February 10, 2012

Emeli Sande - 'Our Version Of Events'
Emeli Sande Tickets

A combination of good songwriting, and un-originality

Album Info

Release Date: February 13, 2012
Producer: Naughty Boy
Label: EMI
Fact: Emeli has written for the likes of Cher Lloyd, Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and Tinie Tempah

5 / 10 Pop has a curious way of repeating itself in 20-year cycles. In 2011, for example, Glaswegian singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé released ‘Heaven’, a song that didn’t so much borrow the template from Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ as lift it wholesale. It did produce a great pop song, though, and this is the crux of Sandé’s debut. Original it is not – there’s little here that couldn’t have come straight off a Shara Nelson album – but she does write some fine tunes, including new single ‘Next To Me’, a rollicking piano stomper currently eating up your radio. She could ease back on sincere acoustic numbers like ‘Breaking The Law’ though (no, not that one), which turn the tail end into a bit of a slog.

Ben Cardew

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Average rating

7.5

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