Herald rating: * * * *
Brit-New York studio boffin Mark Ronson got himself noticed last year on the Radiohead tribute album Exit Music Songs With Radio Heads for his standout funk reworking of the previously party-unfriendly Just with Phantom Planet singer Alex Greenwald. That track features here on Ronson's second solo album which
arrives after earning Brownie points on Amy Winehouse's last offering (she guests on one track).
But the Radiohead song and its companion piece of Coldplay's God Put a Smile On Your Face aren't the only startling reworkings powered by the DJ-producer's arrangements. They make for tracks big on the stabbing brass, busy bass and percolating percussion of 70s funk, but with some modern rewiring and a eclectic selection of voices often giving the songs intriguing personality transplants.
Or so happens on the most successful of the tracks here - Lily Allen's take on the Kaiser Chiefs' anthem Oh My God, Aussie soul guy Daniel Merriweather's quivering through the Smiths' Stop Me (with a smattering of the Supremes), Tiggers' inspired hip-hop vandalism of Britney Spears' Toxic, or the airy psychedelic take on Ryan Adams' Amy.
Verdict: DJ-producer hotrods some old and not-so-old faves
Label: SonyBMG
