The third album from the best-selling British female artist on the planet – and also apparently her last in collaboration with longterm producer Mike Batt – opens with a charming little ditty about, erm, the formation of the United Artists motion picture company.
Having namechecked Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, the 23-year-old sings, “Charlie Chaplin, he was invited/When these artists became United.” It sounds like something the Beautiful South would come out with. Actually, no it doesn’t. It sounds like a musical version of one of those cheesy poems daytime radio listeners read out in an attempt to win a sun holiday.
‘It’s All In My Head’ follows, where Melua tries to sound world weary: “Every night we fall into bed/But it’s all in my head.” If she really wanted to make the song work, she should’ve taken up smoking.
Fortunately, it does get better. Musically this is mostly a slow, melodic affair – all plucked guitars, slow bass and orchestral manoeuvres in the light (interestingly, the Irish Film Orchestra contribute the strings). There are occasional touches of flamenco and reggae, but the real star of the show is her syrupy voice. Melua’s sort of like the posher, better-raised musical cousin of Lily Allen and Kate Nash.
‘What I Miss About You’ is a sweetly sung but somewhat bitter break-up song, probably about her spilt from Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard. The ‘Pictures’ referred to in the title are obviously the moving kind, as she returns to the theme with ‘Scary Films’ (possibly inspired by her brief cameo in Grindhouse). She finishes with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘In My Secret Life’. Again, cigarettes!
I could be really snooty and call her the non-thinking person’s Joni Mitchell, but that wouldn’t be fair. This is a fairly bland, but nonetheless charming and inoffensive album that’s bound to sell in massive quantities to the same people who bought the last Dido record. Give her a few more years’ life experience, though, and Melua could well develop into a serious artist.