Sometimes all you want is a good old fashioned love song. You may try and make do with Coldplay or stick on that R&B compilation when you're feeling particularly smooth, but somehow they never seem to hit the spot.
With Christmas approaching, you're sure to fall prey to all the clever advertising that leaves you wondering where it's all gone wrong, if you can count the number of special mistletoe moments you've had on one hand come January 1st. Forget swanky shirts and sweet perfume, what you need is a soundtrack dripping with romance. An album that's guaranteed to coax your admirers off the sofa and into your arms for that winner of a slow dance.
Thankfully, during their almost twenty year long career Simply Red have always excelled at ballads, hence the release of 'It's Only Love', a collection of their greatest love hits. You may squeal with horror at the very mention of the man himself, Mick Hucknall, and dislike him for his shallow celebrity affectations (supermodels, jet-setting, champagne socialism), but it's impossible to resist his pure delivery of catchy, unpretentious love songs.
From the second the album's opener, the superb re-working of Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes' 'If You Don't Know Me By Now', begins, you can't help but be soothed by the simple soul that eases through Hucknall's effortlessly beautiful voice. This is echoed in the mournful classic 'Holding Back The Years', perhaps their greatest achievement to date. Yet not their only.
'It's Only Love' features everyone's favourite radio-friendly tear-jerkers and hip-shakers taken from Simply Red's eight albums, including the magically melancholy 'Lady Godiva's Room', the tender 'For Your Babies' and the more upbeat, poppy 'Remembering The First Time'. None of the tracks stray far from the old-style R&B that Hucknall and co are known for and it doesn't take a genius to see that tunes are not this band's strong point, but the power lies in Hucknall's ability to perform accessible ballads with minimum fuss and maximum passion. This same formula is applied to a number of cover versions, such as Aretha Franklin's 'Angel' and Gregory Isaacs' reggae-flavoured 'Night Nurse' from 1995's 'Life'. Whilst they might not breathe much new life into old classics, Hucknall's versions still transport you to a softer, warmer place.
You may argue that Simply Red are only capable of churning out backward-looking imitation soul and I'd probably agree. But that doesn't matter when you're talking romance. 'It's Only Love' is a collection of ballads that serves that all important purpose of getting you in the mood and, believe me, it does that job beautifully...
Buy 'It's Only Love' right HERE.
