Radio 1's Live Lounge Vol.1 - Various Artists > Reviews > Great Hits, Bad Misses

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Not applicable
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Great highly playable CD
Disadvantages:	Bad selection of some tracks, and often difficult to get hold of .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Ahhh a new CD it must be Christmas!!! Having waited an eternity for the Live Lounge CD I finally cancelled my online order and headed off to HMV. I’m rather pleased with the music scene at present after what seems like a decade of rap crap and R & B it appears someone has come along and said “people actually like to sing along to music”. So we now have a series of rather talented musical artists.

My quest for the Live Lounge CD began after hearing the Sugababes version of “I bet that you look good on the dance floor” a song by the Arctic Monkeys. I was not overly taken by the Artic Monkeys version but was most impressed with the Sugababes version. And that’s where it all started, now 4 months on I’m finally in possession of the CD having had it on order at two major online retailers since September. The question is….. Was it worth the wait?

Contents

Foo Fighters - DOA
Arctic Monkeys - Love Machine
Snow Patrol - Run
The Kooks - Crazy
Razorlight - Golden Touch
Corinne Bailey Rae - Munich
The Automatic - Goldigger
The Editors - All Sparks
Boy Kill Boy - Maneater
Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows
Embrace - How Come
James Blunt - If There's Any Justice
Natasha Bedingfield - The Scientist
The Kings Of Leon - Molly's Chambers
Jamie Cullum - Frontin'
Sugababes - Livin' For the Weekend
Lemar - I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Will Young - Hey Ya
Hard Fi - Tied Up Too Tight
Oasis - Songbird
Coldplay - The Scientist
Lily Allen - Smile
Keane - With Or Without You
K T Tunstall - Other Side Of The World
Franz Ferdinand - What You Waiting For
Pink - Family Portrait
Outkast - Ms Jackson
The Futureheads - Hounds Of Love
Jamelia - Numb
Dizzee Rascal - Jus A Rascal
Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks
Mylo - In My Arms
My Chemical Romance - Song 2
The Coral - Dreaming Of You
Maximo Park - Gone Missing
The Bravery - Honest Mistake
The Streets - Let's Push Things Forward
Basement Jaxx - Romeo
Orson - Push The Button
50 Cent - In Da Club

Now for me the thrill of live lounge is to see performers interpretations of popular songs made popular by other artists, although the original idea behind the Radio 1 show (the idea behind the CD) was simply to hear the artists perform. The show became more popular because of these interpretations, and now is one of the most popular listed to shows on Radio 1.

The album is all-round fantastic, some of the singers I dislike intensely but I just cannot know their interpretations of certain songs. Songs such as With Or Without you which I loathed I now rather enjoy. I wont dissect each track or you’ll be here forever but I’ll point out tracks that rocked my boat; or that turned me to stone.

First up a hysterical interpretation of Love Machine originally performed by Girls Aloud; now performed by the Arctic Monkeys. Clearly amused by the lyrics of the song the lead singer laughs and on occasions stumbles over his words but for the first time (to me anyway) the song is completely understandable. Nothing much has been messed with just the tone differs slightly, as the female directed lyrics start to sound incredibly gay for want of a better term; this is the obvious reason for the singers amusement.

Natasha Beddingfield’s version of Coldplays the Scientist is just awesome; she gives the track a jazzy level of eloquence that Coldplay simply could not; put bluntly its simply classy. Again the lyrics are more clear due to her pitch and her interpretation seems much more fitting for the track. I repeated this three times before moving on to the next track.

Will Young delivered a interesting interpretation of Outkast’s Hey Ya; he completely stripped the song down to its bare roots to deliver something a little more soulful. The song seems like it’s made for him and it has given me a different view of this artist.

Keane’s version of With Or Without you appears at first like a exact copy of U2’s hit record. But on a second hearing I found something quite different resting beneath the surface. I find that Keane sound very much the same vocally on all their tracks despite the wide difference in their material. But here they are almost unidentifiable. On the plus side for me, a song that I really did dislike has now become something I’ll gladly re-asses my opinion of.

The Futureheads rehash Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love, a song which I really enjoy in its original form, but its delivered here with too much speed and I only mention it because the song is one of my favourites. Hounds Of Love is really a song that sounds good coming from a woman’s mouth, otherwise it’s an interesting thing to hear but not something to write home about.

Basement Jaxx deliver a different version of Romeo, a song which I have always loved. I find Basement Jaxx an interesting group, but always had doubts as to their performing live simply due to their style of music. This chilled down version of Romeo deserves a re-release of its own as I’m sure the number one spot would await it.

The Kooks deliver a rendition of Crazy the song that was everywhere this summer. Personally I find the Kooks very samish; excuse me creating new words but it’s the only way I can describe them. I’d also call them a bit twee too. This song was a mistake to be included especially when Nelly Furtado delivered a stunning performance of this track around the same time which was overlooked for the CD.

While I really do enjoy this CD I think the BBC made some terrible mistakes when selecting the tracks Nelly Furtado was not the only artist overlooked The Flaming Lips version of Life On Mars was eerily disturbing and would have been magnificent. Daniel Beddingfield was left out with his version of Somebody Told Me. But the saddest miss of the CD which could easily have changed the lives of its singers was Girls Aloud’s version of Rehab a performance that proved without a doubt that those ladies really can sing. I think the album while being great is let down by this, which is why I believe there are so many damning reviews of the CD on the internet. Couple this with the fact that the CD is incredibly hard to get hold of at a reasonable price, and that many hundreds of people waited an awfully long time for the CD (track list was held back to the last minute) and you can understand why the album is getting knocked. However if the whole Live Lounge thing has passed you by and you enjoy the current music scene then I’m sure this CD will be a much loved addition to your collection. All I can say is I hope the BBC think a bit harder before they go to press on Live Lounge volume 2.

Live Lounge is listed on Play.com priced £8.95 however its always out of stock as it often is on Amazon . Expect to see it on the high street priced between £12- £17.