For years, Kevin Spacey's dream project was a biopic on '60s crooner Bobby Darin, starring himself as the lead. After over a decade of struggling to get it made, he finally got a green light in the early 2000s to start production, not just as the lead actor, but as the director and producer of Beyond the Sea. One of Spacey's key decisions in the film was to use newly recorded music for the soundtrack, and for him to sing in character as Darin. This is an unquestionable act of either courage or chutzpah, but Spacey had skills to back it up. In fact, part of the reason he was able to get the project off the ground was that he made a public display of his singing when he belted out a powerful "Mind Games" when he MCed a 2001 John Lennon tribute concert, a move that illustrated his roots in musical theater and paved the way to Beyond the Sea. That musical theater background is still evident on the soundtrack, where Spacey's occasionally mannered performances bear the inflections of somebody singing for stage, not record. Instead of hurting the album, it's part of what makes the whole exercise somewhat fascinating. With the assistance of producer Phil Ramone, Spacey has carefully captured the spirit of Darin's original recordings, sometimes duplicating arrangements, other times altering them slightly ("Dream Lover" no longer has the appealingly heavy-handed strings that punctuated the chorus). The album emphasizes Darin's big-band crooning, but touches on his Brill Building rock & roll and folk material as well, offering a good cross section of his music. While a hits collection would be a better introduction for a neophyte, this is a good listen in its own right, particularly because there is real passion behind Spacey's go-for-broke, splashy performances. It doesn't make it better than Darin's recordings, but it makes Beyond the Sea an inspired listen, and a satisfying one as well. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi