91Èȱ¬

Well, sort of. If anything, it's convinced me that 'new Amy' was the wrong tag for her, and that perhaps 'new Dido, who is aware of the concept of "uptempo" and can actually sing' would've been more apt. (FYI, Dido v1.0 is set to return soon, so I'm interested to see if there will be any battle lines drawn there.) My reasoning behind this is the general sombreness of tone in this song which belies the more optimistic areas of the lyrics and makes us all think it's more depressing than it actually is (unless I've just misinterpreted it, of course, which is entirely possible).

There's a lovely sense of atmosphere in here, and I freely admit that my weakness for women whose voices can sound out every note of pain they've ever felt predisposes me to like this song. The main weakness in the song is the chorus, which I can't help thinking is neither as memorable nor as poignant as perhaps it could be, and just ends up rather ambling along at one level instead of really stirring up emotion in the listener.

So, yes, on the whole I think it was rash of me to not give her a fair hearing the first time around, and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly offer my apologies to anyone who would like them. As a peace offering, have four stars, Ms Duffy.

CD Released: September 1st

(Steve Perkins)