Spring Album Roundup: From Naughty and Nice Rap to Willie Country

WILLIE NELSON

“Across the Borderline”

Columbia

* * 1/2

What do dreams do in Willie Nelson’s latest album? They shatter in Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” they desert the dreamer in Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up,” they fall apart at the seams in Willie and Bob Dylan’s “Heartland,” they slip through your hand in Ry Cooder, John Hiatt and Jim Dickinson’s title song.

This album doesn’t merely seek to insert Nelson in the pop consciousness--via songs by mainstream writers, appearances by Simon, Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Sinead O’Connor, et al., and burnished, sepia-toned production by Don Was.

It also aims to musically mythologize the tax-troubled singer as the victim of the system, the renegade brought to heel by the bean counters. By extension, we’re meant to feel the fading of the dream of pure freedom and individuality.

That familiar theme might still have something new to offer, but here it’s expressed in such unremittingly downbeat terms that it quickly becomes lugubrious, bringing Nelson uncomfortably close to self-pity.

His interpretive powers are beyond reproach, and he’s long since transcended classification as a country artist, but much of this crossbreeding sounds forced and self-conscious, and the album ultimately collapses under the strain of its ambitions. By the time Nelson escapes the gravity of its first half and eases into an open road of simpler material, he sounds grateful for the breathing room.