Chris de Burgh

A target of much derision, Chris de Burgh is easy to pick on, with hits like Lady in Red in many people’s worst ever songs. His music has certainly never been ‘cool’ but he has written some quality tunes over the years. He is also quite defensive of his success, using a recent interview to underline his irritation at people dismissing a career that spans thirty-eight years with many millions of records sold.

But one thing Chris de Burgh cannot be called is unproductive. This is his seventh album since 2000, plus there have been several collections or greatest hits. Increasingly though his albums have been cover versions or re-workings, and here de Burgh delves into his own collection to strip back his own songs.

The singer says he enjoyed the process of recording these songs in a more intimate way, and of course he is not the first artist to do this, and he certainly won’t be the last. And as with other the artists that have tried acoustic albums, some tracks work better than others. Some of them did not have much to strip back from the original, so with the likes of Suddenly Love and Tender Hands, nothing new is really gained. Others sound a touch thin, especially I’m Not Scared Anymore, which is a shadow of the song recorded for the Flying Colours album.

However with the likes of Fire on The Water, from his excellent 1986 album Into The Light, new nuances to the song are discovered, compared with the rockier original. The same too for Fatal Hesitation from the same album, which is one of de Burgh’s best songs, but here loses some of the magic. Better too are the likes of Waiting for the Hurricane and Sailor, with the former the most up-tempo track amongst the 14 re-recordings.

De Burgh says it is a project he enjoyed and would do again, and you can see the singer revisiting more of his lesser known songs in this way in the future. In the meantime, fans will get an album of new material next year, according to the singer.