Susan Boyle (Syco)
Everyone loves Susan Boyle’s rags-to-riches story.
The question is whether this qualifies.
From the mock-shock he expressed on her first TV turn, to the label on which this album appears, this isn’t so much Susan Boyle’s record as Simon Cowell’s, and thus less a rags-to-riches tale than a riches-to-more-riches one.
At this point, it barely matters what the album sounds like, but for the record, it’s what you might expect: measured vocals wedded to hackneyed arrangements of a dozen highly sentimental songs, which – the advance publicity seems desperate to stress – were all chosen by Boyle.
Among them is a slightly overbearing cover of The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses, a wholly unnecessary Cry Me A River, and three blandly devotional hymns, all of which find Boyle accompanied first by echoey, almost Enya-esque atmospherics, and then by the obligatory, roof-raising, talent-show choir.
Boyle sings well enough, but this isn’t really about the vocals, is it?
WILL FULFORD-JONES
