Sex And The City: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Other HBO TV shows like The Sopranos and Sex And The City used music to great effect, but Sex And The City never really did that, opting instead for more obvious pop hits to give its episodes some pizazz. Across pretty much the entire series, only once did a piece of music get used with any kind of real emotional effect, and that was Henry Mancini's Moon River (hardly an obscure choice) in a touching scene between Carrie and Mr Big. For that reason, the soundtrack album from the show looks like pretty much any collection of pop music from the late 90s/early 00s with a few older classics from the likes of Aretha, Petula Clark, Billy Joel and Nina Simone. So, with the four New York ladies back and on the big screen, what can this soundtrack serve up? Well, it's a mixed bag, frankly, and one that doesn't really succeed totally on any level. It starts with the most ambitious effort, Labels Or Love by Fergie, which takes the Sex And The City theme and turns it into a pop song by everyone's favourite walking load of lady-lumps. The lyrics fit the stereotypes of the show, with all the famous fashion labels getting a mention, so how does the song work? Badly. Fergie isn't a great singer by any means and she doesn't manage to shine through in a track that struggles to incorporate the show's signature theme in a way that makes any sense, and the end result is an underwhelming mess. Much more successful is the movie theme, which appears at the end of this album, but it would have worked much better as an introduction rather than the Fergie track. The soundtrack's other main new song is All Dressed In Love (yes, a reference to clothes again), sung by Dreamgirls star Jennifer Hudson (who appears in this film as Carrie's PA) and it's exactly the kind of original song that a Sex And The City film needs. It's upbeat, fun, classy and memorable and is bound to work well over the closing credits, while Hudson's vocals are impressive. So, mixed results so far, but what about the rest of it? Well, again it's very hit and miss, with Duffy's hit single Mercy still sounding good but a remix of Nina Simone's version of The Look Of Love by Madison Park vs Lenny B is pretty disastrous. Simone's voice was never really suited to the song in the first place, and the scrappy mixing just makes it all sound that much worse. The same goes for the new version of Al Green's How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, featuring Joss Stone surgically inserted into the original. Unlike most critics I've got no problem with Stone, but this just doesn't work. Along with Run DMC's classic version of Walk This Way, the rest of the album is made up of mostly forgettable tunes from bands like Morningwood, Kaskade and Bliss, as well as bland fare from Jem and India.Arie, with the only real discovery being the wonderful All This Beauty by The Weepies. And they were probably just picked for their name. We can only wait and see whether the Sex And The City movie will be able to live up the standards of the show, but the soundtrack is certainly not a success...

Jamie Lidell - Jim

It seems that we are living in a kind of golden age for 'blue-eyed soul', with the likes of Amy Winehouse, Duffy and now Jamie Lidell all releasing really good albums showing that white folk can do soul music without coming across like Mick Hucknall or Jay Kay. For Lidell, the road to here has been a very varied one, and few would have predicted that one of the guys from experimental electronic duo Super Collider would go on to make this kind of music, while his own debut solo album was little more than electronic noise to all but the most sympathetic of ears. However, it hasn't been a quantum leap to get to Jim, because last album Multiply saw him take big steps in the funk/soul direction, earning him just as good reviews as his more 'difficult' work had done. Don't you just hate people who get it right whatever they try? Well, no, it's hard to hate Lidell on the basis of this album, because he delicately treads the line between 'white boy does funk' and 'white boy does bad funk, puts on a big silly hat, drives fast cars and punches anyone he sees with a camera' and does it very successfully. Single A Little Bit Of Feel Good paved the way for the rest of Jim, with its feelgood vibes and soulful rhythms, but make no mistake, this isn't Jamiroquai. Nor is it particularly similar to Winehouse or Duffy, with Lidell's throaty vocals placing him more alongside the likes of Otis Redding, Cee-Lo Green and Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes, and the songs on Jim reflect that with some quite wide-ranging influences all based around his voice, as he explains: "The most important thing was the vocal, to capture the balance of me delivering the songs with full gusto, and at the same time retaining the grain and the grit." The grit is certainly evident across thie album and that makes it so much more than just white-boy-soul and Jim is a consistently excellent album that showcase his voice and talents perfectly.

Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers

Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards has already released two excellent albums, Failer and Back To Me. Both of them showcased her wonderful vocals and songwriting skills, so it's good to have her back with another album, and Asking For Flowers shows that she is still developing impressively as an artist, as it's her best yet. Like the previous two, it falls somewhere between Ani DiFranco/Suzanne Vega territory and Ryan Adams/Lucinda Williams-style edgy country rock, and first single The Cheapest Key is definitely in the latter camp, arguably rockier than almost any of her songs so far. It's not necessarily one of her strongest, but there's plenty of great stuff elsewhere on here, most notably the haunting and beautiful Alicia Ross. Named after and written about a real life murder victim whose death was big news in Canada a couple of years ago, it's probably the best song Edwards has done yet, and the production helps in that respect too. The lyrics are the real key though, written from the perspective of the dead girl and managing to be affecting and gritty without being exploitative. Another highlight is Oil Man's War, which is yet another anti-Bush/War song, but Edwards avoids cheap hectoring to focus on individual stories: "Keep your hand on my thigh tonight. When we get up north we'll buy a store. I won't fight in an oil man's war." Asking For Flowers is another hugely impressive release from one of Canada's shining musical lights and Edwards is an artist who deserves plenty more acclaim.