As George Costanza demonstrated, certain pastimes are better left to be enjoyed separately, rather than in combination. Take music and pro wrestling, for instance. Separately, I enjoy both, but I have no interest in hearing music performed by wrestling stars. Unfortunately, such a thing has indeed come to pass, and it's called "WWE Originals".

I dumped my integrity at the foot of the listening booth in HMV and gave it a listen. I did it out of curiousity and immense dedication to this unpaid writing job of mine, because I love music so much I'm even willing to sacrifice my boundaries of good taste in the name of my art.

Of course, the CD is, by and large, atrocious. The production is flat and lifeless compared to modern radio hits. Most of the songs were written by one man (Jim Johnson, long-time WWE theme composer), but asking him to affix his talents to so many different musical genres in the name of being competitive with real acts in each of these genres is a bit too much to ask. Short of John Cena's track (which must be no accident, since any fan of WWE programming will tell you that the boy's got the most legit skillz of any performer on here), it's hard to imagine any of these songs believably meshing into a mainstream radio playlist. Too much of them sound gimmicky and amateur, but maybe I'm not capable of judging properly. That is, every week I suspend my disbelief when watching them perform on TV, but I just can't do the same while listening to Booker T's rapping without thinking "ugh, this is Booker T trying to do a rap song".

Trish Stratus' answering machine message during the intro to "I Just Want You" is perhaps the most daft piece of spoken word ever to appear in a song. That covers a lot a ground, including "music" performed by cast members of the original Star Trek. Bless her Torontonian heart otherwise.

The Dudley Boyz' rap-metal "We've Had Enough" is actually shockingly good, which is partly due to the Dudleyz surprisingly strong vocal presence but also due to songwriter Johnson doing what he does best -- metal. Most WWE stars have hard rock or metal themes, including the Dudleyz, so everyone's in their element here. When the disc strays from this sort of element, the results are Desired Genre By Numbers, such as Stacy Keibler's Cher-lite Dancepop By Numbers and Rikishi's Barry White By Numbers.

Some people have criticized the album by noting that there are few surprises vis a vis the track selection, i.e. Cena does a rap song, the Guerreros do a Latin song, etc. Well, duh, the best performers usually live their gimmicks, so there's no point in acting surprised when these exact personalities spill from TV onto CD. In that sense, the lone unexpected track is Lillian Garcia's uptempo rocker, which she pulls off with aplomb. Again, no big shock that Cena and Garcia have nailed the best songs on this disc.

Chris Jericho, who is a fine heavy metal singer for those who think that heavy metal singers have fine voices, gains more credibility by the day for his musical side projects with each nice thing that's written about the Darkness. Is there any discernable difference between the mission statements of Fozzy and the Darkness? How can Fozzy be considered a joke by the same people who dig the Darkness. Chris, you clearly have a fallback position in case you ever decide to give up your day job (but please don't, because you're the best thing on RAW).