VARIOUS ARTISTS “Ruby Trax--The NME’s Roaring 40”,...

VARIOUS ARTISTS “Ruby Trax--The NME’s Roaring 40”, Forty Records (import) , * * 1/2

Does anyone need to hear Charlene’s forgettable 1982 hit “I’ve Never Been to Me” remade as an unrecognizably avant-pop rave track? Or the proto-disco “Rock Your Baby” redone as a rock guitar tune? Or such disparate items as “Voodoo Chile” and “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” born again as neo-psychedelic, hip-hop-tinged psychodrama?

The answers, respectively, are no, probably, maybe and no. All of which is irrelevant in the face of the pure curiosity value of the charity collection “Ruby Trax,” a three-CD import set (selling for $35 to $40 in U.S. stores) in which 40 mostly alternative British acts--such as Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, the House of Love, Jesus Jones and the Fatima Mansions, the culprits behind the above examples--revive their favorite No. 1 songs from four decades’ worth of England’s NME charts.

A few opt for faithfulness: Tears for Fears’ “Ashes to Ashes” is a note-for-note Xerox of David Bowie’s original. Others go for jokey subversion: The Fatima Mansions’ brooding take on Bryan Adams aims to make Top 40 fluff as tortuous as possible, and (double-gag) succeeds.

Only one remake really sounds like a potential No. 1 in its own right--Tori Amos’ driving rock recasting of the disco “Ring Your Bell.” But at least most of the acts here attempt fairly unpretentious tributes in their own styles, which makes the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Little Red Rooster”--among others--wholly listenable, if not quite revelatory.

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