Album Review: Ronan Keating - When Ronan Met Burt

Ronan Keating - When Ronan Met Burt

Sometimes, cover albums can be great. Artists get to bring their own talents and personality to great songs and to reinterpret them in interesting and unusual ways.

However, sometimes cover albums can be lazy, sub-karaoke nonsense. Sadly, When Ronan Met Burt falls squarely into the latter category.

It's a shame, really. I love the work of Burt Bacharach and the legendary composer also produced this record. The problem is that Keating's voice - whilst technically fine - is too middle of the road to bring anything to these songs. The production is lazy and safe which leaves you with a selection of brilliant songs reduced to something you'd be likely to hear on a long lift journey.

Despite Keating's choice of some of Bacharach's best songs - Arthur's Theme is arguably my favourite Burt track - you find yourself desperately hankering for the vocals of Dusty Springfield, Scott Walker or Jackie DeShannon. Keating manages to squeeze all the beauty and joy out of these songs and it's only the quality of the compositions themselves that prevents this being absolutely hideous. As it is, it's not great.