greatest commercial successes of his long career with a series of albums that have seen him singing a collection of classic standards.

As he approached his 60th Birthday and, perhaps realising that he could not carry on rocking in quite the same way and at quite the same pace as he had done for the previous forty odd years (though try telling that to Mick Jagger), Stewart consulted with his record company about a way in which he could still move forward but in a different direction.

Music mogul Clive Davis, for whom everything he is associated with seems to turn to gold or more commonly, platinum, suggested that Stewart had the voice and singing style that would be perfectly suited to performing songs from The Great American Songbook. The rest, as they say, is now history as millions of record sales later, Rod Stewart has just released the fourth volume of his incredibly popular series of albums that has seen him reinvent himself as a modern day crooner, in the tradition of Sinatra, Dean Martin and co.

Entitled Thanks For The Memory.The Great American Songbook Vol IV' (Sony/BMG), this latest instalment sees Stewart adhere very firmly to the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it', especially when it has yielded him album sales in excess of 13 million to date. The only difference this time around is that Stewart has employed the services of some big name star friends to help out on a few tracks as soul diva Chaka Khan joins him for a rendition of Sam Cooke's You Send Me', Diana Ross guests on I've Got A Crush On You', Elton John lends his weight to Ray Charles's Makin' Whoopee' and George Benson gets together with Stewart on Let's Fall In Love'.

It's all highly polished stuff as you would expect.

But, although this new career direction has won Stewart many new fans it has also alienated a lot of his diehard followers who just can't get used to seeing their favourite rocker singing this stuff whilst all trussed up in a tuxedo. For them, Rod Stewart will always be best suited to belting out the likes of Maggie May and this is four volumes too many.

Whichever camp you are in, one does get the feeling listening to Thanks For The Memory..' that Stewart has now just about taken this project to its limit.

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Going Underground Teenage Kicks 2'(Sanctuary TV) follows on from the original and immensely popular Teenage Kicks' compilation album, which was released earlier this year. Once again this is a collection that reminds you how refreshing and exciting the music of the punk/new wave movement was and how influential it has been on many of today's most happening bands such as Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and the Kaiser chiefs. The deluxe 2CD set features four Number Ones and twenty-six Top Ten hits and every single tune is an instant sing-a-long classic. With a blaster of an opener from The Jam (Going Underground') to fondly remembered tunes from, amongst others, The Police, XTC, Madness, Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Ian Dury, The Boomtown Rats, Squeeze, Blondie and The Stranglers, this album really does read like the who's who of the era and is a joyous listen from start to finish with absolutely no filler.