These Streets (Festival Edition)

Young Paolo Nutini is getting a lot of mileage out of this collection of ten slickly-produced, radio-friendly soul-pop songs. Over a year after These Streets was first released, along comes this limited edition pressing, a two-disc “celebration” of the Scottish troubadour’s festival performances this summer. One wonders when he’s going to get his act together and record a follow-up album. For now, though, we have this to chew on.
Much has been written about Nutini’s unique voice, and it does prompt a moment’s consideration when you learn he’s only 20 years of age. He goes from an almost pitch-perfect imitation of Chris Martin on ‘Autumn’, to a more rough-edged Rod Stewart-lite on ‘Jenny Don’t Be Hasty’, before a reasonable attempt at classic soul crooning on ‘Last Request’. There are some mildly memorable hooks here and there, but nothing about the record jumps out and grabs you – or me at any rate.
The production on the studio disc is suffocatingly flawless, giving the whole affair a supremely polished and sanitised feel. The bonus disc contains live versions of six of the album cuts, recorded at this summer’s Isle of Wight festival. It also offers up a pleasant funk/reggae take on Moby’s ‘Natural Blues’ and a rather flat rendition of 'Wanna Be Like You' from The Jungle Book.
Nutini reckons his live performances are ‘a more raw and raucous affair’ than his recordings, but this isn’t something which comes across here – truth be told, in most cases you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the studio and live cuts. The audience dutifully chime in during the choruses and scream like mad between songs, but overall the Nutini live experience is just as safe as his recorded output.