Simply Red Album: “Stay”

Being dropped by a major label in 2002, Mick Hucknall promptly formed his own net-based company.

Simply Red's hopelessly misguided decision to go their own way as a cottage industry without record company backing may have killed their career at one suicidal stroke, but luckily Mick watched his next two records hit the bestsellers' chart.

Most likely this third self-release will undoubtedly repeat the feat.

Reduced budgets and concomitant cheap packaging notwithstanding, it finds Mick Hucknall at his most vocally seductive in years, although at one English-mangling point, he manages to rhyme "tirade" with "laugh".

His music hits the spot and touches the heart and this album has many charms.

Not that there is a dull track on Hucknall's self-financed latest tour de force, but as ever it is the token cover version that ticks every box.

The likes of "So Not Over You" and "Stay (Just The Way You Are") articulate, simply and succinctly, complex adult emotions in one shot.

However, rather than raiding yet another slice of Philadelphia, Red tackles Ronnie Lane's "Debris" to devastating effect, and audiences are further stretched on the Santana-style "Money TV" and on the folksy "Little Englander", complete with a school choir stolen from Pink Floyd's "The Wall".

He's even upped his songwriting game, with the impossibly romantic "The World and You Tonight" and the title track.

Meanwhile "The Death of the Cool" and "Little Englander" suggest a sense of humour and a still smouldering fire respectively.

For all the gorgeous renditions of heartbreaking ballads, tender love songs and uplifting anthems, he retains a lyrical spikiness unusual in the genre. His music may have drifted inexorably towards the middle of the road, yet his outspoken politicism lingers. It is hard to imagine any of his American contemporaries delivering the kind of state-of-the-nation addresses that appear on his new album - out and out polemics such as "Money TV" or "The Death of the Cool".

He ends his new album with a delightfully scabrous waltz, "Little Englander", deriding the nation's over-inflated sense of itself. "Judge me, go on - it amuses me," he announces, before concluding, surprisingly sweetly, "Let me smash the plastic face of my lovely country".

Very interesting, isn't it?

been a fan a long time, have some albums and some cds, wish they would tour more over here,, usa, that way I would'nt of forgotten them so easy,

but this new cd is great, song for song it is good, a new sound and new style to them.what ever he is doing here on this cd keep doing it cos I love the cd and this is like rediscovering them all over again, one song is kinda blues-z but most are just very hot and you feel each song like you did a long time ago when they started out.he is one of the most under rated singers around but this cd will put him right where he belongs , the cd is a top one and he is a top singer , thank you

I can truthfully say that I am not a died-in-the-wool fan of Simply Red; however, they have released several songs which I thought were quite palatable. After reading all the other reviews, I thought...well...we'll give this one a try. Big mistake.

I don't really know how to describe this music: folksey? middle-of-the-road? pop? easy listening? bluesy? I think they were going for just about all the above but they should instead think about the "blues" part.

Sorry folks but I just couldn't get into this one.

Always been a fan of this group. I love the song "Still Not over You."

WHEN I HEARD SIMPLY RED 15 YEARS AGO , I SUPPOSED THAT THE MUSIC OF THIS BAND ALWAYS STAY FOR YEARS, EVERY ALBUM GIVE US SENTIMENTAL, DANCE , MIX, WHATEVER, MICK IS THE BEST SINGER AN BEST SONGWRITER AN MUSICIAN, YOU NEED TO LISTEN ANY ALBUM,, NOW STAY GIVE US THEMES, THAT REMIND THE CARRER OF THIS GREATES BAND.