Susan Boyle’s New CD: Tasteful Rock
This reviewer claims: ‘There may be legitimate reasons to dislike Susan Boyle. But “Someone to Watch Over Me,” her surprisingly tasteful third album, is not one of them…The album’s name would seem to promise an album of standards, but the titular Gershwin tune is the only such song here. Instead, she’s mostly doing a traditional take on contemporary material, much of it borrowed from rockers. She took that tack with last year’s eyebrow-raising cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” (because nothing says “Christmas album” like heroin), but the novel choices here seem less like slow-news-day bait and more appropriate for a 50-year-old’s funk.
‘With Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears chestnuts figuring into the mix, Boyle has made an album that hundreds of thousands of sixty- and seventy-somethings will be getting for Christmas, but that their grand-nieces may well enjoy more than the gift recipients… unless Grandma has a built-in appreciation for lines like “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.”
‘So don’t let the gentle smile on the cover fool you: Boyle is basically a goth in highlander-spinster’s clothing.’
