(Liberty)
Herald rating: * *
Review: Russell Baillie
In light of her Propellerheads-assisted hit History Repeating and the success that fellow Welsh foghorn and Bond-theme blaster Tom Jones is still having, this dance makeover of Miss Bassey's hits seems inevitable.
A raft of producers have been at Bassey's anthems, including the Propellerheads on Goldfinger, Moloko on If You Go Away, Nightmares on Wax on Easy Thing To Do, Groove Armada on Never Never Never, and the overall result is ... er, a Shirley Bassey album you can dance to? Well not quite, as many leave the scale of the brass-fired original arrangements and vocal performances well alone.
Which means, for all the studio tweaking, this lacks cohesion and energy throughout, save perhaps for Wild Oscar's thumping, tempo-twisting Big Spender, which is a gauche highlight.
But as for two versions of Light My Fire out of 10 tracks — some mistake surely? That just helps make this bunch of bass-boosted Bassey a one-listen affair.
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