We absolutely love benefit albums – or at least, that’s what we’d tell you if we were completely insincere. Not to belittle any specific causes, but benefit albums and concerts tend to be overflowing inane collaborations between has-beens looking to reignite failed careers and bloated rock stars wrought with white guilt. Don’t believe us? Look no further than the Music for Our Mother Ocean series, Live8 concerts, or anything Bono’s done in the last decade.

Which isn’t to say that we don’t appreciate activism in rock n’ roll; quite the contrary. Proper politicized rock n’ roll is amazing when it works, and that is precisely why we’re recommending War Child’s Heroes album. Comprised of some of the most exciting contemporary acts in music interpreting hits of bygone eras, this compilation produces some incredible (or potentially disastrous) pairings: indie-electro upstarts Hot Chip covering Joy Division, gracefully-aging punks The Holy Steady tackling Bruce Springsteen, nouvelle-riot grrls The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singing The Ramones, and the always-eclectic Beck interpreting Bob Dylan.

War Child – an organization providing humanitarian aid to war-affected children – deserves credit for coupling an intriguing album with a salient cause. And extra brownie points for staying as far away from Bono as possible.

War Child’s Heroes CD is available February 16th, and you can obtain the full tracklisting here.