Since getting my iPod, I've been slowly putting all my CDs on it, and this weekend, I put the first Red Hot + Blue compilation on it.

This was originally an album with a companion television show, a group of videos by different artists and directors to songs by Cole Porter. It was a benefit for AIDS research, and a number of follow-up albums were released.

This project was spearheaded by John Carlin, who commented in the notes for last May's DVD release that "Things were different in 1990." They were; darker and far more frightening than they are today.

Each artist was paired with a director, and some of the best directors of the day were involved -- not just music video directors, but film as well. Wim Wenders, for instance, made U2's video to Cole Porter's "Night and Day." Derek Jarman, whose films were often really a bit too artsy and self-indulgent for me, was a director I thought might be best appreciated in music-video length. He was supposed to direct Annie Lennox singing "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," but he was too ill; he died of AIDS in 1994.

Instead, Lennox was filmed singing in front of an old-fashioned projection screen, with home movies of Jarman's childhood playing while she sang.