Album Review

Move Over, Perry Como, *** VARIOUS ARTISTS ,”The Unplugged Collection” Warner Bros.

There aren’t any Christmas songs here, but this may be the best seasonal variety special since Perry Como’s network heyday: 16 performances--11 never before on album--collected from the trend-setting MTV acoustic music series, with a top-notch roster including R.E.M., Neil Young, Don Henley, Elton John, Paul Simon and Paul McCartney.

Remarkably, “Collection” (due in stores Tuesday) is not just a hodgepodge of tracks, but an expertly programmed set.

Opening with blues tunes by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton and Lenny Kravitz’s surprising reworking of “Are You Gonna Go My Way” as a John Lee Hooker-like stomp, each rich performance leads nicely to the next,

Among the other previously only-on-TV highlights: Henley’s emotional rendering of “Come Rain or Come Shine” and selections from Elvis Costello, k.d. lang and Soul Asylum . . . and not a clunker among them. New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).