Stevie's one-off album appearances

[Jyqm]

I'm sure most of us here have done it: bought an album or a soundtrack simply because Stevie appears on one or two tracks. If we were lucky, we got a surprise and the rest of the album turned to be pretty decent if not all-out great. But other times, you sure wish you had your fifteen bucks back, Stevie or no.

So what are your favorite and least favorite albums/compilations that you bought just for Stevie?

My favorite: I guess I didn't buy it so much as steal it from my mom when she got it in the mail from AT&T, but Stormy Weather is a pretty great little CD, and not only for Stevie's balls-to-the-wall "At Last." Gwen Stefani's performance of Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue" is heartbreakingly gorgeous and a really inspired choice among all the other standards, and Sandra Bernhardt's "Is That All There Is?" is a hilarious reading. Everybody else turns in pretty solid efforts, too. Okay, none of the ladies on here is Billie Holiday or Sarah Vaughan, but nobody embarrasses herself either.

Least favorite: Practical Magic soundtrack. Whoever compiled this beast ain't Cameron Crowe, that's for sure. This soundtrack is just all over the place. I don't care for Faith Hill in the least, there are far better Marvin Gaye tracks out there, and I absolutely cannot stand that damn "Coconut" song. Harry Nilsson can rot in hell for that one. To top it all off, Stevie's "Crystal" is too long and not terribly inspired. At least "If You Ever Did Believe" is nice.

Runner-up: Twister soundtrack. Christ. It's bad enough that Van Hagar ever recorded "Humans Being" in the first place. Why on earth would you lead off your soundtrack with such a monstrosity? Is it supposed to give the listener a glimpse into the kind of hell tornado victims live through? On the other hand, I've always had a soft spot for the movie itself, as it features one of my favorite lines in cinematic history:

"They're just in it for the money, not the science!"