Since
Rolf Harris' entire career is based on novelty, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that he reworks
Alanis Morissette's "Hand In Pocket" Then again, the results -- "I've got one hand in my pocket / and the other one is fingering my didgeridoo" -- are so terrible, that it's nothing less than shocking and that's part of the reason why
Can You Tell What It Is Yet?, his first album of new material in years, is so perversely entertaining.
Harris' approach of recording standards and contemporary pop hits is suited to the '60s, not the '90s, where interpretitive singing is a lost art form, but he pushes ahead, offering a version of
Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You," a predictably jolly "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" and a flamenco take on
Lou Reed's "Perfect Day." The results certainly aren't great but they are so plain weird that
Can You Tell What It Is Yet? becomes strangely, even compulsively, listenable and that is at least more than you might have expected from a late '90s
Rolf Harris album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine