Under The Influence

Ha! Two years ago when I was banging on about Mark Ronson you didn't want to know. Even at the tail end of last summer I struggled to drag people in to his tent at LoveBox (AKA the Sweatbox - a title well earned), though those who were there were treated to a nice sneak preview of Version. See? See what's happened now? Now he's lined up to be the DJ act of the upcoming UK summer.

This is the point where I'm meant to go, "his new album isn't as good as his first one". Sorry to disappoint but I'm not going to. His new album is a fine piece of work. Covers, all endorsed by the original artists. That's like musical heaven to me.

It's pretty typical Ronson styling. Each track is treated to funky rehashing, dowsed in horns and left out in the sun to spontaneously combust. The opener 'God Put A Smile Upon Your Face' being a prefect example of just that process done right.

As expected he draws on a great range of sources for the original material. The one that gets me is Amy, a track from Ryan Adam's criminally underrated debut, Heartbreaker. Even the Ronson cover risks drawing a tear from my eye.

I like covers. Covers are eventually going to be a key focus of this blog. Patti Smith does good covers.

I actually picked up on this album after hearing a few guys on the tube talking about it (thanks random strangers!). They were saying that the Tears For Fears cover was rubbish (mostly because Patti is meant to be harder than that). I happen to disagree. Every song on here is really nicely produced and there's a nice range of genres in the original material. There isn't such a great range of dynamics in the cover versions though. They're all set in a similar tone, a much mellower tone than we'd normally expect from Patti.