Classic Pop - UK (2019-11)

ANNA OF THE NORTH

DREAM GIRL

PLAY IT AGAIN SAM

★★★★

SIMPLY RED

BLUE EYED SOUL

BMG

★★★

© Gus Stewart/Redferns

From the moment Simply Red’s

12th album opens, with staccato

horns blaring and “Baby”

hollered as if by an overexcited

James Brown,

it’s clear Mick

Hucknall’s not

messing

around with its

title. “Bam!”

Thinking

Of You

announces,

and, from that

point on, he

dives deep

into the kind of

vintage soul

that fi rst inspired him. Adopting

admittedly well-worn templates,

as the stomping blues-funk of

BadBootz confi rms, his voice is

on tremendous, if sometimes

throaty form, growling the lower

notes and rocketing towards the

high ones.

He is, however, at his best on

the more restrained numbers,

including Sweet Child, whose

subtle strings and guitar

fl ourishes are consequently more

affecting, and Complete Love, an

unabashedly sentimental ode to

“sweet love” that plonks itself in

Otis Redding territory, then

refuses to budge. Love – or lust

• are, however, still not enough
  to excuse a few lyrical clunkers.
  When, on Ring That Bell, he

exhorts us to “play the ding dong

hard/ Play your ding dong

smart”, it’s hard not to laugh.

Perhaps that’s why he spends the

last moments

of this

call-and-

response

crowd-pleaser

seemingly

clearing his

throat.

Bell-ringing

can be messy.

That said,

such songs

demand not

just simple

directives but sometimes also

simple innuendo, and when the

heart is singing, perhaps words

don’t matter. Take A Good Look’s

vague questions – “Are you

happy with what you see?/ Have

you become all that you wanted

to be?” – are lost amid its

functional soul, and though

Riding On A Train places him

“grooving in the rain” it’s slinky

enough to work up a head of

steam. He may threaten to “love

you/ Like I never have loved you

before” – though only for

Tonight, apparently – but he’s

unsparing with syrupy strings, his

demand that his partner “marry

me now” provoking a muttered,

sultry “I do”. His pillow talk is

clearly persuasive. WW

If Anna Lotterud’s 2017 debut
lacked distinction, that was partly
down to the number of other
Scandinavian women operating
in similarly frosty fi elds. Lovers
fetishised the 80s effectively, but
lacked enough character to
justify its debts to the era, its
songs eager to please but more
humdrum than hummable.
Still, what a difference two
years make. Its follow-up, Dream
Girl, is almost as fl awless as its
title suggests, a candied
concoction of precisely
engineered melodies, charming

• and sometimes strikingly
  candid – lyrics, and a sound so
  crystal clear and smooth you
  could skate on it.
  Furthermore, despite the fact
  she’s now 28,
  Lotterud
  somehow
  captures the
  innocent,
  nervous
  pleasures and
  pain of one’s
  early love
  affairs. As she
  sings on the
  playfully
  childish
  Interlude – a
  simple playground chant full of
  quirky, high-pitched voices


• “Maybe I should kinda tell you
  all the things I feel/ ‘Cos maybe

there’s a tiny chance you feel the

same as me.”

The title track provides the best

example of such gaiety, though,

by combining Lily Allen’s

occasional sweet naivety with

the fl eet-footed soul Amy

Winehouse sometimes offered,

all the time fl itting guilelessly

between fl attering infatuation

and stalker obsession. My Love,

too, is a delicious slice of

delicate disco which, though it’s

slower and gentler, still recalls

Diana Ross’ disco peak with its

“Round and round/ Upside

down” chorus. What We Do,

meanwhile, recalls Minnie

Riperton’s Lovin’ You, and she

plays subdued on the regretful

Time To Get Over It and the

luscious

Reasons,

which features

fellow

Norwegian

Andreas

Høvset (aka

Charlie Skien).

Her debt to the

80s remains

substantial,

of course –

Lonely Life

even reclaims

the urbane jazz-funk of acts like

Curiosity Killed The Cat – but no

one’s calling the debt in, even if

they called her out last time. WW

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