Given his long history of smooth, classy
blue-eyed soul
, it's easy to forget that
Mick Hucknall
was inspired to make music by
the Sex Pistols
. While it's true that
Hucknall
's
Simply Red
has never, ever sounded like
the Pistols
-- or any
punk
for that matter -- there is an obstinate independent streak that runs throughout his music that's led him to such strange detours as
Love and the Russian Winter
, as well as his position as an independent artist in the new millennium, releasing
albums via his own label,
Simplyred.com
. That independent spirit also surfaces on some of the songs on 2007's
Stay
, his third release on
, but it's subtle and buried toward the end of the album. For the first half of
,
remains in his trademark upscale
territory, sounding smooth and stylish whether he's singing
ballads
or snappier songs like the effervescent
"Oh! What a Girl!"
Although this sounds familiar, it sounds fresher than it has in a few years:
isn't trying to compete with such modern U.K. retro-
soul
phenoms as
Amy Winehouse
or
Joss Stone
, but he's looser and lighter than he was on 2003's
Home
, which is quite welcome. Just as the vibe feels just a bit too comfortable,
takes a couple of sly left turns. First, there's a quite wonderful and unexpected cover of
Ronnie Lane
"Debris"
that's understated and a bit rougher than the norm from
. After this, the album opens up a bit. There's one more standard
song in
"Lady,"
but it's a stronger, tighter, sexier single than much of the rest of the record, and then there comes a trio of angry, social comments that offer strong reminders of
's past as a punk. Not that they sound
-- apart from the school children's choir that sings along on the closer,
"Little Englander,"
they're recognizably
-- but with
"Money TV"
and
"The Death of the Cool,"
he strikes out at the commercialization of culture. Now, some could argue that swaddling these sentiments in such smooth
undercuts their power, but there's a palpable anger to
's message and a sly subversiveness in his method that makes this half of
interesting -- and when combined with the solid
of the first half, it adds up to one of his strongest latter-day records. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine